Closing Night: We Met at Grossinger's

Closing Night

Director Paula Eiselt expected to attend

If your knowledge of mid-century Jewish resorts in New York’s Catskills mountains — fondly known as the Borscht Belt – stems mainly from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and maybe a couple of Seinfeld references, then treat yourself to this loving celebration of one of the most influential cultural institutions in Jewish American life: Grossinger’s Resort Hotel. Amid bucolic lakes just 100 miles from New York City, Grossinger’s began in 1919 as a necessary haven — welcoming vacationing Jewish families shut out of most restrictive resorts – but was built by three generations of Jewish women entrepreneurs into a leisure-time juggernaut that launched the careers of entertainers from Milton Berle to Joel Grey to Joan Rivers.

Rich with home movies, archival recordings and anecdotes from former headliners, tummlers, waiters, and guests, the documentary establishes not only how central Grossinger’s was in defining a certain kind of Jewish American identity — the lox! the Yiddish humor! — but also how it came to symbolize a century of Jewish American progress: when Eleanor Roosevelt arrived at Grossinger’s in 1950, maybe so had the Jews. —Peter Stein

Bay Area Premiere

Paula Eiselt is a Primetime Emmy-nominated, Peabody and duPont-Columbia Award-winning director and Sundance Jury Prize winner known for her rigorous, character-driven journalistic storytelling. Her films, including 93Queen (HBO Max; PBS POV), Aftershock (Sundance; Hulu/Disney+), and Under G-d (Sundance; PBS POV Shorts), have screened at over 100 international festivals, received theatrical releases, and been distributed globally on platforms including Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, PBS/POV, and ARTE. Aftershock received the Sundance Special Jury Award: Impact for Change and went on to earn a Peabody Award, a duPont-Columbia Award, and a Primetime Emmy nomination. Her latest feature, We Met at Grossinger’s, premiered at DOC NYC 2025 and is slated for release in 2026. Eiselt is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she earned a double major with honors in Film Production and Cinema Studies. She is a member of the Television Academy.