Transcript of interview with Rabbi Sanford Akselrad by Barbara Tabach, October 29, 2014

AN INTERVIEW WITH SANFORD AKSELRAD An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ?Southern Nevada Jewish 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 iii 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 Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE More inclined in his youth to pursue a career as a scientist than rabbi, Sanford Akselrad (1957- ) became the rabbi at Congregation Ner Tamid in 1988. Turning his tenure, Rabbi Akselrad has lead the congregation through its move from Emerson to Street to its permanent home on Green Valley Parkway and I-215 and shares a fun story about buying desks and chairs from the Clark County School District. He talks about many of the milestones including: Project Ezra which he started during the 2008 recession to help Jewish community members find jobs; the NextGen program which was initiated to bring young adults in their twenties and thirties back to the temple. For over twenty years Rabbi Akselrad was a member of the board of the Nevada Governor?s Council on Holocaust education, a topic that was the focus of his rabbinical thesis. He was the founding president of the Clark County Board of Rabbis and has served on the boards of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, Jewish Family Services, and the Humana Hospital Pastoral Advisory Board. He was also the chair of the Federation?s Community Relations Council (CRC). Rabbi Akselrad is a board member of the Anti-Defamation League Nevada region office and the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada. Sanford Akselrad was born on October 6, 1957 in Oakland, California and raised in Palo Alto. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles and then went to graduate school at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion. He spent the first year of his graduate program in Israel, the next two in Los Angeles, and the final two years in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rabbi Akselrad met his wife Joni in Reno, Nevada and married her during his third year of rabbinical school. The couple has two children, CJ and Sam. After his ordination in 1984, Rabbi Akselrad was associate rabbi of Temple Israel in Columbus, Ohio, one of the largest Reform congregations in the Midwest. His choice of career was inspired by his father, Sidney Akselrad, who was a prominent rabbi involved in social justice issues and the Civil Rights Movement. Sanford Akselrad has followed his father?s example of community involvement, both in Las Vegas and on a national level: he served on the board of the National Conference of Community and Justice (NCJJ), he was chair of the NCJJ's Inter-faith Council, and he is active in the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ). v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Sanford Akselrad October 29, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface??????????????????????????????????..iv Family ancestral roots are described; father was Rabbi Sidney Akselrad (Palo Alto/Los Altos, California); brother to three sisters. Growing up Jewish in Northern California, Camp Swig, his bar mitzvah, and consideration to be an attorney. Education and seminary choices; first rabbinic position was in Cincinnati for four years; general duties and life of a congregational rabbi. Details of his father, Sidney Akslerad, and his social activism role; being with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Bobby Kennedy; his father?s singing and speaking talents and listening to him on the radio???????????????????????????????...1 ? 5 Talks about his first memories of Las Vegas; his first encounter with the story of the split that had created Congregation Ner Tamid, an off-shoot of Temple Beth Sholom. Attended rabbinical school in Cincinnati, where he also became an assistant rabbi. Tells 1987 story of considering the move to Las Vegas; his handshake and one-year contract; his predecessors Rabbis Maline and Hecht; size of congregation and his process for vetting the congregation???????.6 ? 11 Stories of his first time leading a service, Sukkot 1987, at Ner Tamid; selecting his first cantorial soloists; starting a choir. Tells about outgrowing Emerson location and facing the need to relocate, decision to move to Green Valley area over Summerlin.; donation of land by Greenspun family?????????????????????????????????.12 ? 16 Continues with what purposes a synagogue must fulfill and applying that vision to Ner Tamid; purchase of 200 desks from Clark County School District; how he keeps one of the chairs from that original purchase. How 9-11-2001 slowed move; broke ground in 2005. Talks about school; preschool has 100 students and is rented to orthodox synagogue; Hesed Committee, becoming involved with Jewish Family Services and initiative he helped steward to get jobs for Jews called Project Ezra, which helped over 600 people find work during the recession??????17 ? 20 Talks about the idea of starting new traditions here; hiring the first ordained female cantor Jessica Hutchings; getting younger generation involved through NextGen program started with Melissa Lemoine?s guidance????????????????????????.21 ? 2 3 Recalls being on a committee for a Jewish Senior Center that never materialized; his thoughts about building a JCC. Kosher food discussed; Holocaust Education; ADL; started the Board of Rabbis. Speaks about importance of Holocaust education in today?s world. Describes anti-Semitic experience and observations here???????????????????.24 ? 29 vi 1 Today is October 29th, 2014. We're sitting in Ner Tamid with Rabbi Akselrad. So the first thing I usually like to know is a bit about family history. Where do your family roots go back to?that you are aware of? Well, on my mother's side...my mother's from a small town, or was a small town?Eugene, Oregon. Her father was an orphan and her mother was from Romania. She went to Canada and then made her way to Eugene. But I don't know how my grandmother and my grandfather ultimately met. But that's where my mother was born and raised. My dad was a Pittsburgh-er. His mother was from Brooklyn. I don't know where she was before that. And his father came from Poland when he was very, very young. My dad's a rabbi. Well, he's passed away, but he was a rabbi. Made his way eventually to California where he met my mother. So that's my parents' background. And your father being a rabbi?is there a tradition of rabbis in your family? No. It's probably stopping with me. [Laughing] In Judaism, if you go back far enough, everybody's got a rabbi because in the old days rabbis were not full-time professions. So a guy could be a shoemaker and also a rabbi. But today the rabbinate is professionalized; that's your full-time job. In the case of my grandfather on my father's side, he owned a movie theater. My dad was from a very large family. He was the only one who became a rabbi. My dad was raised orthodox and ultimately became a reform rabbi and he was ordained in 1947. He passed away about seven, eight years ago. So that leaves me. So where was he practicing? [Rabbi Sidney Akselrad, 1921 -2006] When my dad was ordained in 1947, he went to Detroit; that was where he went to be an assistant rabbi. Then from Detroit he went to Berkeley, California, to have his own pulpit. 2 That's where he met my mother. My mother was a junior executive at Macy's and she just graduated Cal [University of California]. So that's where he met my mother. And then they got married, had several children. My dad was there until 1962 and made his way across the bay to Palo Alto. And he was a rabbi in Los Altos Hills?and then rabbi emeritus for about fifty years. Oh, wow. That was a long career. So you were born and raised in California. Yes, I was born in Oakland, in the hospital in Oakland. First four and a have years was Berkeley, which I don't remember, and then the rest was Palo Alto. And then when I was seventeen I went to college at UCLA. After UCLA went to seminary and that was called Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion. It's a five-year graduate program; so the first year was in Israel, next two years was Los Angeles, and the next two years was Cincinnati, which is the mother school, kind of the main campus. And then after I was ordained, I went to Columbus, Ohio, for four years and then made my way to Las Vegas in February 1988. Well, before we get you to Vegas, tell me about the community that you were raised in. Was it a predominately Jewish community? I grew up in Palo Alto. Well, it was not predominately Jewish, no. But because my dad was the prominent rabbi in the area, because my personal predilections are towards Jewish things, most of my friends were Jewish; my activities were Jewish, and that was true even in college. But my sisters had different experiences because they were not as inclined as I was to get involved in Jewish things. So it was a time of civil rights. My dad was very active in the Civil Rights Movement. He did things with Martin Luther King Jr.; that's what he was most proud of. He was involved in 3 protesting the war in Vietnam. That was his career, social justice issues. A very different type of rabbinate than what mine has been. So I'd say I grew up...great school district, all kindergarten through twelfth grade just had a great, super education. That's probably why the homes there are so expensive. So you say you have just sisters? I have three sisters, two older and one younger. And do any of them live in this area at all? They all live near my mom in the Bay Area. Talk about the decision to become a rabbi. How does one do that? That's a big step. I don't know how one does it. I know how I did it. My dad was a very prominent rabbi. So he was a very revered rabbi even though if you just met him on the street he was a regular Joe. We liked to tease him about his foibles. But on the other hand, everyone knew who he was. So the assumption was that since I was the boy, I would become a rabbi. Girls in those days did not become rabbis. That was when my sisters grew up. So when I had any bar mitzvah I decided to tell the congregation I was not going to be a rabbi; like, leave me alone. So I gave my bar mitzvah speech?and everyone remembers it to this day?what it's like to be the son of the rabbi. Everyone thought that was funny. I was very serious, of course. They thought it was hysterical. And I said, ?When I grow up I'm going to be a scientist like Albert Einstein.? And I thought that would put the whole thing to rest because I got tired of everyone asking me what I was going to be when I grew up. Are you going to be a rabbi like your dad? Truth be told, my dad inspired many people to become rabbis, many, many people to be rabbis, educators. There's so many people who had my father as a mentor including myself. But 4 he was that type of a rabbi, like, wow, you could see what the rabbinate could do in terms of social justice, inspiring people, and just a great example. So what I needed to do was figure out what I wanted to do without people telling me what I wanted to do. So I needed to individuate. Really what helped me in my decision was probably going to a Jewish camp. It was called Camp Swig, which was named after Ben Swig, who was a hotel magnet in the Bay Area. That camp has since closed. It's now called Camp Newman and they relocated. When I was in ninth grade I went to Camp Swig and there were a number of other rabbis' children and we all shared similar issues. I've never met other rabbis' kids like this and we talked. Eventually, several of them ended up in seminary with me. It was interesting. I would meet up with them later in life. But I realized that it's actually what I wanted to do despite what everyone was telling me what I wanted to do. So I kind of hedged my bets; I was going to be an attorney before I was going to be a rabbi, which may seem strange, but actually the preparation is very similar. There are a lot of lawyers who become rabbis, if that makes sense. I actually have heard that from one other rabbi that I talked to years ago. So that is interesting. I never realized it was a pattern, though. It's definitely a pattern, uh-huh. So your dad made you feel you needed to be a rabbi; he was a smart guy and let it be your own choice? Yes. My mom probably was more discouraging because it's a very all-encompassing life. You're always busy. You're always busy. It's very intrusive. So it's hard to have a family life. My mother was like the rock. She did not want to wish on me the fact that I'd be busy all the time. So I had good intentions of not being busy all the time, but pretty much because people die 5 and want to get married and have babies at their own time schedule, you're kind of really at the whim of other people's time and it's not your own. Right, right. So that's what happens. It's really hard to...you can try to plan a normal pattern, but your schedule is not your own. Now, your dad, going back to him, I'm curious about the social activism that he was involved in. Did he actually meet Martin Luther King? Yes. Can you tell us a little bit? I've worked a lot with the African-American history. My dad went down to Selma and he worked with Martin Luther King. He was trampled. He was involved with the FBI. He was involved with Bobby Kennedy. He was involved with planning some of the rallies and the demonstrations. And then later on he introduced Martin Luther King to a rally in the Bay Area as a modern day Moses. So they actually did know each other. Through my dad's entire career he would talk about it and he was a sought after speaker for Martin Luther King observances. My dad also had a beautiful singing voice, which I did not inherit. So he kind of developed a whole pattern of talking about it and then he would lead people in singing the songs of the era, and that was very popular. Wow. I can see why that would be inspirational. He would always get a standing ovation. He'd speak to Rotaries and to civic groups and to children. Yes, he loved doing it. So you would have been how old during that? You would have been young. That's one of my earliest memories was listening to the radio and hearing my dad's name on the radio. I was born in '57, so I was five. Five, six years old I can remember hearing his name on 6 the radio and my mother being somewhat worried. Yes, I'll bet. That would be worrisome. That was a frightening time. Very frightening time. So coming to Vegas, talk about the first time you ever saw this city. Well, people who know me know I'm pretty straight. I don't really drink. I don't gamble. I live a pretty straightforward life. So for me to come to Vegas was kind of out of the ordinary. So how did it happen? Well, my brush with Vegas actually occurred before I came to Vegas. When I was in college at UCLA, there was another rabbi's son; his name was Lebbe Schneerson. He was the son of the rabbi at Temple Beth Sholom. By coincidence, we both were at UCLA at the same time and he had a sister that was at UCLA; her name was Rena. She was very cute. We all became friends through the dorm or whatever. I had a great rabbi-son experience and he had a poor one because apparently Temple Beth Sholom, when his dad was rabbi, split. The split was this congregation, Ner Tamid. I didn't know it. I didn't even think about it. But ironically, it was the beginning of this congregation. Under his dad's leadership there just happened to be a breakaway, which I doubt it was his father's fault. As the town grew it became clear that one synagogue could not meet the diverse needs. Some people wanted a more liberal synagogue; some wanted more orthodox. And Beth Sholom was trying to be everything to all people, which they did for decades, but eventually it just could not be all things. So that was my first sort of brush. Never went to Vegas. Never really gambled. And then I went to rabbinical school. When you are studying to be a rabbi, you serve small congregations. So my first one was to drive from Los Angeles to Barstow, and I did that once a month and there was like ten families; that was my first job. 7 The next year I was a third-year student and I would fly to Reno twice a month, and that's where I met my wife. She belonged to the conservative temple and I was a rabbi at the reform and she took a class from me because her temple president said I was cute. That's where we hit it off and got married. So we got married and I had two more years of rabbinical school, which I did in Cincinnati. Then went to Ohio. I was an assistant rabbi. So at a certain point you have to find your own place. My wife's an only child and she wanted to be near her parents. So when Las Vegas came up, I said, ?I don't think so.? I said, ?There's gambling there.? I said, ?I don't know what kind of people there are in Las Vegas.? So I kind of discounted it and she said, ?I'm from Reno and I turned out okay.? So I said, ?Oh, God, I guess you're right.? So anyways, I flew to Las Vegas and I had done a lot of research. And this is before the Internet, of course. But I did a lot of research because they did have kind of a shaky past of rabbis. The rabbis did not stay here very long. So I wanted to determine why and whether those reasons would apply to me. So I really came on a handshake. I came with a one-year contract, which really surprised them. They didn't quite understand why I would be so bold. But since I wasn't quite sure about them, I figured we'd know pretty quickly; and if it didn't work out, why prolong things? If they liked me then they'd come to me pretty quick because one year is very short. And if I didn't like them, I'd just start looking for another job really quick. At least I would've tried. So pretty much it worked out and here I am twenty-seven years later. That's an interesting visual description, the handshake, because everybody talks about in the old Vegas how deals were all done with a handshake. Well, there was a contract, but still it was like a handshake because what's a one-year contract? 8 Right, right. It's really like a handshake. It just spelled out how much money I was going to make and I'd get a vacation. I don't know. Everybody was betting on the fact that it might work out. Yes. And if it didn't, okay. I think what they were concerned about was, one, would it work out? Number two, why would anyone want to come to Vegas? Number three, if I was for real, would I stay? So lucky for them and lucky for me I told them?because they asked me?because usually a small congregation is a steppingstone. So when you're young you might stay for two to five years and then go for a bigger place. But I told them my dad was a family rabbi and that's kind of how I was raised, so I just really wanted to be part of people's lives for generations and that's where I would get the joy. So, for example, last week I did a wedding for a little girl I had known since she was four. So I'm the family rabbi. That's what my dad did. That's who I am. My example is like ?Marcus Welby? on TV for the medical profession; I'm kind of the family rabbi concept. That's nice. That's really nice. So you were the first rabbi of Ner Tamid? No. The founding rabbi was Rabbi Weisberg. Then there was Rabbi Mel Hecht, who's still in town. They had a split and then they hired Rabbi Maline. Rabbi Maline's wife was not happy here. The town still had not developed and they were from Philadelphia and it was not cultured enough. I met all these?well, I didn't meet Rabbi Weisberg because he passed away early. But I met Rabbi Hecht and I met Rabbi Maline and I got their versions. And here I am. How large was the congregation at that time? About sixty families. 9 And you have how many families now? About six [hundred] fifty now. Before the recession when we first moved here, we were in the mid-seven hundreds. So recession did impact us. So I would say that would be our peak. Then we settled in the mid-six hundreds. But you have a lot of competition, too. There's a lot of synagogues in this city. Well, one of the things that drew me here, aside from being close to Reno?there was an airline that's now defunct, Sun Airlines or something. But it didn't matter because my wife's parents moved down to Las Vegas the week after we moved here. How nice. So they've been here as long as we've been here. I'm just a plane flight away to the Bay Area. So it worked out good. So you started to describe the research you did about Judaism and the community here. Oh, the Jewish life, yes. How did you find it? How would you describe that a little more for me? I'm trying to understand that. Well, in those days, so you make your usual phone calls. You call a Federation executive who happened to be a member of the temple. I called a funeral home director who actually would become the president of Temple Beth Sholom. I called the head of Jewish Family Services who happened to be a member of Ner Tamid. So those would be my colleagues professionally. I wanted to kind of get the inside scoop on the size of the Jewish community, what living in Las Vegas would be like, and also whether the problems that my predecessors had was a reflection of the congregation, them, a bad match, whatever. When people get divorced it doesn't mean they'll never remarry and find spouses. It doesn't make anyone evil, but maybe the match wasn't good. 10 So my determination was that the prior matches were not good and that I would be better suited for them. I don't gamble. I didn't care about getting involved in the chapel life. All this stuff can be very distracting to a person. My whole goal was to build a congregation as if I was in any...I could be in Cleveland or Palo Alto, wherever. I would just focus on the congregation and try to build it brick by brick. So there was about twenty thousand Jews. At that time the main congregation?I mean still it's Temple Beth Sholom?the rabbi there was about five years from retirement. So in my mind...I was thirty; so he was, quote, older. So I thought, well, I'm going to be the new young guy. He's five years from retirement. He's more settled. He's not going to be out there trying to get members like I will at age thirty. So there's twenty thousand Jews and in Columbus there's eleven thousand Jews and there was about ten congregations. So I said, well, if that one can support eleven, then surely this one can support two, three, four?now there's about twenty-six congregations and there's about sixty thousand Jews. So I have to go where the Jews are. And there were a lot of Jews that were not affiliated here. So my vision was let's see how we can get them. So that was part of the research. The other research is a little bit craftier. I called them?they didn't know this?pretending I wanted to join and then I had them send me membership things because I wanted to look at their bulletin and things and I had them mail it to my sister, but they never did. So I did not have that piece of information, but I did have it as an example. So during my interview when they said, well, how would you grow the congregation? I said, ?I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I'm going to tell you what I did.? So I said, ?We've got to get to basics. If people call and they want to learn, you have to respond to them.? And the person was a little embarrassed. We became friends. But she admitted she was delinquent, right? So yes, they did not know the 11 basics of how to do customer service. If people call about your congregation and want a membership packet, you've got to mail them something and then you've got to follow it up with a phone call and schmooze them; that's all part of it. It's pretty basic stuff. Right. Yes, because they've really extended themselves; they've asked. If they're going to ask now, they just ask through websites. But in those days, yes, they'd make a phone call and you'd have to actually mail a packet. Now everything is on the website. So when you finally accepted the position?so your wife was okay with moving here, which is really... Right. Which is crucial to them. The fact that she was from Reno made them happy. The fact I was from the West made them happy. Because the prior rabbi's wife was from Philly and didn't like it here. So my wife [Joni] liked Las Vegas. She liked the fact that her parents were here because my daughter was a year and a half, so she had some help there. What did you do then? Do you remember the first time you stood in front of the congregation and how they received you and all of that, what kind of feedback you got from that experience? Sort of. I mean I remember when I was interviewed it was in October during Sukkot 1987; that was my interview. I had a big crowd there. There were a lot. But their average attendance had dropped to about ten to fifteen and for the interview they got as many people as they could, so there probably was about three hundred people there. I had something to work with. So I had a strategy to build the congregation. I know my strengths and my weaknesses. What I've always felt my weakness was is I don't sing. As musical as my dad was, I inherited it from my mother. So I knew that if people would come to services and have me try to sing, they would never say what a great sermon I gave; they'd say what a lousy voice I had. So believe it or 12 not, my first mission was to find someone to sing at services. I had a strategy because I had to build up. The core of a congregation is worship. That's where people check you out. They'll come because they like the worship service. From there they decide, okay, it's a place of worship. I like the rabbi. I like who he is. Now let's check out the school. So the second building block is the school and the third is your programming. Those are the three things that are vital to a synagogue. So I methodically worked on each one of them. And you don't have to do their linearly; you can do them all at the same time, which is what I did. I worked on all three at the same time. So the way I got my first soloist was interesting. His name was Matt Eisenberg. So when I came to work, they had a stack of pink slips that Rita?her name was Rita Moses; she was the volunteer executive director; she's now in her nineties?when the rabbi would come, ?Here are your messages.? So she would just collect these things for months. That's the charm of a small temple, you know. Yes. So I went through them and there was one phone call that said, ?Wants to sing at services in exchange for learning about Judaism.? So I pulled that one out of all the messages. I called and I found out that the guy worked at Adams Baby Store. It doesn't exist anymore. So I when there to pretend to buy a crib for my daughter and I met the salesman. So I was thirty. He probably was about twenty-three. He didn't know I was checking him out. I interview people in very interesting ways. You're very stealth. Yes, I am. I'm a very stealth person because I want to see about the chemistry and who they are 13 in their natural habitat so to speak. So he's a very nice guy, very charming. I got to talking to him and I said, ?What do you like to do?? He said, ?Oh, I love to sing.? I said, ?Are you pretty good?? He said, ?Oh, yes, that's what I really want to do.? I said, ?Didn't you call a congregation once?? And he said, ?Yes, they never called me back.? I said, ?I'm calling. I'm the new rabbi.? So we struck up a friendship. He didn't have a jacket. I gave him one of my sports coats. We had no money to pay him. I was teaching him about Judaism. I had a tape recording of my father singing songs and I said, ?I want you to learn these melodies my dad sung,? because I didn't even have music to give him. So he learned the basic seven, eight songs. Everyone wondered where this kid came from. He had a beautiful voice. And then, of course, he did this for a few months and I thought, God, it's a shame we can't pay him. He's such a good kid. So people started donating money and I started paying him twenty-five and thirty. And then his parents got in his ear. And then he got a little too big. But he moved to L.A. to study with Seth Briggs?Seth Riggs, maybe? Anyway, he was the teacher to Whoopi Goldberg for ?Sister Act.? So the man was really talented. I never heard from him after this. But he followed his dream. So I'm a little footnote in his life where he was a little cantor, with a small C so to speak. Cantor with a small C, yes. Well, I'm always on the lookout because I've got to find someone else. But by then I had established a pattern. So I would listen to the congregation sing and there was a couple of young ladies who would come and I'd hear them sing and I talked to them about singing for me. One of them, her name was Bella Schwartz. She was about twenty-two and she was the daughter of a previous cantor at Temple Beth Sholom, who unfortunately passed away years ago. So I offered 14 Bella the job. But she was young, so she didn't want to give up every Friday night. And then there was another one; her name was Julie and she was a Marilyn Monroe lookalike. She was single; she didn't want to give up her Friday night. And then there was another one, Rene Campos. She was older and had children. She would have sung every Friday, but I didn't like her style as much. So I rotated between the three ladies and they were all completely different styles. Eventually the one who rose to the top was Bella. She became Bella Feldman. She married the son of the owner of Rancho Bakery. To this day Bella is a cantor. She's now in Ashland, Oregon. But she worked for me for sixteen years. Oh, wow. So she actually became a cantor. She did not become a cantor in the traditional sense. She did not go to school; I taught her everything. So really her title here was cantorial soloist. But where she is now, they're less formal, so they call her cantor. But by exact standards she would not be a cantor. She was not ordained a cantor. But the conservative movement will sometimes assign the title to people who serve that role and that's what she does in Ashland. So the position of a cantor is sometimes a part-time job; sometimes a full-time job. Right. So a small temple, when we were really small...we went from sixty families. We grew pretty quick to a couple hundred families. Then I started needing help. It took me awhile for me to develop it into a full-time position. By then she had married. By then she was ready to?I was offering her a chance at a career. So that's what happened. So she took it. Very cool. And she had the heart to do it. Was there already a choir here? 15 No, I started the choir. Well, I started everything because they didn't have anything. Hortense Alper was the first funder of the choir; she donated the piano and funded the choir. She has since passed on. And where were services being held at that time when you first came here? It was on Emerson. So I came February 1988, and then by 1993 they decided to add onto the building, the main sanctuary and some office space. So we completed that in 1995. By 2000, it became clear we needed to relocate either to Summerlin or to Green Valley, and that was the challenge. We had about thirty percent of our families at that time from Summerlin. I used to say we were equally inconvenient to everybody. But it was clear that our membership kind of peaked