Transcript of interview with Elliot B. Karp by Barbara Tabach, December 17, 2014

AN INTERVIEW WITH ELLIOT B. KARP An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach The Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries ?Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans ii The recorded Interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iii PREFACE On October 6, 1955, Elliot Karp was born in Mineola, New York to parents of East European heritage who identified as culturally Jewish. As a teenager, Elliot felt the calling to become kosher, balancing this practice with household norms that were not as strict. He eventually became shomer Shabbat just after enrolling at State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he majored in Political Science. After graduating from SUNY, Elliot spent a year living in Israel considering a path in rabbinical studies. By the end of his time, he decided on a different, yet related path, and registered as a graduate student in Brandeis University's School of Jewish Communal Service, on fellowship from Council of Jewish Federations. After graduating, Elliott moved to Columbus, Ohio to work for the Jewish Federation, focusing on fundraising, but was exposed to many different operational areas of the organization. After three years, Elliot was recruited to the Philadelphia office as its director of leadership development. He then left the Federation to work in development at Brandeis University, but after two years, returned to the Federation as the Cincinnati office's chief development officer. In 2008, Elliot received a call to take his highly cultivated leadership and fundraising skills to another Federation office: Las Vegas. After much consideration, he took the job - and challenge - as the office's new chief executive officer. Since then, Elliot has done much to promote communication, coordination and collaboration within the local Jewish community and beyond, through relationship building and successful fundraising efforts. His ultimate desire is to expand funding for programs that get more people involved in Jewish life - while also empowering community members define what a Jewish life means for them. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Elliot B. Karp on December 17, 2014 by Barbara Tabach in Las Vegas, Nevada Preface iv Recalls family history, immigration from Eurasia to New York City. Describes father's entrepreneurship; Judaism's role during childhood; becoming kosher as teenager, then shomer Shabbat in college. Talks about attending SUNY, applying to both rabbinical school and graduate school; spending year in Israel to decide on path. Enrolls at Brandeis' School of Jewish Communal Service, on fellowship from Council of Jewish Federations 1-8 Describes dedication to work for Federation; its philosophy and model of organization; his passion for fundraising. Talks about first Federation job in Ohio; being recruited to Philadelphia office. Explains leaving Federation to work in development at Brandeis; returning to Federation in Cincinnati office; working as consultant until hired to lead Federation's Las Vegas office. Describes the challenges faced in new position, in building community 9-14 Continues talking about hurdles posed by city's history within Jewish community; role of Federation within community; repairing broken relationships between people, organizations. Considers unique circumstances, history through which Las Vegas Jewish community was created, compared to Midwestern cities. Discusses priority in building relationships when first starting in position, rebuilding trust with beneficiaries, community members 15-20 Talks about major changes in Federation operations since taking position; allocating funds to beneficiaries, Jewish Community Center, Jewish Family Services; increasing communication for coordination, collaboration; more about building trust and relationships, to best provide services to community, build Jewish community. Gives example of funding decisions for various Jewish education experiences. Provides brief history of Jewish Federation in United States 21-25 Discusses process of identifying, creating programs to fund, working with various agencies; challenges in communicating Federation's mission, purpose. Mentions work done with government officials. Describes forming Federation' board; preference for large, diverse members, reflective of community 26-30 Reflects upon possibilities for the local Jewish community; working with non-Jewish local partners, example of collaboration with Opportunity Village. More about desire build stronger involvement in Jewish life; benefits of consolidation in some areas to increase effectiveness, example of city's Jewish education programs 31-36 Index 37-38 v Today is December 17th, 2014. This is Barbara Tabach. I'm with Elliot Karp. How are you doing today? I am well. Thank you. Good. Can you going to spell your name for us? It's spelled E-L-L-I-O-T. Middle initial B. Karp, K-A-R-P. I like to start with what you know about your family ancestry. How far back in your family tree can you go? What can you tell me about that? I can't go back really very far because my paternal grandparents deceased long before I was born, and I really didn't know my maternal grandfather because he died when I was a young boy. I knew my grandmother. But no one was interested in those days in doing a lot of family history and I lost contact with my father's entire side years ago. So what I know is where the basic origins were. My mother's side of the family came from what in the shtetl days would have been White Russia and lots of little shtetls. Nobody came from any big city. My father's side of the family came, depending on what day of the week it was, in the area of Hungary, Transylvania, in a town called Bukovina, and it was literally a border town. So depending upon who was in control...it was part of the Austrian-Hungary Empire. It was part of Transylvania. It was part of Russia at different points in time. But earlier than that I have no clue. Well, that's good. Other than we all stood at Sinai. Oh, really? Well, we all did as Jews, right? Didn't we? Oh, okay. That was a joke. 1 Okay, now I get it. That's my sense of humor. I always tell that to people that say, "Don't you remember me?" I say, "Of course, we stood next to one another at Sinai." Got it. It went over my head. I'm sorry. So your parents, were they born and raised in the same city or where? Both my parents were American born. Both of their parents were born in Europe and came over as young children to America sometime between 1880 and 1900, early 1900s. My parents met in New York City through mutual acquaintances. I like to say I'm the product of a mixed marriage because my mother's family was from the Grand Concourse in the Bronx and my father's family was from Brooklyn. So that was a New York intermarriage. Now, I get that one. So you were raised in New York City yourself? Mostly, yes. I was born in Long Island. Through school my dad was in business for himself. He owned a number of businesses?candy stores, luncheonettes and that sort of thing. So we moved. I also lived as a kid in Connecticut, Denver and outside of Atlanta. Then we moved back to the New York area in reverse migration. Most people start in the city and move out to the suburbs. We started in the suburbs and ended up back in the city. My high school years were spent in Queens. So what took you on this trip around the United States before you got back to New York? It was pretty simple. My dad was in business for himself. He saw opportunities. Sometimes those opportunities were within the New York area. So we lived in a number of different places within the greater New York area. A couple of times those opportunities took him elsewhere. What kind of Jewish household was it? What kind of Jewish household? That's really interesting. I would say it was probably a classical 2 New York Jewish home in the sense that I knew we were Jewish. My brother and I went to religious school. We were both bar mitzvahed. Then we were done. We went to a synagogue once a year on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But it was a richly cultural kind of Jewish home. Oftentimes, I'll say I'm a Theodore Bikel Jew because I remember Theodore Bikel records were always on the phonograph. The Barry Sisters were always on the record player. We were socially active..! was twelve years old during the Six-Day War in 1967. I remember my father took me to rallies in support of Israel in Manhattan at the United Nations because that was important to him. So we weren't observant at all. Certainly weren't a kosher home. But I had a Jewish education. I was bar mitzvahed. We knew who we were culturally as Jews and politically, in that kind of way. People ask the question, "What flavor are you? How do you identify?" Meaning Reform, Conservative or Orthodox. I oftentimes answer that I'm a proud Jew and I confirm my family background; that it really didn't make a difference what we decided to do as long as we were proud to be Jewish. If it weren't for the fact that there was the director of the Hebrew high school at the synagogue where I was bar mitzvahed reaching out to me and several of my friends to bring us in...that's what got me on this path to being more Jewish. I wanted to become kosher and he said, "Well, that's great." I said, "But my parents aren't going to do that." He said, "Look, what's more important in Judaism is to respect your parents than it is to keep kosher. So you keep kosher the way that you can. Maybe you're not going to get two sets of dishes. Respect that. But maybe you can buy kosher poultry and not treif poultry. Or if she's not going to do that, then you eat whatever it is because you have to respect your mother. But when you go out, you'll eat kosher." So that was my beginning maturation to understand that the laws were only important to the degree that you can embrace them. But if you couldn't embrace them, something was better than nothing. You do it on that kind of basis. 3 I have a friend who's a rabbi and always gives the same sermon every year at Rosh Hashanah time or at least part of a sermon. He talks about how he wants his congregants to be "percentnic" Jews. "Percentnic" Jews? "Percentnic" Jews, meaning if you did five percent Jewish last year, this year try to do seven percent. If you did twelve percent Jewish, try to do fifteen percent. In other words, even the most pious Jew can't keep all six hundred and thirteen of the commandments. Everybody can always improve. The idea is, how do you grow in that and how do you do things and how do you make whatever accommodations? That's the way I look at it. That's a great philosophy. I think so and it worked real well. My mother did buy kosher chicken. Was I happy that it was on the same plates that we had our grilled cheese sandwiches? No. But what was more important was I was honoring her wishes. When I went to college and was living on my own, I could live the lifestyle that I wanted because I was responsible for myself. I got married. That was a discussion between my wife and I. She accepted it. We had a kosher household. We kept modified kosher out. I'm not proud to say that over the thirty-four years that we've been married I have fallen off the wagon. Part of that is it's tough to keep kosher in Las Vegas. There are limited options. It seems like it must have always been. Yes. But even more so. But interesting question. A lot of deep stuff there. I think it's interesting how the flavors?what degree? How do you measure even the percentage is pretty vague, I would think. What it really says to me is you're always growing. You're always evolving as a Jew. Maybe you didn't give to the Jewish Federation last year. So try to do it this year. Maybe you gave to the 4 Jewish Federation, but you didn't support AIPAC. So you did it. Or maybe you never went to synagogue except on Rosh Hashanah and for yahrzeit. Maybe you'll go a couple of times. Once a week? Okay, maybe you can't make that. Maybe once a month. If not, how about once a quarter? Or at least go as often as you feel that you can. So there's lots of things that you could always do. But people that say, well, you know what? No, I'm not going to do anything of that. What he's saying is always explore; there's another dimension to your Jewish life. Were you kosher in college? Yes, once I went away to school, I decided I was going to keep not only kosher, but I became shomer Shabbat. What does that mean? Observing the Sabbath. Was it a Jewish centric university that you went to? I went to State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, which was out on the island. It was heavily populated by Jews, but most of them were not observant. This was the lifestyle that I wanted. It didn't make a difference. I could have been in a dormitory with all non-Jews. It was probably fifty-fifty. It's what I wanted to do. What did you study in college? Political Science. How did you choose that? I knew I wasn't going to study math or any science. That's not who I am. I like politics. I like the study of politics. So I thought maybe I was going to go to law school, but I didn't go. But political science, public administration, those were the areas that I kind of concentrated in. It was liberal arts. So I took a lot in political science and sociology, philosophy, some history, and just did 5 whatever I was required to. I went to school at a time where there were very few requirements. I don't think there were any, quite honestly. Maybe you had to take one credit hour in a natural science. All those things have changed over the years. Yes, it's totally different. We had to take like one credit hour in gym and I ended up taking ballroom dancing, which has served me well, by the way. It has, huh? I know how to do the box step, the foxtrot, and the tango. I'm not very good at it. You can at least lead somebody around the floor. Yes. Well, I try to. My wife doesn't like to be led. My husband and I have that similar argument. Who's doing the leading? So take me through your career path. You went to SUNY Stony Brook and then Brandeis. I graduated from Stony Brook with a BA in political science. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Ultimately, I ended up applying to about a dozen law schools. The day I sent away my last law school application, I decided I didn't want to go to law school. Parenthetically, I think I got into eleven of the twelve law schools. During college I was very active in United Synagogue Youth (USY), which was the Conservative movement's youth program. That's how I really matured my Jewish identity. In college, I was a youth adviser. I was a religious schoolteacher. I was president of Hillel at Stony Brook. I started not only feeling more proud about being Jewish but more involved in terms of the issues of the day and getting more active. I actually toyed with the idea of becoming a rabbi. But I also thought maybe I would become a Jewish community worker. 6 So ultimately, the two rabbis that I worked with near Stony Brook, Conservative rabbis, encouraged me to apply to rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary, which was the Conservative seminary. Another friend of mine introduced me to Bernie Reisman, Alav Ha-sholom, who passed away a couple of years ago who was the first director of the School of Jewish Communal Service at Brandeis University. I applied to both programs and I got accepted to both rabbinical school and Brandeis. So I had to make a decision. The seminary said to me, "Look, we like you as a candidate, but you really don't have the background that we expect of rabbinical students. So we will send you to Israel for a year to basically hone your skills." Most of which was Hebrew language and I'm a lousy language student. "And we'll pay for you to go to Israel, study Hebrew and take some other classes. Then, if you pass our language test, then you'll be admitted." I went to Brandeis and I said, "I don't know what to do." Bernie Reisman said to me, "Well, look, if somebody wants to send you to Israel for a year and pay for it, you ought to go." He goes, "At the end of the year if you decide you're going to go to rabbinical school that's great for the Jewish people. If not, you can always come to Brandeis." With that, I said, "Okay." I packed up and went to Israel for the year. I had a great time in Israel. I enjoyed living in Israel. I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed the studies, but I'm not a great language student and it was hard for me. Plus, the few classes that I took in rabbinical school convinced me that I probably was not going to do well in rabbinical school because, at least in those days, in rabbinical school the teachers taught and the students listened and there wasn't a lot of questioning and that doesn't work real well with me. When you put the combination of not a great language student and somewhat...after the year I decided rabbinical school is not [for me]...I enjoyed the studies, but I'm not going to do this for another five years, which is what it would have 7 taken. So I went to Brandeis and they accepted me. I was fortunate enough to get a fellowship from what was then the Council of Jewish Federations, which basically paid for my tuition and obligated me then to work within the Jewish Federation field. There's a Council of Federations? There was. At that time it was called the Council of Jewish Federations and they offered the fellowship. Today the organization is known as the Jewish Federations of North America. There have been a couple of changes over the thirty-five years that I've been doing this stuff now. So I went to Brandeis to get a master's degree in what they call the Benjamin Hornstein School of Jewish Communal Service, which is a hybrid program. Back in those days if you wanted to work in the Jewish community as a professional whether it was in a JCC, a Federation, a Family Service?most people went to social work schools and got an MSW degree. I didn't want to be a social worker. There are two sides to social work; there's clinical social work and organizational social work. But I didn't want to be a social worker. I wanted to work in a Jewish community, so why should I go to social work school, get a social work education? I want to go someplace that is teaching me to be a Jewish professional. There were few schools like that. One was Hebrew Union College and there was Brandeis University. I had friends as an undergraduate that went to Brandeis and I always visited them. I always liked the campus. I always thought it was a cool university. When I heard about this program, I said, "This is exactly what I want." It's a hybrid. So it's the best of social work and community organizing with Jewish studies because that was important. It's not just a matter of how to be a good community organizer, but what's the history of Jewish community organization? What are the values of Jewish community organization? They sprinkled in a little bit of management skills and other things, and we were 8 talking about the heady issues of the day. That was a two-year master's program. As I said, I took a fellowship from the council of Jewish Federation. So I was obligated to work in the Federation world [after I graduated]. Part of my fellowship was a grant and part of it was a loan. Today, because not many people are going into the field, it's all a grant program. You don't have to pay money back. But in my days you paid it back; part of the grant was a loan and it took ten years to pay it back. If you left the Federation before you paid back the loan over the ten years, then the note was payable in full. Oh, wow. On demand. So it's sort of like an indentured? That kind of keeps you. Yes. There's motivation for it. Some people paid it off earlier if they were fortunate enough to have the resources. I never worried about it because I was committed to working the Federation field. Why the Federation field? When I was at Brandeis, I was exposed to JCCs and community relations, and Federation and fundraising, and Jewish educational institutions and national organizations, local organizations. I came to a couple conclusions. Number one, the philosophical construct?I'm not saying that this ever existed or exists today or ever will exist?but the philosophical construct is that there is a central organization that doesn't control what goes on in the Jewish community, but is, in fact, the umbrella of the Jewish community because it helps to promote collaboration, communication and cooperation, and serves in a central way to organize the community. I thought that's where I want to be because that's the hub of the community. Then within that enterprise, within Federation?I tell this to people all the time?if you really want to break it down into the most simplistic forms, what do Federations do? We raise 9 money and we give money away. So there's the fundraising and development side or there's the allocations and distribution side, two different skillsets: raising money and giving money away. I decided that really as important as giving money away was that was a lot of meetings. A lot of jawboning and a lot of bullshit and a lot of posturing. I looked at fundraising as that's where the action was; that's where you develop relationships; that's the power. The other way of describing is...I worked for many years in Cincinnati and my colleague, who was the allocations and planning director, and I used to do these dog and pony programs in the community, talking about the Federation. I always let Connie go first because she would talk about the needs of the community and establishing priorities, and how you evaluated and how we have all these meetings aside; how we take all this money that we then distribute. It was great. Needs, assessments, analysis and how we do everything. Then I would go. I would say, "You know what the difference between me and Connie is? Her job is to take the pie and cut it into small enough pieces to make everybody equally unhappy. My job is...I look at the Jewish community and I say there's more mouths to feed; how are we going to bake bigger pies? I'm not interested in cutting smaller pieces. I'm interested in baking bigger pies. That's a nice visual. Yes. And that's just the truth. Within the Federation that's where the action is. That's where the power is. That's where you're going to make a difference. All the best ideas in the world are for naught if you don't have the resources to make them come about. So you knew this is where you were going to go. Where was your first actual Federation job? Columbus, Ohio. Talk about Columbus, Ohio. 10 Great city. I had job offers in Buffalo, Boston, and New York. I didn't want to go to Buffalo; it was too cold. But I went to Columbus because Columbus is a good Jewish community: small, tight-knit, well-established historically. The Federation was one of the early ones. I went because as good as it was it was a small staff and I figured I would have the broadest exposure to not only fundraising, but also planning and allocations, and community relations. I would see the whole. If I went to Boston or New York, I would have been cubby-holed. I would have been a line staff person, entry-level in the campaign department. I would be given one or two assignments and I wouldn't have had an opportunity to get the broad experience. In fact, that's what happened in Columbus. Not only was I doing fundraising, I did regular campaign. I did women's campaign. My assignment was the young women's division. I learned more about fundraising from them than I did from anybody else. I also learned a lot about childcare and other things. But I also did community relations work and some allocations work. So it was a good experience. I was there for about three years and then I got recruited away to the Philadelphia Federation where I was then director of leadership development, working mostly with young people, my peers, which was like a Federation inside a Federation because Philadelphia is a quarter of a million Jews. We built the program up. We had close to seven thousand members. We were doing everything. We were doing programs, events, activities, fundraising. We were doing political action, community service, leadership development. That was a great experience. Then I left the Federation field and went back and worked at Brandeis University for two years. A friend of mine was recruited to be the senior vice president of development and he said to me, "You've always told me how great Brandeis is. I'm going to work for them. Join me." And so I went there. While Brandeis is a Jewish sponsored private university, it's not a Jewish university. So it's no different than Harvard being sponsored by the Protestants. Harvard is not a 11 Christian university. Brandeis has a strong Jewish ethic and value to it. But raising money at a university is dramatically different than raising money in a Jewish Federation. So I learned a lot. What did you learn? What was different? I would say it's much more refined. It's not as down and dirty as it is in the Jewish world. Donor and prospect research rules the day. Submitting proposals as opposed to just asking for money. So I did that for a couple of years because I've always felt close to the university. I'm a loyal alumnus. They gave me the education that I needed in order to practice the career that I have and provide, pardon us, my livelihood for my family. This was a way to pay them back but also to learn and experiment. I did that for a couple of years. I was then recruited back into the Federation world to be the campaign director, the chief development officer for the Federation in Cincinnati, where I served for about fifteen years. There was a change in leadership. The CEO left. There was a search and I was the runner-up. So rather than stay?after fifteen years I don't deserve the job, but I earned the opportunity to try to have the job. So I left. I said, "Well, what are you going to do?" And I said, "Well, I'll find something." So I did consulting for a couple of years privately. Because my kids were still young, we didn't want to leave Cincinnati. I was doing fundraising and development consulting mostly for Jewish nonprofits?synagogues, JCCs and others?but also some non-Jewish clients, mostly because there were Jews involved with them who said, "Hey, can you help us?" It's not because I had a commitment to the Speech and Hearing Center of Cincinnati. It's not because I have any great passion for them. I'm glad they exist. One of their board members who was one of my former chair people said, "We could really use your help." But most of the time it was Jewish organizations. Then one day I got a phone call and someone said, "Hey, you're about the only person 12 crazy enough to come to Las Vegas. Would you like to...?" Who made that phone call? His name was [Yitzchak] Itzik Shavit of blessed memory. He worked for the national Federation system and he said to me, "They need somebody good, but someone who's going to be crazy because this is not an easy town." That's how I heard about Las Vegas. How did he hear about it? From the national organization. Okay. So he was aware that there was this position and he thought of you. Yes. And crazy town...Had you ever visited here before? Yes. I had been here twice on family vacations. I knew at that point what everybody else knew about Las Vegas. It was the fastest growing Jewish community in America. I heard it had lots of potential. I heard it had enormous challenges, problems, and issues. In the process of being recruited and interviewed, I did a fair amount of due diligence. My friend Itzik's assessment was pretty accurate. You have to be crazy to come to Las Vegas and work in the Jewish community. What does it mean to be crazy? I'm going to answer your question, but I'm putting this in a context because I'm very high on Las Vegas and the potential, but there's also the realities. The reality is that this is still a young community that is going through some growth pains. In my humble opinion, the last fifty years of Las Vegas Jewish life didn't do things the way that they probably should have. I think that this is a community that at one point in time there was one institution and it was everything. Then all of a sudden people started moving in and they started creating things. When they created things rather than create things that are different and work together, they created things that were different and 13 separate. The community grew and just burrowed itself into hardened silos. Temple X was in its silo. Temple Y was in its silo. The Federation was in its silo. The JCC was in its silo. Nobody worked together and nobody shared any information. By the way, all the people were friendly because it was still a relatively small town and you knew everybody else. In fact, they were probably related in most instances. But as organizations they didn't play well in the sandbox together. And that continued. So as more people came in, they became aligned with what they became aligned with and nobody worked together. And if the notion of a federation is the convener, the collaborator?[phone ringing; pause in recording] So the challenge of being crazy was, how do you build a community? So that's the challenge that he was alluding to because it wasn't business as usual. This community needed to be healed. It was fractured. This community needed to coalesce. It was whatever the opposite of not coalesced. Fractured. Yes, it was fractured. And not just because that was the way it evolved, but there were decisions, conscious, deliberate decisions that were made that caused people to be fractured, by my predecessors, by the leadership of the Federation. I think they thought with the best of intentions what was going to help the community and in reality it helped to fracture the community. It helped to keep people apart from one another. So what this community really needed was someone who was going to bring the community together and heal the community and create more communication, which leads to greater cooperation, which eventually leads to collaboration. And ultimately?we haven't gotten there yet?the last C word is consolidation because the truth of the matter is that the favorite pastime in this Jewish community is if you don't like one organization, don't fix it from within; go out and create a new organization. You don't like the synagogue you 14 belong to for whatever the reason? Don't work with them inside. I'm going to leave the synagogue and I'm going to build my own synagogue. So that's all part of this healing process. By the way, that's not to say that it's just a matter of, well, you're an empire builder; you want everybody to be under the Federation umbrella. No. I believe you can have more expression. But everyone's got to work together. Everybody's got to play in the sandbox togethe