I had this post semi-written up a few years ago, but never finished. A recent Counter-Currents piece on the writer’s weekend in The Berkshires prompted me to finish it (and post as a comment.) I figured I’d reproduce it here as well:
While the Berkshires have a certain SWPL heritage — and don’t get me wrong: the area is beautiful; Tanglewood & Shakespeare & Co are top-notch & wonderful — the tonier areas (e.g., Lenox, Stockbridge; Great Barrington) have been largely overrun by snotty NYC Jews who use ‘summer’ as a verb. This trend has been happening for decades. (See Saul Bellow’s “Herzog” (1964) where the main character, who lives in Chicago, summers in the Berkshires). Economically depressed towns like North Adams are, for the most part, blown out opiate wastelands ala the Rust Belt. Nationally, when people refer to “the Berkshires”, they mean (in order of importance) Lenox, Stockbridge, and Great Barrington.
A few years ago, I spent some time in this northern part of Massachusetts. After attending a Tanglewood concert, my girlfriend and I stopped at a certain Lenox inn for a late night drink. Nearby in the dining room was an older Jewish couple from Philadelphia named the Goldbergs, who despite being from Philly must have originally been from NYC, given their stereotypical accents.
Mr. Goldberg strikes up a conversation with a mixed-race gay couple next to them (a well-dressed, lispy black man and his white attorney boyfriend) on which dessert was better: the “To Die For Chocolate Cake” vs. the “Hazelnut Torte”. I consider slitting my wrists at that moment, but what I hear next leaves me gobsmacked.
As the Goldbergs were leaving the Inn, Mr. Goldberg strikes up a conversation with the owner of the Inn: “EG”, who is himself Jewish. I could only pick up parts of their conversation, but contempt for the goyim was the central point of reference for their entire conversation. At one point, EG says “80% of the visitors to Tanglewood are Jewish… and there’s a reason for that…”
I miss some of the next sentence but do catch part of a followup sentence, with EG saying: “One thing the goyim don’t understand…” I miss the rest of this sentence, but surmise he is talking about affinity for classical music. What is apparent in their mutual commiseration is the inference that goyim philistines don’t adequately appreciate classical music.
Then Mr. Goldberg responds with: “I always say… they’re savages.”
That’s the Berkshires of today.
