Why Frank Sinatra donated to CNT and more stories...

What happens when you ask a group of high school students to let you watch as they look at your website? You watch to see if they are interested enough to explore the vast amount of information that you have saved to the site. You wonder if their curious nature will inspire them to dig deeper into the site. Or will they jump to their Twitter or Instagram pages?  

We got a chance to find out this past weekend when we met with Pam Poster’s class at Congregation Ner Tamid. For about an hour her class of high school students perused this site for biographies for recognizable names, found their rabbi including a photo where he was much younger (they chuckled), and soon they were learning about their Jewish community and the general history of Las Vegas. They shared their discoveries and appeared genuinely intrigued.

Among their findings was that Frank Sinatra, a non-Jew and famous singer, once donated money to Ner Tamid. How did that come to happen, they wondered. Hopefully they continued their experience with this site when they went home. Maybe they shared it with their families.

From our site development perspective, Cory Lampert, Head of Digital Collections, and I found the hour well-spent. We’d both welcome additional opportunities to interact with groups of curious minds. Contact me at Barbara.tabach@unlv to learn more.