Mayor Bloomberg isn’t taking his soaring approval ratings as an excuse to spend summer weekends relaxing with good books and cool drinks.

Yesterday, before 8 a.m., the mayor donned a yarmulke, took off in a helicopter from Manhattan, and piloted it north about 100 miles to the Catskills, where he spent three-and-a-half grueling hours wooing the votes of the thousands of Jewish residents of New York City who summer there.

“I’m trying to reach out to everybody in New York City, all boroughs, all communities, all neighborhoods, and this is just a good chance on a Sunday morning with great weather to say hello to a community that has contributed an enormous amount to New York City,” he said. “It’s a chance to give people the recognition and respect that I think all of us want.”

There is no available poll data on Mr. Bloomberg’s chances among Jewish New Yorkers, but some initial indications are good: An influential member of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community, Dov Hikind, endorsed the mayor last week, and a Democratic City Council member, Simcha Felder, who is well-known in Boro Park’s Jewish community, spent the day shepherding the mayor from stop to stop, heaping praise on the Republican mayor.

“I had brought a barf bag with chewing gum, to prepare for the worst,” Mr. Felder said of the helicopter ride to Sullivan County. “The mayor flew, and he was unbelievable.” He said if the election results follow the course of the trip, Mr. Bloomberg would receive 98% of the vote.

Mr. Bloomberg made four stops, trailed by an entourage of reporters, state troopers, and his city security detail, shaking hands, posing for pictures, meeting with rabbis, telling jokes, and sampling kosher foods.

At his first stop, Kutshers Country Club, the mayor received applause and laughs as he joked about the good weather and the challenge of finding parking spaces in the city – but he received the kindest reception from the elderly women in the dining room.

“I think he’s the best mayor,” a 70-something Upper East Side resident, Diane Levine, said. “He looks better in person than he does on TV. I guess he’s rested now. I love him. I really do.”

Ms. Levine, who has been summering in the Catskills for 14 years, predicted success for Mr. Bloomberg. “Oh please,” she said, “he’s going to get in, without a doubt.”

A Queens woman, Mary Borack, was also blown over by Mr. Bloomberg’s looks, saying, “He looks so much younger in person.” Ms. Borack, 88, also said she plans to vote for Mr. Bloomberg in November.

Crowds of men and teenage boys, wearing black pants, white shirts, and the ritual undergarment known as tzitzit, swarmed around the mayor when he arrived at his second stop, Camp Morris, a camp for Talmud students.

As he walked down a hill to a hut, where a Brooklyn rabbi, Aaron Schechter, lives for the summer, a throng of boys walked around him, snapping his picture with digital cameras. Some fathers held their sons on their shoulders as they walked with the mayor. Some children on tricycles and scooters trailed behind.

“He’s showing that he cares for the community – interest in the Jewish world,” a student at Yeshiva Ateret Torah, Shemuel Azatchi, said, standing outside the rabbi’s red hut. Mr. Azatchi, 18, said studying, sports, and swimming are the camp’s normal Sunday activities. He called the mayor’s visit an “interesting special experience” and said he planned to vote for Mr. Bloomberg in November.

As teenagers gathered around the door, smaller children took turns standing up on a plastic chair so they could peer through the windows.

Mr. Felder said that to the boys at the camp, Mr. Bloomberg’s call was equivalent to a visit by the Yankee star Derek Jeter or a movie star.

“We don’t go to the movies, don’t watch TV, so the mayor of New York City coming here is exciting,” he said. “They want his autograph, they want their picture with him.”

The mayor’s third stop, at Woodbourne’s shopping district, was mostly about eating. First he bought a “cinnamon horn” and some seltzer at Catskill’s Kosher Bakery. Then he shared a slice of kosher pizza at Woodbourne Pizza & Ice Cream with some vacationers before stopping by Hakol B’Sefer Judaica to shake a few hands. Finally, he crossed the street and popping into Dougie’s, another kosher restaurant.

“We’re very happy to see his interest in our community,” the owner of Dougie’s, Barbara Landeau, said. “It shows us that he takes an active interest in our community.”

The mayor’s final stop was at a girls’ camp, Camp Bnos, where he received a rock star’s standing ovation from an auditorium full of young screaming girls, and said a few words of thanks – and made one joke about camp food and another about the Brooklyn Bridge – before hopping in his black SUV and heading back to the city.