Jewish Cultures of Rest and Recreation

From Marienbad, in todays Czech Republic, to the Catskill Mountains, in upstate New York, spas and summer resorts have long been part of modern Jewish life. As Jewish communities became increasingly urban in the 19th and 20th centuries, many people looked for a break from crowded, hot, and unhealthy city life. Spa towns, health resorts, and bungalow colonies offered fresh air, rest, and a chance to recharge. Jewish visitors helped shape these places into vibrant, cosmopolitan spaces where unexpected encounters could occur, bringing together Jews and non-Jews, as well as Jews from diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and traditions. In doing so, the spa towns and resorts also became sites of cultural and artistic engagement, inspiring literature, art, and other creative expressions, while leaving a legacy in terms of memory, heritage, and architecture, including Jewish cemeteries and historic landmarks. This volume introduces spa towns and resorts as spaces where people met, socialized, sometimes clashed, and often exchanged ideas. Bridging spa towns in Central and Eastern Europe with seaside resorts and summer colonies in Canada, Israel, and the United States, the chapters visit these vibrant centers of Jewish social life, where visitors mingled with locals and fellow travelers, enjoyed leisure activities, and spent time with family. The spa town and resort settings offered a kind of other world compared to everyday urban life, where social rules could loosen, and people could interact more freely. They were informal arenas where identifications like class, gender, politics, and national belonging were subtly negotiated in everyday interactions. At the same time, as the chapters demonstrate, Jews encountered antisemitism, from exclusionary resort rules to social hostility, revealing that spaces of relaxation and community could perpetuate broader prejudices and social barriers. By examining romantic relationships, family trips, scandals, anti-Semitic conflicts, interest in medicine and natural philosophy, and political debates about vacation destinations, the authors paint a multifaceted picture of Jewish experiences in summer resorts and spa towns. This perspective is complemented by nostalgic reflections on this period and reports from Orthodox Jews who revisited these places after the Second World War. The volume shows how these holiday resorts developed and why they became so meaningful. It highlights not only the diversity of Jewish-non-Jewish relationships, but also the dynamics within Jewish groups. At the same time, the volume elaborates on how ethnic, national, religious, political, and social identifications became visible in the temporary communities of guests, locals, and businesspeopleand how they were sometimes renegotiated there.