Transcript of interview with Adele Baratz and Florence Frost by Barbara Tabach, May 19, 2015

AN INTERVIEW WITH ADELE BARATZ AND FLORENCE FROST An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach The Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries ii iii ?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 iv 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 v PREFACE In this oral history interview, Adele Baratz and Florence Frost discuss their experiences as members of the Las Vegas Jewish community, particularly as it has evolved and grown over the decades. As active members of the Temple Beth Sholom congregation, the two recall others that made significant contributions to the local Jewish community as well as programs that strengthened Jewish life, including Women?s League, Fifty-five Plus and the Hebrew Day School. In addition, Adele and Florence recall efforts to pressure the Clark County School District to accommodate absences for the High Holidays. Adele (Salton) Baratz was born August 11, 1926, to Russian immigrant parents. The family moved to Las Vegas when Adele was two years old, making her the longest residing Jewish resident in Las Vegas. Adele graduated from Las Vegas High School in 1944, and then attended nursing school at Baltimore?s Sinai Hospital, from which she graduated in 1947. While visiting a friend in Philadelphia, Adele met her husband, and the couple lived there for a few years. When the couple divorced, Adele returned to Las Vegas with her children, and eventually also returned to nursing. She retired from Sunrise Hospital in 1991, after 17 years. Florence (Levine) Frost was born March 24, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York. She married Robert L. Levine in 1949, and the two had three daughters. In 1960, Robert?s work as a decorator brought the couple to Las Vegas. Not long after moving, she joined Temple Beth Sholom, where she worked as an executive secretary for two years. It was at temple, as members of Women?s League, that Florence and Adele met. Florence was a two-term president of the Women's League beginning in 1970; established the Fifty-Five Plus Club for seniors; and served on the congregation's board of directors for many years. Florence?s other leadership roles in the Jewish community include: chair of the Anti-Defamation League committee of B'nai B'rith, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, and president of the Las Vegas chapter of the Brandeis National Committee (2010-2011). vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Adele Baratz and Florence Frost on May 19, 2015 by Barbara Tabach in Las Vegas, Nevada Preface?????????????????????????????????..?..iv Adele recounts family history; parents emigrating from Russia; mother?s activism as a Socialist; parents meeting in New York; father joining the Army, sent to U.S.-Mexican border to fight Pancho Villa. Notes family spat that led to parents moving west. Talks about local Jewish community during childhood; growth of population as a teenager and thus more Jewish activity, starting synagogue, Temple Beth Sholom?????????????????????1-6 Adele discusses brother?s involvement in shaping Jewish community, especially with synagogue. Mentions childhood home; school burning down; mother?s desire for family to assimilate as ?Americans.? Florence talks about decision to move to Las Vegas; husband?s career as furniture decorator; culture shocks of move from Brooklyn to city; nascent Jewish community; efforts to maintain kosher??????????????????????????????...7-12 Florence talks about first job in city, at Temple Beth Sholom. Both recall those involved with starting temple gift shop. Share story of how they met, at Women?s League. Recollect other women involved with Women?s League; goals and activities of Women?s League during 1970s. Adele mentions an executive director throwing away temple historical documents. Both mention previous temple presidents; the development of Fifty-five Plus senior group??????.13-19 Discuss the development of temple?s education program; creation of Hebrew Day School; Schechter School; efforts to get public schools to accommodate absences for High Holidays. Talk about changing of the guard within Jewish community. Lists active members of Jewish community during 1940s. Describes close-knit nature of Jewish community. Mentions first rabbis. Talk about wall of Women?s League leaders at the temple???????.??????.20-29 Index........................................................................................................................................30-31 vii viii 1 This is Barbara Tabach. It is May 19, 2015. I'm sitting with Adele Baratz in her home in Las Vegas. Adele, tell me your birth date. August 11, 1926. And you came to Las Vegas at the tender age of...? At the tender age of two. Two. That would have been 1928. Yes. So that makes you the longest residing Jewish resident of Las Vegas. Yes, the longest one that stayed here, never moved anyplace. That's pretty amazing, on any scale, that somebody came to Vegas at that time and never lived anywhere else. Before we talk about more recent history, I'd like you to tell me what you know about your family ancestry. Both of my parents came from Russia, which is now Belarus; then it was called White Russia. I don't know too much about my father's history in Europe. I know that the reason my mother came?she came to this country at the age of about thirteen or fourteen. She came with another cousin that was maybe the same age, a little older. She used to tell me her father had something to do with stones, and at the time, he worked for the czar. He did pretty well. Her father was very upset with her; she used to go to meetings of the Socialists. So he said he had to get her out of the country. That's why he sent her to America. She had, I think, two brothers and a sister that were already here, so it made it easier for her. Where did he send her? New York was where the family came from. I don't quite know the name of the ship that she came 2 over on. I do know she came over on steerage. I think it's Breman or something like that. She came in through Ellis Island. I went to Ellis Island; it's been a long time because it was when my son still lived in New York. My parents? names were there. What were their names? My mother's name was Rebecca Lieboff, and my father's name was Alexander Salton. Do you know how they met? Yes, I know for a fact. My mother went over to New Jersey. She had a friend that had gone to Russia, got caught in the First World War and she had to stay there. She had heard that she came back already so my mother went over there to find her. I guess it was her future mother-in-law said, "Well, she's over there. But you go over there. You might find her." In the meantime, there were all these boys that came over. And one of the boys was my father and that's how they met. So they were teenagers? They were in their twenties. That's how they met and then the whole courtship and stuff like that. When my mother came to this country, she still was a Socialist. At one time they caught her out of the country to go to Canada with her sister because she was terrible. She also worked for the unionization of the garment workers. So she was an activist. Yes. Was your dad the same way? No, he wasn't like that. She hadn't met my father when she did all of this stuff. My father got his citizenship because...that's another story I'll tell you. My mother studied to get hers. The first thing she did in this country was to go to night school to be able to speak English and to get her 3 citizenship; that was very important to her. My father was in the First World War. It's an interesting story how he got into that. When he was young he ran away from home. He was on the train selling newspapers. [Doorbell ringing] Oh, I think that's Florence. [Pause in recording] So finishing with your father. He decided to join the Army. He wasn't old enough, but he joined the Army anyhow. He lied about his age. They sent him to the Mexican border with General Pershing to fight Pancho Villa. While they were down there, what did these guys have to do? They went to fortunetellers. There was nothing for them to do. A fortuneteller told him that at one time he would make a lot of money in raw land, not in land with buildings on it, with raw land. So when he came to Las Vegas, there was nothing but raw land here. [Laughing] When the First World War broke out, he went over with General Pershing in the First Division. He was over there till the war ended. After the war ended he remained there for a while because he was with General Pershing's Honor Guard. He then came back to the United States and they gave him his citizenship. The reason we came out west was because he had a fight with his family. He said, "I'm going to go away. You'll never see me again." They got ahold of my mother, "Can't you do anything?" She said, "No. If he wants to go, I'll go with him wherever he wants to go." At that time I was only six months old. She took the train trip across the United States. We went to Long Beach first. Within a year or so, they moved to Las Vegas when they signed the bill to build the dam. What kind of family did he have an argument with? 4 It was over an insurance policy. He was a painter and he wanted to go to Trenton and open up a paint store. They got mad because he wanted the money. You always fight over money. So he just said I'm going to go for opportunity elsewhere. That's right. That's how he got here. That's right. Joining us is Florence Frost. So Florence, what year did you come to Las Vegas? Nineteen sixty. So a few years' difference. Oh, yes. I'm a new-comer. Relatively speaking only. Fill in the gap, before you met Florence of what was the Jewish community like? When did you know you were Jewish or how did you know you were Jewish? I knew that I was Jewish. I knew that I was different. My mother tried to keep us home during the Jewish holidays, but my brother and I did nothing but fight, so she said, "You're going to go." I had a very good friend that lived across the street from us. She had a birthday and they invited me to come to the party. They started talking about something with religion. They went around; this one, "I don't want to be this and I don't want to be that." Somebody mentioned Jewish and they said, "I don't want to be that." I got so upset I started to cry because I was quite young at the time, and that was when it really hit me that I was Jewish. But up until then I never had any problems. After that, up until the eighth grade, things started to change because there weren't any Jewish people my age. I had a lot of gentile friends. The whole thing changed. We had a group; 5 we called it Momma's Club and there were nine or ten of us and we used to do a lot of things around school and everything. So then I was okay. It was just that first shock. Were there any other Jewish children here back when you were in school, in the thirties and forties? In the thirties, I don't recall. I was young. There weren't that many Jewish people here. I'm trying to think when the Saltzmans came because they had two young daughters. Then the Levys. By then I was settled in with all of my gentile friends. I knew them, but it wasn't a close friendship. I had a closer friendship with my gentile friends than with my Jewish friends. It was kind of hard for me at Christmastime, because they were, ?come over and see my Christmas tree? and ?come over do this and come over to do that,? and I didn't have a Christmas tree to show them. So you celebrated your religion with your family? I celebrated as much as I could because they really didn't celebrate that much. As soon as the Jewish population started, then it was another story. I remember when I was in high school they used to meet in the Elks Hall. Was it the Elks Hall? I can't remember. I think there was a group called Sons and Daughters of Israel and they used to meet there. At Purim time they met and I was Queen Esther. [Laughing] It's so many years back. What year would that have been? I would have been probably in high school by then. So by the time you're in high school there's a sense of population. Yes. The population increased and then the few Jewish people that were here started to try and get a synagogue together. There were really more than a few Jewish people. When Nellis was here, the Las Vegas Gunnery School, there were a lot of Jewish boys then. There was a certain amount of involvement there. After the war they remained on and a lot of them remained in Las Vegas 6 once they were discharged from the Air Force. What do either of you know about the formation of Temple Beth Sholom? What led up to that? What led up to that was the fact that they wanted a synagogue. The first one was over on Carson Street. I don't know if they showed that to you in the tour. It was a little building. They felt a need to have a synagogue because there were a lot of Jewish families. How that got started really was they talked about doing it and then Nate Mack, the Mack brothers, went around and got pledges. They got the pledges from everybody. I think it was five hundred dollars, a pledge from everybody. As soon as the building was built, they tore up the mortgage because the pledges paid for everything. Wow. That's really how it got started. As the town grew then they went over to Oakey. So you went through this period?as the city grew and now you have a congregation, a place to meet and you have a rabbi. Did this change how you related to your Jewishness? Of course, it changed because there were Jewish people here. So naturally, it changed. It had to change. But at the same time, being Jewish didn't separate you from the gentile friends and all of that. No. By that time I was older and stuff like that happened. But I still kept in contact with them. I had one friend that I was friendly with for many, many years. I don't know what happened. Before there was a temple here, she was a Christian Scientist. So I had a visitor's card that I could go to the Christian Science Church any time I wanted because I used to go there with my friend and their parents were very active in Christian Science. They probably got Christian Science 7 going in Las Vegas. I used to go there quite frequently. How about your brother? He was a little bit older than you, right? Yes. How active was he in the Jewish story? When they first started everything, he was very active. In fact, he was on the temple board. If anybody came to town and they needed help or assistance and they came to the temple, he was the one that made the decision whether to give them money or not, and stuff like that. He was really quite active in the Jewish community. Everybody knew him. He even taught Sunday school. They used to laugh; he always came with a lot of candy?in order to get the kids to be quiet, he said he had to learn the stuff the week before so he knew what to talk about. [Laughing] Did he or you have bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah? No. They didn't have anything like that here when we were teenagers. And was being kosher part of your...? My mother thought that the first time she had to eat meat that was not kosher she would die. But then she couldn't help herself. She had chickens in the backyard where we lived. Because my father wouldn't kill them, my brother wouldn't kill them, so she got somebody like the mailman or milkman to kill them. They would kill them and she would get a chicken and she would give them a chicken for killing them. But by the fact that she raised them they were kosher. Well...you might say that. [Laughing] Eventually, she started to eat meat and stuff like that because she'd always eaten kosher. Are there any special stories that you tell people about growing up during those early years, between arriving here in high school, that you'd like to share today? 8 Not too much. This group the Momma's Girls?and we had one girl who was momma. Oh, really? Yes. Sometimes we'd put on plays and stuff like that. It was fun. We did the Wizard of Oz and I was the lion. We drove by...I believe they pointed out the house that you grew up in. On Oakey. On Oakey, right. When we came to Las Vegas I lived in a house on North Ninth Street. It was a small, little house. It had two bedrooms and a family of four lived in one and a family of four, my family, lived in the other bedroom. That was how bad times were then. My mother used to cook a dinner, a hot dinner, in the evening for the few Jewish men that were here. Then she would sew for some of the women that were here because my mother was a dress designer in New York. She would go and look at a blouse in the window, an expensive one, and she would come back and sketch it. Then she'd give it to the sample makers and they would make the blouse. Wow. What wonderful a talent. Yes, she was very talented. But it's little things like that. I remember also when the school burned down. The Fifth Street? Yes, the Fifth Street School burned down and everybody came running to my mother, "Are your kids home?" We were home already. Now, my brother had to go to school in the tents. They had the wood on the bottom and canvas on the top. My brother had to go to school then. They used to let the kids bring water to keep under their desks. I was lucky because my grade got to be in the old school because the tents were very hot, especially in the summertime. I felt sorry for 9 everybody that had to go to school in those things. Was there any Jewish education for you as children? No. The only education that I would have would be from my parents and they didn't do too much. I'll tell you what the problem was. They wanted to become very Americanized. It wasn't that they didn't want to have anything to do with being Jewish; it was just that this was their country now and this is what they wanted to do and what they wanted to be. I used to beg my mother to speak Russian so I could learn it, but she wouldn't do it. She didn't want to have an accent and she felt she did. But the friends that she had said, "No, you do not have it; you don't have an accent." That was just the way that she was. Even with all those socialist things. [Laughing] Some of the leaders that helped form Temple Beth Sholom...You mentioned Nate Mack. Who were some of the other young leaders at that time that you can recall? That would have been around 1945. Yes. That's when it was started. They came a little later, but the Saltzmans. Sarah started the Women's League, which is the Sisterhood, because we didn't have anything like that. I just can't remember. That's a ways back. At one time you and I were talking and you mentioned you had a story about meeting Art Marshall. Was that later? You mean when we met them? Yes. My brother was at the synagogue because he spent a lot of time there. The Saltzmans came. That was before Jaynie married Art. The Saltzmans came and Sarah went up to my brother and said, "What are you doing here?" As much as to say, why are you here? You're not Jewish. So my brother turned around and said to her, "You know, my four rabbi relatives wouldn't like you saying 10 that to me." [Laughing] I see. Yes, you don't know until somebody thinks that I am Jewish, right. That's right. Because blond hair, blue eyes. That's different. The blue eyes come from White Russia. That's where I get the blond hair and blue eyes. I'm accustomed to that because my father-in-law had actually reddish blond hair and blue eyes and his brother did, too. Let's bring Florence into the conversation. So Florence, you came in 1960? Sixty. What brought you to Las Vegas at that time? My two older daughters were asthmatic and at that time you went to Arizona. Everybody coughed in Arizona. So the doctors said, "You should take them out of New York." It was too cold. It was a whole series of illnesses. My husband drove cross-country and said he would go to Arizona to see if he can find a job. He always wanted to see Las Vegas. So he came through on a Friday night and went to a hotel. They told him they had just built the temple on Oakey and they were just finishing putting the sod in and the classrooms, et cetera. He went to services and afterwards went to the Oneg Shabbat; he sat down and these men said, "Come sit with us. What brings you here?" They chatted. He told them he was leaving the next morning to go to Arizona. My husband was a furniture decorator, but at that time he would take anything. They said, "Don't go; stay here with us; we need you; we'll get you a job tomorrow." Sure enough. He fell in love with Las Vegas. He said it was like Zane Grey, the mountains and the Indians were coming over the mountains. Who did he go to work for at that time? He went to work for Sid Sheppard. Sid had opened up a new?in fact, it was the first?furniture store on Main Street. Right? 11 Yes, probably. There was nothing before that. The housing industry was starting to boom. Sid said, "Whatever you want if you stay." There were no furniture people here. So he called me up and said he fell in love with Las Vegas. He said, "They'll give me anything. They'll give us anything we want if I stay. But I can't come back because if I leave, I'll never come back." That was the condition that he stay. He said, "You'll have to close up the house..." Et cetera. That's what I did. I came in July 1960. He came in May, I think, of 1960. He loved Las Vegas. Had you been to Vegas before? Never. Never left Brooklyn. Had no idea. At that time McCarran...the planes came down on the tarmac, on the dirt. I think McCarran was already built because before that they used to land at a place on Las Vegas Boulevard. That's where I landed, on Las Vegas Boulevard. You got off the plane and walked on the dirt. It didn't come into a hangar or anything. The plane came down, you got off and you were walking. There was a little place where you got your tickets and there was a little restaurant. Probably like an oversized hut. Yes, a little bit like that. Maybe a little fancier. Maybe your husband decorated. I don't know. [Laughing] And so we were here. That had to be shocking coming from New York. Shocking because we had a kosher home. I came with seven towels and four sets of dishes. It was a cultural shock. In fact, my youngest daughter was in a day school in a yeshiva. When we got off the plane, Holly was four at the time. My husband said, "We'll go to the Sands. We'll have lunch 12 and they have all kinds of ice creams." She said to me, "Ma, do they have a milchik du kukh lefl. A what? A dairy spoon. Oh. [Laughing] Do they have a dairy spoon? So that was our entree into Las Vegas. We lived also on Ninth Street, but everybody lived around the downtown area. We lived in a luxury high-rise and walked into this house. We lived there a couple of months and then moved to Oakey Boulevard. Then we bought the Huntridge house, a two-bedroom with a square bath. We lived on Oakey Boulevard for about a year and then moved up to Rancho. So even though there wasn't really a Jewish ghetto or neighborhood a lot of people located in the downtown area around where the synagogue was. Everybody lived there. You remember, right? On Oakey, there were a lot of Jewish people, but it wasn't a ghetto because there were a lot of gentile people that also lived there. There was none of that, was there? I can remember when I was in the gift shop, people used to come in and ask me?from out of town?"Where is the Jewish neighborhood?" I said, "There's no such thing as a Jewish neighborhood. Jewish people live just all over the city." Was it surprising that there wasn't a Jewish neighborhood per se? Do you recall that? I don't even remember thinking about that. It was so foreign to me. I never thought about a Jewish area. It was just a matter of surviving. So how did you survive? What did you do? We went through the transition of looking for Jewish butchers. We bought meat from Denver and 13 then from Arizona. We bought meat from California. I got a job. My first job was at the temple. When we first came I was the executive director at the temple. So it was a very easy transition for me because I was in the temple. I got to meet everybody at that time. Sarah was in the gift shop. Was she president then? Of the Women's League? I don't think so because Sarah was the first president. Sarah was in the kitchen all the time with Bess Schwartz. Yes. Etta Hormel. Was it Bess Messing? What's her name? Jean Messing was involved in a lot of things, but I don't think she was necessarily involved in the gift shop. I think Jean Messing, Sarah, Gertrude Rudiak and a few of them got together because there was no place where you could buy Jewish articles, like candlesticks, Hanukkah menorahs and stuff like that. They got together and they formed a little gift shop, but it was just a counter. That was the birth of the gift shop. That's right. We have to make sure we have that photograph. So then how did you two meet? How did your friendship get formed? At the temple. Yes, we met at the temple. Sarah called me up one day and said, "I would like you to be our recording secretary for the Women's League." I said, "Well, I don't know about that." I had the kids and everything. I think I was looking for a job, too, at the time. So I became her recording secretary, and she was president. I was president in 1970. It was different from what it was. By the time you became president, Women's League was entirely different from what it was when you became president. It became more modernized. It 14 was going well with the people that were here early, like the people that I mentioned, Jeanie Messing and people like that. I think Edythe Katz was there. Yes, Edythe at that time took over the gift shop from Sarah. In '70, we had all those hotel women, remember? Oh, yes. The hotel women? Yes, the wives of the hotel. Like who? Weinberger. Billy Weinberger, Jeanie Weinberger. Yes, Jeanie Weinberger. Jeanie Weinberger, Elaine Wynn, Susie Molasky and all these women were on the board. Fran Cohen. Kay Wallerstein. I'm trying to think of who was on the board. There was Sallie Gordon, but she was the second president of the Women's League, or it was called the Sisterhood then. And Gertrude Rudiak. Yes, the Rudiaks came when he was stationed here at Nellis. When did it change from the Women's League to the Sisterhood? Well, it was the Sisterhood, then it changed. That was just a few years ago. Okay. That's recently. At that time, national Women's League wanted all the Sisterhoods to become Women's League. 15 We were the few [in the area] that did become Women's League; the rest of them remained as Sisterhood within this region, which is California and Arizona, [and maybe New Mexico and Utah]. Women?s League thought they could get more, younger women in if it had that name rather than the name Sisterhood. It sounded more modern. That's right. It sounded a little more official. What were the activities and fundraisers that you did? What was the goal of Women's League? We had the gin rummy tournament, which made them a lot of money. Tell me about that. Max Goot started the gin rummy tournament and that brought in a lot of money. Then they sold it; the hotels took it. Yes, I don't think the hotels liked it. The hotels paid off our mortgage. They paid off the Oakey Boulevard in trade; they traded. I want to make sure I understand this right. So the gin rummy game or event or the business went to the casinos? No. It started as an ordinary fundraiser, as an activity for the temple. But over the years it grew to such proportion?and they worked with the hotels because it was the hotel people that were involved. I think one of the reasons that they bought it was because they weren't too happy because this was a gambling thing and it was interfering with their [business]. Right. So that was the trade-off. But Women's League, we did fashion shows in the hotels. They would let us sit in the hotels to sell tickets. They would give us a table. We would sit in the hotel. 16 Yes, we'd take turns. Billy Weinberger would give us the lunch; he paid. What did we charge? We charged maybe twenty dollars. Do you think it was that much, even? Maybe it was fifteen. I really can't remember, but it was very nominal. Right. Then we made the money on the raffles. Today you don't make that much money on raffles. Of course, sitting in the hotels, we sold them to out-of-town people. I can't imagine. It's like Girl Scout cookie table set up in front of the grocery store. But you were selling raffle tickets to your synagogue. In the hotels. Right. Adele and I were in the lobbies selling tickets, with the kids. Yes. We were the committee. Our kids were in USY, and the USY was not doing too well at the time. So a group of the kids took it over and they really made it go. Do you remember who was among those kids? My son and her daughter. So your son's name is? Alan. Alan Baratz. And your daughter is? Holly Frost. We were the Youth Commission; that's the word I was looking for. She and I were the Youth Commission and we were [ensure] that they had money. For Purim, remember they 17 would have a carnival. They built all the booths and they restored it at the temple. Then what's his name, when he was cleaning up things, he got rid of the booth because he didn't think they were anything. This guy that was doing it really didn't know anything of the history of the temple. I remember he was throwing out some of the bank statements and stuff like that. I got after him, I said, "You can't throw that stuff away. That's history. You've got the names and stuff like that of people that have been here forever." I had a list of people who had been here forever that my brother and Sallie Gordon worked on and I put it away and I don't know... You stored it so you can't find it. Yes, I stored it so well I can't find it. [Laughing] Well, when you find it, share it. Because, you're right, throwing away history is just a shame. You have great memories of these people that got together and made it happen. Then they hired an executive director. This was when I was in the gift shop and I could see what she was doing. She was throwing stuff away, emptying all the cabinets and stuff like that. Sandy Mallin was the one that had gotten her hired. One day I said to Sandy, "You know, you better watch her; she's throwing away everything." That's when Sandy realized that she was not the person. [Laughing] Yes, I think Sandy has shared that there are some missing pieces that she wishes hadn't been tossed away. Yes. That was what happened there. Fortunately that was stopped so that you do have a lot of good things. So what are some of the other accomplishments that you both recall, the growth of 18 Temple Beth Sholom? Some of the leaders? Do some name dropping here. Who were some of the presidents that you worked with? Danny Goldfarb. I was president of the Girl Scouts here in Las Vegas and Danny Goldfarb was on the board, and I think he was also president of the temple because they said that he was very good with children and doing things like that. So he was on the board of the Girl Scouts