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Marla Letizia clip 1

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Download jhp000201-001.mp3 (audio/mpeg; 1.81 MB)

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Digital ID

jhp000201-001
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Publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Libraries

How does one become president of a synagogue? You never feel it coming. You have no idea that everybody's looking at you thinking, let's see if maybe she's a good one to put on the track. You don't know that's what they're doing until you become the president yourself and then you start doing that to all these other people. Believe me when I tell you, you don't choose it; it chooses you. I was very active. I was on the board of the Meadows School for eighteen years, which I always laugh and say people don't stay married in Las Vegas for eighteen years let alone be on a board for eighteen years. When my kids graduated I got off the board, in 2002, and I thought, well, what do I want to do with myself? I had started going to synagogue. Tom was in a poker group. They were all Jewish guys and they used to play on Friday nights at someone's house or the other. I thought, well, I could do a lot of things right now. I could go out with other girls, which kind of felt like a waste of time, or I could go shopping or I could...I don't know. Nothing came to mind and I felt that if I were going to be by myself that I just wanted to grow. I didn't want to do something that would just keep me going out with girls for girls' night. What's that? It's okay once in a while. So I started going to synagogue by myself on Friday nights whenever they had poker [night], which they did every other week, I think. Rabbi saw me sitting there I suppose. I said to him when I was getting ready to get off the [Meadows] board, "If you're ever looking for a new board member, I'm leaving Meadows board and I'd love to sit on your board." The next thing I know I was on the board, and the next thing you know I was vice president, and the next thing you know I was the president.