A few weeks ago, while Larry and I were at our synagogue for Friday night Shabbat services, a congregant asked our rabbi Karen Allen if the MiSheberach  prayer was appropriate for a 101-year-old woman who had just been paralyzed by a stroke and wanted to “let go.” The rabbi said there were many forms of healing. Sometimes it is in the form of a complete recovery. And sometimes, what was appropriate was a prayer for spiritual healing and peace. So yes, we said a prayer for the centenarian. 

The timing of the question was especially poignant for Larry and me. Earlier that day, we had learned that a dear friend, Mel Toub, had just been put in hospice care. As I write this, Mel and his wife Joyce are surrounded by their children and sharing stories and memories and—as always—their love. 

In December 2017, we had said good-bye to a friend who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer five years earlier. Milt and his wife Kathy had moved from St. Louis to our community in Florida as Milt wanted his last years in sunshine and warmth. As the prognosis  dimmed, they had moved back to Missouri. Soon after,  Milt called me to ask if he and I could work together on writing his story, one that could be read at his memorial. More importantly, he wanted to finish it before he so that he could look back on his life with a sense of completeness.

Hearing that Mel was also approaching the end of his long battle with prostate cancer, I called Joyce and asked if I could do the same for Mel not only from my perspective but also through the voices of his loving family and friends. With Joyce’s blessings, I composed an email and sent it to as many family members and friends as I could. “All of us love Joyce and Mel and wish we could do something to help. The only thing I feel that I can do is to make sure we capture Mel’s life and spirit in story of his wonderful life.  I am reaching out to you all to ask you to consider sending me stories and anecdotes about Mel that I can share with Mel as he takes this last journey.”

Within days, my inbox was filled with responses from around the country, all wishing to let Mel know NOW how much they love him. 

In email after email,  people spoke of Mel’s intellect, his love for Judaism, his musical artistry, his master carpentry skills, his gentle wit, his selflessness, and his quiet generosity. Marty Calderon, who regards his long time friend as the embodiment of a ’Renaissance man,’ said that Mel inspires those around him to “to live a fulfilling life, not to waste any time and to enjoy each day that is given to us.” Toby and Arnie Elman calls him simply—and perfectly— a ‘mensch.’

Mel was born January 6, 1949, in the Bronx, the second child of Joseph and Sonia Toub. Soon after, Joseph, Sonia, Arlene and Mel moved to Roosevelt, Long Island. They were neighbors with Howard Stern; family legend is that Mel even dated the radio personality’s  sister. Arlene recalled that their parents forbade their having a cat or a dog, so they had to settle for turtles. As he viewed life in a bowl must be boring, Mel invented games to enliven the two reptiles’ lives. One  consisted of transforming their record player turn-table into a turtle merry-go-round and giving each turtle a little spin around, a fairly successful adventure. The second game, Arlene recalled, didn’t end as well. Mel held the turtle by its tail and spun it around. The tail snapped off.

Upon completing Roosevelt High, Mel attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York, where he obtained a bachelor’s and master’s degree in materials engineering. After a short time in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, he joined GE Silicones (now Momentive Performance Materials) in Waterford.. He spent his illustrative career there, developing several patents and, through a series of promotions, attaining the position of director of Application Development and Product activities prior to his retirement in 2012.

Mel is a brilliant and respected scientist, but it is his personal life that exemplifies his status as a true mensch. In September 1971, his first week in grad school, Mel met Joyce Silverstein. an encounter that can only be described as love at first sight.  Only six weeks later, he proposed. They got married in June 1972 soon after they both completed their graduate studies. Their son Josh was born in 1976, followed by Julia (1979) and David (1984) They settled in Clifton Park, and have become an integral part of both the secular and Jewish community. Long time friend Howie Vipler describes Mel’s  relationship with his family as his greatest source of pride.

Fern Hayden, immediate past president of Congregation Beth Shalom, recalls forty years of Mel’s contributions to the Jewish community. He and Joyce have served on the board, most prominently as religious/ritual chairs. In the sanctuary, Mel crafted  the ark doors, built  the book cases that held the prayer books, and most recently, modified the bima to accommodate a congregant whose stroke impacted her ability to climb the step to help lead services. 

It is Mel’s beautiful voice, however, that is most heralded by his fellow congregants. Nancy Cury, long-time friends, always angles to sit behind Mel and Joyce at services. “If we snag those seats, we are treated to their wonderful harmonies,” said Nancy. “They sway to the music, in their own little world, not realizing who is listening.”

Both Joyce and Mel have sung in the shul’s choir, and Mel has taken an active part in the service. He has chanted Haftorah for Shabbat and the High Holy Days, and his soaring rendition of Kol Nidre has provided the opening moments of almost every Yom Kippur for year after year, for many of his friends the highlight of the entire High Holy Day period.“If I close my eyes, I can hear his beautiful voice in my head right now,” said Nancy. “No matter who chants the Haftorah on the first day of Rosh Hashanah in the future, the voice I will be hearing for the rest of my life will be Mel’s.”

Fellow congregant and long time friend Barry Hamerling regards Mel as the shul’s most valuable male member, one who is always there when he is needed.  Larry Fox recalled how Mel was there for him when Larry decided to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of his bar mitzvah. Larry not only had not read Torah or Haftorah since he was thirteen but also was— errr-vocally challenged; “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket!” Larry admits. “Whether in sympathy for me or just trying to protect our Jewish traditions, Mel offered to be my tutor.”  To help, Mel produced a cassette that enunciated every syllable, a tape that Larry played over and over until he was able to complete what Larry regarded as an acceptable performance. “Mel’s friendship, love of music and his belief in the value of our Jewish life enabled him to bring harmony, although far from perfect, to the melody of my life,” said Larry. “I still can’t thank him enough.”

Along with his vocal talents, Mel is a serious bassoonist who has performed professionally in several orchestras and chamber groups in the Upstate New York area. Arlene recalls that they grew up in a home where music didn’t exist. “My parents never listened to music on the radio, and my only recollection of classical records in the house is that of an ‘Everbody’s-Favorite-Classics’ series that my parents must have felt obligated to buy—one each week—at the local super market.” Four years younger, Mel originally chose to follow Arlene’s choice of the clarinet. In high school, Mel switched to the bassoon, which became his passion and, with his professional musician’s license, his “second profession.”

When Charles Peltz took over as music director of the Glens Falls Symphony in 2000, Mel was already an experienced musician who had contributed much the orchestra.  Peltz said that he knows few people who have retained a love for their instrument and who have consistently met the high standards in his performances.  “That kind of devotion doesn’t come only from the  ability to show off one’s technique skill or in anticipation of reward,” said Peltz.  “Rather it comes from a person with a large heart for the deeper meaning of the things they do.” 

Every summer, Mel has attended the Glickman Popkin Bassoon Camp in Little Switzerand, North Carolina. Furthermore, Mel’s love for bassoon resulted in many summer tours with an orchestra composed of fellow musicians from across the United States that has brought both him and Joyce much joy. Meris Ruzow, a longtime friend, loved hearing about the places they played and the people they meet in places as diverse as France, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy , Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. 

In 2016, Mel and Joyce decided to buy a second home in Florida. One of the main considerations was choosing a location in which Mel could continue to perform.  Before they had even unpacked their boxes in their Naples villa, Mel had already begun practice with the Gulf Coast Symphony. Karen Gerhardt has fond memories of attending a performance  there with Joyce and her husband Les, who died suddenly of pancreatic cancer soon after their visit in 2018.

Twelve years ago, Mel was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Marty Calderon said that Mel told him soon after hearing the news that he felt as if “someone one crapped on his plate of food.” That is the worst he has ever spoken about his cancer diagnosis. He continues to live his life with grace, dignity, and humor. 

Mel had been an accomplished tennis and racquetball player in his youth. When he was in his sixties, he mixed those two sports with pickleball, finding the game offered a way to remain active without the physical demands of many other competitive sports. When Howie and Sandie Vipler visited the Toubs in November 2018, Mel played pickleball with them. The impact of his illness has curtailed further play.

In December,  Larry and I, along with Bernie and Chris Grossman traveled to Naples to have what had become our annual ‘Jews-eating-Chinese-food-on-Christmas Day’ tradition. When Mel saw a menu description of a dish containing leeks, he wondered out loud whether they were “Wiki Leaks.” Despite his growing weakness and obvious pain, Mel kept us all laughing throughout our visit. 

Soon after our December visit, Mel’s health began a precipitous decline. As Lew Morrison commented as the news spread of Mel’s worsening condition, “A cloud hangs over  all of us.”

“My father has instilled in his children his menschism and created a legacy that will continue to inspire his friends and family long after his passing,” said his daughter Julia.  “Although cancer will cruelly take his body from us far too soon, his spirit and soul will continue to flourish for generations.”

In the classic movie “Dirty Dancing,” Jack Weston’s character Max  Kellerman, the owner of the fictional Catskill resort, laments the changes down the road. “[I]t all seems to be ending. You think kids want to come with their parents and take fox-trot lessons? Trips to Europe, that’s what the kids want. .. It feels like it’s all slipping away.” 

The heyday of the Catskills have ended, but the memories of those resorts remain with those who shared those summers as staff and guests. “This was our Camelot, a place that has vanished but still has a place in the hearts and minds by the thousands whose life were shaped by this shared experienced,” said Patty Beardley Roker.  Roker shared this quote on the website for the upcoming reunion of Catskill staff members, which will be held on May 4, 2019, at  the Villa Roma Resort in Callicoon, New York, a Catskill hotel dating from 1944.

Roker and others have many a story to share of their time in the Catskills, often called the Borscht Belt. Borscht, a soup associated with immigrants from Eastern Europe, was a colloquialism for Jewish. Famous hotels of the area included The Concord, Grossinger’s, and Kutshers. But there were many smaller resorts and cottages too. 

The popularity of the Catskills starts at the beginning of the 20th century. Like many New York City dwellers before the advent of air conditioning, Jews  looked for places that would provide a respite from the summer heat.  Because of anti-Semitism, particularly in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, such choices were few. Sullivan, Ulster, and nearby counties offered working class Jewish New Yorkers, mostly Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants, cheap land on which to build farms, bungalows, and hotels. 

One such family were the Brickmans. Soon after emigrating from Russia in 1908, Abraham and Molly realized that New York City, with its tenements, crowded streets, and poor air, was not for them. As Abraham had worked on the farms for the czars, they purchased farm land in South Fallsburg. Soon friends and relatives were coming up to Brickmans to escape the city’s summers, and the farm took on boarders.  The Brickmans’ daughter Anna and her husband Joseph Posner and their sons eventually took over the ownership.

Hotel Brickman had 300 rooms that accommodated over 600 adults and children. Along with adult activities, the hotel had a nursery, a day camp for children, and a teen program.

In 1965, 15-year old Patti Posner Daboosh began working in the resort’s office. When she was 26, she took over running the kitchen, supervising at times over 200 hundred staff members. Patti recalls fondly the diversity of the staff, which included college students and seasonal workers from the Southern states and from Central and South America. 

One evening, Patti walked into the kitchen and realized that one of the kitchen staff was feeding a homeless man. When Patti told the employee that he had to leave, he responded, “When he is finishing eating, I will ask him to leave.” Patti said that that encounter taught her humility. “The compassion this man had for this poor person taught me how to be a better person.”

In 1986, Patti’s father Benjamin, was 72, and Hotel Brickmans like many other Catskill resorts, were dwindling in popularity. The SYDA Foundation, a not-for-profit tied to promoting Sidda Yoga ideas, purchased the resort and converted it into an ashram. Ben had no regrets. “We will make new traditions,” he told his family. Patti reports Ben spent the next 20 years telling stories of his life in the Catskills. Patti eventually went back to college to obtain a degree in sociology, a path connected to the lessons she had learned from working with the diverse Brickman community. Patti now lives in Weaverville, North Carolina.

Mark Silverman, who now lives in Connecticut, also  had deep roots in  theCatskills. His parents, Ben and Elsie Silverman opened up a bungalow colony in Glen Wild in 1947 with Joe Kartin, Ben’s partner in their Flatbush butcher shop. What started as two bungalows in 1947 expanded to 16. Ben and his partner would switch off summers, with one commuting back and forth to Flatbush while the other partner ran the resort and a seasonal meat market.

The bungalows were simple, with a kitchen/living room/dinette, one bedroom, and a screened porch. Entertainment was also low-key—bingo or a movie in the community room, which was called The Casino in the Catskills. Most of the renters came for the entire summer, with the men in the family often commuting on weekends. 

Mark, like Patti, started helping his parents manage the resort as a teenager, keeping up the pool, mowing the lawn, maintaining the bungalows. Even after college, a stint in Vietnam, and his marriage to Diane Weissman, Mark continued to visit during the summers until his parents sold the resort in the 1990s. 

“Spending my summers in the country gave me a great appreciation for the outdoors, farms and woodlands in the area,” said Mark.  “I always knew that I couldn’t spend my life in an office, and this led to my career in agriculture and environmental science.”

Mina and Max Berjansky owned a bungalow colony in Monticello. In 1950, Susan Shapot Greenbaum, her parents, and her sister moved from the Bronx to join her grandparents. During the off-season, everyone shared the only heated home with only one small bathroom. In the summer, Mina and Max moved into the unfinished attic above the small grocery store, and the Shapots crowded into one bedroom and shared the bathroom with tenants. Max maintained the colony while Mina ran the grocery store, the only source of food during the week. Some of the guests shared a kokh-aleyn, the Yiddish name for self-catered bungalows, which was a large dormitory-styled house in which many families had a bedroom, a shared bathroom down the hall and one large shared kitchen, in which each family had its own stove, refrigerator and table. Other families had their own or one side of a two-family bungalow, complete with their own bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. Guests usually came up July 4th weekend and stayed through Labor Day. As in other Catskill resorts, the men frequently commuted back and forth to the city while the women and children remained all summer.

Susan said that her parents provided the low-key entertainment, including folk and square dancing, games, and masquerade parties for both the adults and the children. Every summer there was a “mock marriage” in which the tallest, biggest man was dressed as the bride and the smallest woman was dressed as the groom, with the entire wedding party following the “upside down” comedy act.

When New York State built the Route 17 expressway through the middle of their colony, the family moved into a house in Monticello. Later on, Susan tried working as a waitress at the Concord, one the Catskills largest resorts, but lasted only one week. “The regular staff were career people,” she said, “and they resented the college kids taking their tables and tips. I got pushed around often.”  She also spent one summer working as a waitress at Kaplan’s Delicatessen, the most popular eating spot during the summer months.

“Monticello was a great place to grow up—a quiet small town from September through June.” said Susan. “It was a busy, bustling place in July and August, with lots to do between the hotels, bungalow colonies and crowds of people hanging out on Broadway.  And it was always safe.”

Peter Vollweiler, who winters in Sarasota and summers in Upstate New York, saw the Northern Catskills through the eyes of his parents and relatives. The Breezy Hotel in Fleischmanns, Delaware County, one of the great hotels, drew many German Jewish Holocaust survivors, including Peter’s grandparents. Guests and older staff members generally didn’t talk about their war experiences but seeing the tattooed numbers on many arms showed their former plight. 

Peter worked at The Mathes resort during his summer school breaks from 1958 to 1963. He had a variety of occupations: pool boy, grounds “picker upper,” baby sitter, children’s dining room busboy, bellhop and chauffeur. The working hours were long with low pay, but the staff was treated very well. The fine European meals and desserts made it all worthwhile. Working with so many other young people, many themselves also children and grandchildren of survivors, was important to Peter. 

Marty Calderon, an Upstate New Yorker who retired in the Tampa area, worked two summers as a busboy and a waiter at the Pine Lodge near Monticello. Like Brickman’, the Pine Lodge was a mini-version of the larger resorts, “a small cruise ship on the ground.”

Like Peter, Marty remembered the long hours, which often extended from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. For his efforts, he made $75 a week, money which he brought home to his parents in New York City.

Marty enjoyed the camaraderie with fellow staff members, and the food was plentiful—and delicious. For two years, he worked at the resort during Passover.  “Before that experience, everything I had eaten during Pesach was dry and tasteless,” said Marty. “At Pine Hills, it was like a Viennese table at a wedding. I can still taste that sponge cake!

Joel Thaw, who lives in the Orlando area, spent every summer from birth to age 18 in the bungalow colonies. What he remembered the most was the freedom he had as children.  “We left after breakfast and didn’t return until before dinner. Everybody knew everybody, and the parents watched out for each other’s children.” He also worked a concession stand the summer of Woodstock, which took place in nearby Bethel.Joel remembers putting a 16-year-old in charge of the stand while he and a friend drove to the music festival in time to see Jefferson Airplane before driving back.

Chair Robin Kaufman, who vacationed with her parents and later worked at the Homowack Hotel, stated that already close to 100 people signed up. “We are going to make history,” said Robin. “This will probably be the first time that many former Catskill bungalow and hotel staff  will reunite together under one roof.” 

She reports that among those committed to attend are former “tummler extraordinaire” Larry Strickler and MC Mel Simons, as well as some of the musician who accompanied the greats. In addition to the reunion’s evening event, programs are set for the entire weekend. (Strickler will present an interactive program on Saturday afternoon. 

Kaufman by phone at  (401) 487-9646  or by email at rmkauff100@cox.net can provide details.

This article was first published in (Capital Region New York’s) Jewish World on January 24, 2019.