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I agree.In this clip, Adele Baratz and Florence Frost discuss growing up in Las Vegas, the absence of a concentrated neighborhood of Jewish families, and the establishment of the Temple Beth Sholom gift shop for selling Jewish goods like candles and menorahs.
Adele Baratz and Florence Frost oral history interview, 2015 May 19. OH-02420. [Audio recording]. Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/d1ns0ph8j
English
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 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.