Vacation spots reflect, shape Jewish America

updated 1:13 p.m. ET March 23, 2006

CHICAGO - Nearly 100 years ago, the Jewish Agricultural Society helped Morris and Belle Fidelman purchase a fruit orchard in South Haven, Mich., and the barber and his wife soon moved their young family to 80 acres in the country.

Yet friends and family members they left behind in Chicago often visited in the summer, contributing money for seeds and equipment. The hospitality business soon proved more profitable than the fruit.

By 1930, the farmhouse was replaced with a building that could accommodate 150 guests, and Fidelman’s became one of the many Jewish resorts that drew thousands every year to South Haven, known as “The Catskills of the Midwest.”

The story of Fidelman’s — and similar resorts and hotels in Atlantic City, Miami Beach and the Catskills — is told in “The Other Promised Land: Vacationing, Identity and the Jewish-American Dream,” an exhibit on view at the Spertus Museum.

“Our logo was 80 acres of Instant Happiness. That was on all of our flyers and our brochures and even our matchbook covers,” said Sheila Fidelman at a recent reception for the show.

The petite Fidelman — still glammed up at age 81, and wearing high heels — served as a dance teacher, singer, hostess and secretary at the resort begun by her in-laws and owned by the family until 1985.

Anti-Semitism drove creation of some destinations
The exhibit is colorful and bright, filled with photos, postcards, tacky souvenirs, memorabilia and clothing, such as a modest wool bathing suit from the 1920s and a red negligee taken by a woman on her 1948 honeymoon — but never worn because she deemed it too racy.

A highlight is a rare wicker rolling chair used to roll tourists along the Atlantic City boardwalk in the 1880s.

But throughout the exhibit are reminders of why many of these traditionally Jewish vacation destinations were created in the first place: anti-Semitism.

The exhibit includes a photo of a vacationer posing in front of a “Gentiles Only” sign. “Catering to a Gentile clientele,” reads a matchbook cover for a Miami Beach hotel. A 1938 newspaper placement advertises “restricted clientele,” while a postcard for a Michigan resort informs readers, “No Hebrews entertained.”

Restrictive real estate covenants forced Jewish families to buy in the southern edge of Miami Beach in the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in the development of the South Beach area.

Meanwhile, wealthy German Jewish families were initially welcome in the Catskills in the 1870s. But as the Jewish population in America soared with immigration from Eastern Europe, many hotels closed their doors to Jewish guests.

So Jewish entrepreneurs built elaborate resorts in the area as close as 90 miles from New York City. Jewish immigrants moved to the area to try farming but, like the Fidelman family in the Midwest, ended up taking in boarders instead. Socialist worker’s groups opened up bungalow colonies and children’s camps.

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