Transcript of interview with Flora Mason by Barbara Tabach, December 8, 2014

i AN INTERVIEW WITH FLORA MASON 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, Amanda Hammar 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 Flora Mason (1940- ) is a Las Vegas, Nevada philanthropist and community leader. She was born Florica Esformes to a Sephardic Jewish parents who emigrated from Greece to New York. This Mediterranean influence can be seen in the meals she serves for the Jewish holidays. Flora?s grandfather had a pushcart business in New York and her father became a produce broker, which led the family to Miami, Florida. She graduated from high school in Miami and also met Stuart Mason there. The young couple married in 1958. They had been married for 58 years when Stuart passed away in 2012. In this oral history, Flora recalls her life?from witnessing signage that read: no blacks, no dogs, no Jews in the South to meeting her husband while a teenager to raising her three children in Las Vegas. Along the way, she has always found time to form fast friendships and to inspire productive community organizations. v For example, Flora and Stuart founded the Las Vegas Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation in 1970. It was a disease that their daughter Deborah had suffered from. They also established the Mason Undergraduate Peer Coach Program at University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries in 2006. Flora was the first woman elected by the general membership to serve on the Temple Beth Sholom Board of Directors. She has served on the National Board of Directors of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, been involved with the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, the Anti-Defamation League among many other Jewish and non-Jewish community organizations. Flora?s college education began at the University of Miami and focused on completing both her undergraduate and graduate degrees at UNLV, where she majored in English literature. She then became a lecturer in the UNLV English department from 1985 to 1993. Flora and Stuart Mason had three children: sons William and James who joined the family?s successful three-generation commercial construction business Taylor International, and daughter Deborah. In this oral history, Flora shares the joy of being a grandparent, her love of travel, and the opportunities of meeting Israeli dignitaries over the years. She also candidly reflects on dealing with grief and the Jewish rituals surrounding death. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Flora Mason December 8, 2014 & January 17, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface??????????????????????????..????????..iv Family ancestry discussed: Sephardic Jews traced back to Ottoman Empire; parents [Dora (nee Yacar) and Jacob Esformes] both born in Greece and raised in New York, family had heavy Mediterranean influences, synagogue used both Hebrew and Ladino words. Talks about when Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews inter-marry; Flora?s husband Stuart Mason. Her childhood in New York City; grandfather had a pushcart business on Lower East Side and how this evolved into her father?s produce business and living in Miami, Florida; family memories of anti-Semitism; graduated high school in Miami; met Stuart Mason and was married in 1958??????. 1 ? 6 Started family; decision to temporarily move to Las Vegas in 1965; Stuart?s father Morry was a hotel builder in Miami and was approached to build Caesars Palace. Talks about Las Vegas of the mid-1960s, their house, finding Temple Beth Sholom, people she met, playing Mahjong and making friends, uniqueness of the membership, and feeling of being Jewish; growth of Jewish population and new synagogue opened?????????????????????.7 ? 13 Recalls getting involved in Jewish Federation/Combined Jewish Appeal; Jeannie and Billy Weinberger, Edythe Katz; Sisterhood and Women?s Division of Jewish Federation and activities; Diabetes Foundation; Israel Bonds, Hank Greenspun and Zionism; mentions Sara and Abe Saltzman; Jayne and Art Marshall. Access to kosher foods, Sam the Butcher, Faye Steinberg. Talks about shopping and fashion options of the 1960s and 70s; Izzy Marion.???????.13 ? 17 Talks about raising children in Las Vegas, good schools and activities; felt family growing up in California and south Florida were more worldly. Describes making a home on the desert, house hunting, grief of her daughter Deborah?s death in a car accident and joy of sons Bill and Jim taking over Taylor Construction, the family business; bar mitzvahs of sons????????...17 ? 20 Discusses decision-making process of what neighborhood to live in; move to Summerlin; mentions Lynn and Arne Rosencrantz; having a close view of growth and building due to Stuart being in vii construction business; Caesars Palace story; homesteaders in desert; Bill Peccole and Peccole Ranch development. Bust in the economy; mentions early Jewish leaders and friends. Talks about Jewish Center Social Club, picnic at Mount Charleston; reminisces over an assortment of photos such as Stuart at the first MGM hotel, which he built and mentions Kirk Kerkorian and International (Hilton), Sheldon Adelson and Venetian/Palazzo hotels and Stuart?s love of large property construction projects; three generations of Masons worked together on the projects; the city?s reputation of being a ?handshake city???????????????????.21 ? 25 Talks about going back to finish her college degree; worked for Clark County Library where she started a volunteer program; mentions Charles Hunsberger (library director) who encouraged her to seek her degree. Attended UNLV for undergraduate and graduate degrees in English literature; taught at UNLV from 1985 ? 1993. Several years later, with encouragement from Arne and Lynn Rosencrantz became involved with UNLV?s library board; discussion with Dean Patty Iannuzzi to begin the Peer Coaches Program at the library????????????????..26 ? 29 Explains family involvement with American Diabetes Association and Juvenile Diabetes Foundation; after her daughter Deborah was diagnosed at age eleven, she and Stuart started a local chapter; ran a large Sugar Daddy Tennis Tournament, mentions Andre Agassi, Nevada Diabetes Seminar for doctors, son Jim is currently president of Diabetes Foundation. Volunteers with Temple Beth Sholom?s L?Dor V?Dor program??.???????????????29 ? 31 Smith Center and other aspects of Las Vegas growth that impress her. More photos include her and Stuart with Israeli Ambassador Shimon Peres in 1981 at Art and Jayne Marshall?s home; Simcha Dinitz, Joyce Mack, wedding vow renewal event in 2008. Mentions Ruth Goldfarb, Shelley Berkley, Freed?s Bakery, family Seders, baby naming and bris for twin children of son Bill and wife Sarah. Couples poker group included: Mimi and Dave Gordon, Ruth and Danny Goldfarb, Mimi and George Katz, Florence and George Pollak???????????32 ? 38 Talks about traveling, especially after Stuart was diagnosed with lung cancer, Africa, Israel. Passover Seders grew in numbers over the years, her haroset recipe and other traditional foods for a Sephardic menu. Recalls an article written by Muriel Stevens about Flora as ?Bride Learns to Cook from Scratch.? On being a grandmother?????????????????.39 ? 42 viii SESSION 2 Discussion of ritual around death and dying; daughter?s closeness with Cantor Joe Kohn; Debbie?s poetry and its biblical references; Stuart and she consoling each other in Temple Beth Sholom?s sanctuary and finding peace with Rita Abbey?s stained glass art. Sitting Shiva with friends; challenge of grief and how varies for each individual, surviving the loss of child. Helpfulness of Leo Wilner?s explanation of Jewish customs relating to death. Dealing with Stuart?s passing, hospice are at home???????????????????????????..42 ? 47 Describes Stuart?s personality, adventurous, protective. Story of going on family river trip while on crutches. Mount Charleston skiing story when she broke her leg; leather carpenter?s apron from Stuart. More recollections of returning to college at age 40; Dr. Mark Weinstein; professor Leon Coburn; Southern Nevada Writing Project. Talks about UNLV Library Advisory Board; mentions Marta Sorkin, how libraries have changed and her pet project, Peer Coaches goals and scholarship program. Details about L?Dor V?Dor program at Temple Beth Sholom; dream to start Jewish home for the aged with Ruth Goldfarb, Greenspun family, Rabbi Felipe Goodman, Melanie Greenberg???????????????????????????????...48 ? 58 Thoughts about what would have happened if they had never moved from Miami; retiring from UNLV when mother needed more care. Reflections on raising children in Las Vegas; they remain integral to the community; what it was like to be young in Las Vegas, shows and restaurants they enjoyed; when and why she quit using Anderson Dairy products and the number of people she knows that have died of cancer here?????????????????????...59 ? 64 Appendix of photos???????????????????????...????65 ? 76 1 SESSION 1 Today is December 8, 2014. This is Barbara Tabach and I am sitting with Flora Mason. Flora, if you would just spell your name for us that would be great. Flora Mason; F-L-O-R-A, M-A-S-O-N. Let's start with your ancestry, whatever you can tell me about your maternal and paternal sides of the family. How far back can you go? Well, a couple of generations. My mother and father were both born in Salonica, Greece. In Greek it's Thessaloniki. It is in the northern part of Greece. It is a very large port. My parents? ancestors came from Spain. They are Sephardic Jews. They left Spain at the time of the Inquisition when they were expelled in 1492. The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Thessaloniki, Salonica, at the time was very welcoming to the Jews. But we believe that the family spent a lot of time on the way to Greece sojourning in Italy?for quite a while. Much of the cooking that my family did was very Italian and the word that we used for grandmother is an Italian word nonna, and I never realized it. For some reason I thought it was Greek. Well, it's far from the Greek name for grandmother. So my grandmothers were both Nonnas to me and I am Nonna to my grandchildren. I think the first time I realized it was when I saw a cookbook and the title of it was From Nonna's Kitchen. I opened it up and it was an Italian cookbook. So I realized that our family nonnas had their origin in Italy. Anyhow, that's where they were from. My parents were both born in Salonica. My mother was four years old when she came to this country, to America, and my father was seven. They did not have memories of Salonica. They did go back as adults and see it after the Second World War. Our heritage is very Spanish, very Greek, very Turkish, and Jewish, of course. 2 That's interesting. Well, how did they meet? Did they meet at that young age or grow up together? No. Well, in a way, they grew up together. The Sephardic community in New York?because that's where they went. They went to New York?the Sephardic community was very, very close-knit. They went to different schools. Both of them quit school in eighth grade, at the end of eighth grade, because they had to work to support their families. But as teenagers they went together. They had very large and very fun-filled Sephardic Jewish youth groups, where they met. They were married. My mother was nineteen; my dad was twenty-two. Was it customary that Sephardic Jews would hang out with other Sephardic Jews? Absolutely. They married Sephardics. When they didn't marry Sephardics, even if they married a Jewish person but not Sephardic, it was occasion for gnashing of teeth. The families were not happy. And the foods were so different. Everything was so different. In synagogue it was Hebrew and Ladino, which is the ancient Spanish. Ladino is the Spanish that was spoken in 1492 with some Hebrew words thrown in. Ladino is a language of its own and unfortunately becoming extinct because not too many people speak it anymore. I speak it with my cousins and ran into a guide in Toledo, Spain, who studied it and was excited to speak Ladino with me. So the Sephardic community, does that still exist with such a unity? Well, it still exists, and it's still very strong, but does not shut out others. My husband, Stuart, was an Ashkenazic Jew, not Sephardic, but my grandparents loved him. They absolutely loved him. So they had softened quite a bit. So he got a pass, huh? He got a pass, yes, he did. 3 Now, did you grow up with other siblings? Yes. I have two older brothers. Did they get as easy a pass? No. [Laughing] Because the conventional wisdom was that Ashkenazic women did not make good wives. Ashkenazic men made very good husbands. This is what my grandmother said. So, yes, my husband got a pass. My brothers' wives were welcomed carefully by my grandmother. My mother and father were entirely different. So aside from the Sephardic aspect of growing up Jewish in New York, you said? Yes. New York and Miami Beach. Tell me about your childhood. Give me an overview of that. I had a wonderful childhood, but it had its challenges. My father was in the produce business. He started out, well, he started out...my grandfather had a pushcart and sold fruits and vegetables and eggs in a pushcart on the Lower East Side. He had started working in a factory when he first came to America and then had Spanish Influenza. When he survived, the doctor said he couldn't work indoors anymore. He had not worked indoors, of course, in Greece; he did his trading or whatever. Anyhow, he got a pushcart. When my father quit school?well, before that he would help my grandfather on the pushcart. Then when he quit school he went to work for Postal Telegraph, which was the predecessor to Western Union, and became the youngest manager that they had. One day, the man who owned Postal Telegraph called him in and said, ?Jack, you're doing a great job, but I have to tell you that you're not going to ever be able to go any further in this company because you're Jewish.? He said, ?You're a young man. You're smart. Go somewhere else.? My father ended up not wanting to do the pushcart, but he knew the business and he 4 knew produce. So, he started a repacking plant where he would buy produce, pack it up, and sell it to stores. After the Second World War he started buying produce down in Florida. He would go down for a month or two at a time. Then my mother would go with him part of the time. They just gradually spent more and more time down there. We children would go, also. I would start school every year in New York, move to Florida with all the assignments from the New York school, go to school down there, come back to New York, [and] finish the year in New York. So I had a split?not a split personality?but a split education, moving back and forth between New York and Miami Beach. And it wasn't until the last two, three years of my high school that I spent a whole year down in Miami Beach; yet, I always thought of myself as living in Miami Beach. Oh, really? Yes, oh yes. I loved the schools down there. Some people have told me stories about Miami Beach being anti-Semitic at one time. Oh, definitely. Definitely. I mean this was a city that was 85 or 90 percent Jewish. Yet it had these enclaves. There were islands where no Jews were allowed. There was a tennis club where no Jews were allowed. There were hotels where no Jews were allowed in the forties and fifties, even. There was a country club maybe half a mile from my house, La Gorce Country Club?no Jews allowed. In the forties there were signs; no blacks, no dogs, no Jews. When you look back at that how do you reflect on that? Bizarre. I think it's bizarre that it was within my lifetime that that was happening. I remember there were water fountains for coloreds, for whites; bathrooms for coloreds, for whites. And living part of the year in New York I could see that there was something very, very weird about this. I didn't fight it. I was a kid. But I knew there was something. It was wrong. It was wrong. 5 Yes, it was bizarre. And I do remember a friend of mine, who was married very shortly before I was. Maybe eight years later, she and her husband wanted to buy a house on one of these islands that had been ?no Jews allowed.? It was very important to her to do it. And I said to her, ?Why do you want to do that? Why do you want to live where they don't want you?? Seems like a really good question. Yes. And I never could understand. Her answer was, ?Well, we like the house,? or something like that, which did not seem to be an important enough answer to me. There were plenty of other houses available. I think that she felt like she wanted to make a statement. I'm not sure. It was strange. So then you graduate from high school? Miami Beach High School. In Miami Beach, okay. How long did you live in Miami Beach? When did you leave there? Stuart and I were married in '58; that was the year I graduated high school. So you met in high school. He wasn't in high school; he was in college. But you were in high school. Yes. Maybe we need to talk about how you and Stuart met. Well, he was in the same fraternity as my brothers. He was a very good friend with the brother that was only three years older than I. My brother didn't like the boy I was going out with in high school and he said, ?Well, you've got to meet some college boys. Stevie will take you to a fraternity party and you'll meet some boys.? That's what happened. I went to the fraternity 6 party. The guy who took me was someone I had known since I was eight years old. He immediately abandoned me, the younger sister. I saw Stuart there, and he was just a fabulous, wild dancer. I thought, oh, my god, this is a scary place to be; look at this guy dancing. But afterwards we were having coffee, and he came over and asked my brother if he could take me out. Wow. Yes, he was very polite. So this would have been about what year did you say? 1956. Was he doing like rock and roll dancing? Well, no, it wasn't rock and roll. It was more like the Lindy?it was arms and legs were flying all over the place. I've got this image. Yes, he was tall, skinny, and very funny. Then we started dating. Had he already graduated from college? No. No, he hadn't. He was a senior. We thought we would get married after I graduated from graduate school. Then it was when I graduated from undergraduate school. And then he asked my father if we could get married in a couple of years. Long story short, we got married when I was just out of high school. I did go to college for a while after that, but then when we started having children I stayed home. So did you start your family in Miami? Yes. We had three children. Deborah and William and James. Jimmy was born two months before we moved here to Las Vegas. 7 That was what year? 1965. So tell me a little bit about how you made a decision to move to Las Vegas. Well, the economy was terrible in Miami. My husband and his father?his father's company [Taylor International Corp.]?were hotel builders. His father had built most of the hotels on Miami Beach and was very successful. Then with the economy tanking there were no hotels being built. They were approached by Jay Sarno to come out to Las Vegas and build Caesars Palace. It was a job. It sounded good. And we thought we would come out and build Caesars Palace and then go back home to Miami. Well, we came out, built Caesars Palace, and stayed because we liked it. We liked the West. We loved the mountains. And we made a good home here. We've met wonderful people. That sounds so simple. That's like the beginning of real changes in Las Vegas. It was. And in your life. So what was that like the first time you came to Las Vegas? Well, I had been to Las Vegas on vacation and it was fun. I gambled a little bit and went to the shows. It was fun for two days, three days. When we moved here, Stuart had to come out first because I couldn't travel being as pregnant as I was. So he came out at the end of '64 and he rented a house. There were a lot of empty homes. There were thousands of empty homes that had been repossessed by banks because the town was overbuilt. Anyhow, he got a new house around the corner from the elementary school. The kids wouldn't even have to cross the street. He came back to Miami to get me after Jimmy was born. We came in at night. We drove up to the house. It looked nice. It seemed terrific. He had put drapes up and gotten beds. We were going to get furniture. We left our furniture in Miami because we weren't going to stay, 8 right? I woke up the next morning and opened the drapes and burst into tears. There was nothing out the window. Where was this house? It was behind what is now the Boulevard Mall, just east of there. Only one other house on our cul-de-sac was occupied. The rest of them were all empty. There was not a blade of grass, not a tree, not a fence. Nothing. At that moment, my mother called and I answered the phone crying. [Laughing] I had left my house with big trees and greenery everywhere, and now all I had was sand, everywhere. But when you have children, you get adjusted very quickly. What school was nearby? Ruby Thomas Elementary. Debbie wasn't even in school yet. She was four and a half. She would be starting kindergarten in the fall. About four weeks after we moved here, I went to the temple, Temple Beth Sholom because I knew that the first thing you did when you went to a new place is you met other Jewish people. And so I went to the temple. From then on we met all kinds of people. Do you remember some of the first people that you met? Yes, I do. Tell me stories about that. Well, when I went to the temple it was?let's see. We moved in April, so it was May. It was at the change of tenures. And there was a lady in the foyer, Aileen Hepler, who was the outgoing Sisterhood president. I was standing at the front desk and she said hello and introduced herself. She asked me if I played any cards. I said I knew how to play Mahjong and Canasta. She said, ?Well, there's a Mahjong group that I know and they're looking for a fifth. Would you be interested?? And I said, ?Sure,? never thinking that anyone would call me. I mean, why would 9 they call me? But they did. They did and it was Ruth Goldfarb, Florence Pollock, Mimi Gordon and Sheila Wolff. Sheila is gone. Mimi is gone. But Florence and Ruth are still around, and we're still friends fifty years later. You still play Mahjong? I play once in a while. I play in the afternoon. I don't like having to go out at night. I stopped playing in that group after about ten years when my husband was traveling a lot and I just felt like...when he was home I wanted to be home and it always seemed like that was the night that I was going to be playing Mahjong. It is a big commitment, isn't it? It is. But it was fun and we remained very, very good friends and the couples were friends. So that was good. That's great. So that was the only synagogue here. Yes. And how did that suit your Jewish, religious, spiritual world? You know what? It suited everybody because it had to. There were Orthodox Jews there. I mean Ruth grew up Orthodox. There were Reform, Sephardic. I mean everything was there even people who were Jewish but had never really worked at being Jewish. So it was a real melting pot for a number of years before the Jewish community reached kind of like a critical mass where there were enough people to split off and do different things. As you know, if you have two Jews, you have three synagogues. I hear that all the time. Yes. And that seems true, doesn't it? 10 Yes. Something else: Temple Beth Sholom also was the Jewish Community Center. It was everything. We had a Jewish Center Social Club. That was a lot of fun. A lot of people moved here in those few years, '65 to '70, a lot of the people who became very active in the community, in the greater Las Vegas community not just the Jewish community. There was a group about the same age, almost like a graduating class. We were the freshman class. So there were quite a few. Who was the rabbi at that time and who were the leaders in the synagogue? The rabbi was Rabbi Aaron Gold and Cantor Joseph Kohn. I can't remember who the president was. Art Marshall and Dan Goldfarb and Mel Exber and Nate Adelson were some leaders. Gosh, I can't remember all of them. It was a good group. Irwin Molasky was very instrumental in building the synagogue. Before the one on Oakey and 16th, which is the one that I knew, they had a synagogue down on...I think it was Carson, about Carson and Ninth. I'm not sure. The Greek Orthodox community bought that. That seems appropriate for you. It was very! Some other church bought the temple on Oakey. So it kind of moves around, I guess. Well, a building that is built as a house of worship, it makes sense to go to another congregation. Now it?s a charter school. One thing that was very interesting to me: I came from communities where you didn't have to work at Judaism, either in New York or Miami Beach. It was a given. And so we didn't work at it that hard. But when we came to Las Vegas, we found that if we didn't work at being Jewish, we weren't going to be Jewish. There wasn't a Jewish life that was common. There wasn't a Jewish neighborhood. So I became much more involved with Judaism in Las Vegas than I probably would have in Miami. 11 That's an interesting observation. So it was really interesting. Conversely, it was wonderful that the Jewish community was so integrated with the rest of the community that whenever someone was trying to raise money, whether it was the Mormons or the Catholics or the Protestants or the Jews, everybody helped. Everybody attended or donated. It started with the hotels, all the hotels contributing various religions and helping each other. It was very ecumenical, very ecumenical. The temple had a wonderful preschool. It was renowned in the city. Everyone wanted their kids to go there. Richard Bryan was involved; his kids went there. There were a lot of people from different faiths at the temple preschool. It gave the best education. My best friend on the street was Annie Claude D?Agostino. She's French; her husband Italian. Their kids went to the temple preschool. That's where you got the best preschool education in town. It was very interesting. And how did Temple Beth Sholom evolve? It seems, when I look at the history, there were like a series of rabbis; a lot of turnover. Unfortunately. I don't know. There was a lot of turnover and there was a lot of...there was turmoil, not when I first came, but as the congregation grew and it was really pretty huge. It was I think at one point about eight hundred, eight hundred and fifty families. That's very large. That is large, yes. It's hard to maintain that size. We got to the point where the city was branching out. People were going to the suburbs, if you will, to Green Valley, to...well, Summerlin wasn't built yet, but moving west. And also many more Reform Jewish people, people who wanted a Reform temple moved to Las Vegas. And so there was a split. At first it was not happy. People were upset that they were splitting off. But it worked out great. It worked out great. Some started Orthodox 12 congregations; others started a Sephardic congregation. And then Chabad came. I mean there's room. I don't think...it would be impossible to have an old Temple Beth Sholom. It would be impossible. So everything kind of settled down. But there's a lot of different synagogues now. Yes, there are. It's a little stunning sometimes when you think about how many there are and how many Jews are not affiliated. That's what's stunning. That's what's stunning and very upsetting. When I was very active in Jewish Federation, people would say, ?Well, I was very active in my temple. I helped them do this and I helped them do that. I did it before.? Like, you do it once and that's it; it's like getting an inoculation. I don't know. That's very disturbing. I think there's a little bit less of that now. It seems to me that people are coming and are willing to begin again in their Jewish life here, and I'm glad about that. I'm very glad. I've met people who actually recently said they were not very strong in their affiliation back home?Back East or wherever. But they made a decision that when they moved here that they were going to. That's great. Yes. And for a long time, easily twenty, thirty years, there were people that would come and they would never affiliate. They would never affiliate or do anything. And it was very disturbing, very disturbing because the people that were here were so strong and did so much that I couldn't understand other people coming in and doing nothing. It seemed to be always the same people who had to do everything; now it's not that way, at least from my perspective. What about some of those big names from the Strip that we hear that were of Jewish 13 ancestry and people have...not sure if they were affiliated with the mob or whatever, but it seems like they tried to support the synagogue. Oh, they did. They did. What did they participate in? Well, they did participate. They didn't just give money. I mean they did give money and they did support that way. But they'd come to services. Several of them were very religious. They'd come to Saturday Shabbat services, the more Orthodox service on Shabbat instead of Friday evening. I mean they were very involved, very involved. That's how they grew up and they respected that. So it was pretty easy to have minyan? On Shabbat it was definitely easy to have (a minyan). But a daily minyan did not start until the seventies sometime. It was not easy to get a daily minyan going. I don't think there was the interest in it rabbinically, to be honest with you, and that was something that we began to express to our rabbinical leaders that we wanted. You mentioned the Jewish Federation; that you got involved in that. So tell me about that. I can't remember what year and you will have in your records somewhere. It was Jeannie Weinberger and Edythe Katz and...I can't remember who else. But anyhow, Jeannie Weinberger was very, very active. She was from Cleveland, very active in Cleveland's Jewish community. Her husband was Billy Weinberger at Caesars Palace. They decided that it would be a good thing to have a federation here. It was called Combined Jewish Appeal. And so they started it and then we had a Women's Division and so on. When I say I was very involved, I was not involved to the degree that Jean was or many of the other women 14 because I was very involved with Sisterhood at temple at that time and also involved with the Diabetes Foundation, but that's a whole other story. Israel bonds was very important here even before Federation. Strong support for Israel came from Hank Greenspun and others. Hank was a huge supporter and person active in support of the formation of the state of Israel. His family and several others here in Las Vegas really were big Zionists. So Israel bonds was a big thing. Did people automatically support the state of Israel because they were Jewish? When you're just a person