Planning a Jewish family break? Try a traumatising trip to Paris!

Because Jews, still, weren’t allowed in certain country clubs and hotels in 1940s America, they headed to specifically Jewish hotels in the Catskills — known as the Jewish Alps or the Borscht Belt — where future comedic greats like Mel Brooks, Joan Rivers and Milton Berle were the in-house entertainment.

Alas, by the time I was born, the Borscht Belt was no more, so instead, I went on the classic 1980s Jewish-American holidays:

1. Visiting the grandparents in Miami
The ultimate Jewish-American holiday. As far as I can tell, between 1960 and 1990, Miami was almost entirely made up of former Holocaust refugees who, after raising their kids in New York or Chicago, enjoyed the good life by playing bridge under a striped umbrella on Miami Beach. For Jews, there is no afterlife — heaven is Miami.

2. Taking the kids to Europe and traumatising them
Israel is very far from New York, but France isn’t so bad.

So why not take the kids to Paris and show them the sites where Jewish children were rounded up and carted away to their deaths?

For bonus points, find some distant relatives there who survived the camps and have them tell their stories, giving your children lifelong recurring nightmares.

3. Celebrating Christmas with the cousins
Yeah, I said it: Christmas. Few things are more Jewish than driving 15 hours across the country, Dad screaming at Mom for getting you lost again because there was no Google Maps in 1987, to sing Christmas carols with your cousins Josh, Rebecca and Seth.

Sure, your grandparents hate it, and someone (your grandmother) always passive aggressively puts out the menorah.

But holidays are all about making happy memories for the kids, right?