Transcript of roundtable interview with members of Temple Beth Sholom by Barbara Tabach, January 14, 2015

A ROUNDTABLE INTERVIEW WITH MEMBERS OF TEMPLE BETH SHOLOM An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach The Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas i ?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 ii 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 iii This is Barbara Tabach. Today is January 14th, 2015. We are at Temple Beth Sholom. We are doing a round table to discuss the great past stories of this wonderful congregation. Sandy Mallin is going to get us started. SM: Yes, I'm Sandy Mallin. Again, I want to thank everybody for coming. In this room is the history of Temple Beth Sholom, the people here, the mayor, Jared Shafer. There are a lot of past presidents here. We all have good stories and I hope we'll be able to share them with you. I guess, Oscar, we'll start with you. OG: Hi. I'm Oscar Goodman. I am a criminal defense lawyer by profession and practiced actively here for thirty-five years. The members of Beth Sholom who I represented over the years, they paid quickly and enabled me to keep up with the tuition of this institution. After practicing actively I ran for mayor of Las Vegas and served three four-year terms and made American history; the first time in the United States where a mayor swore in his spouse to succeed them. And my wife, Carolyn, is not with us today. She's busy doing work for the city. It's a shame. She wanted to be here. Her schedule is unbelievable. But I look forward to this experience. I look up at the wall there; I've seen many of these people in post offices. JS: My turn? OG: Jerry, go for it. JS: My name is Jared Shafer. My parents brought me here in 1944, November 14th. I've lived here all my life except going away to school, living in a New York for a short while, living in Hawaii for a short while, living in Acapulco for a short while, and I keep coming back. I have been in this temple all my life. I live at the far end of the east side of town and I come all the way across because it's the only thing I know to be honest with you. This temple has berthed three other active temples in this community and at one time this 4 temple was home to every Jew in the valley. I notice from this handout it says, "Non-participating Jews." I don't agree with that. While these guys were a different breed of person, they were Jewish to the core. They knew it. The Italians that they worked with knew it. And there's no doubt in my mind that these are the guys that actually built Las Vegas. JG: You bet. I'm Joel Goot. I was born into this synagogue on September eighth, 1946. My parents moved here in 1943. Other than being away like Jared in the working world for about eighteen or nineteen years in the '80s, I moved back in 1990 and I've been a member of this synagogue all my life. AR: Arne Rosencrantz. I was born in Portland, Oregon, but moved here when I was four years old. My memories go back a long ways to Sunday school, Hebrew school at Temple Beth Sholom. Part of my life and has been since I've been here. It's been a wonderful place for me to practice my Judaism and for my children and it's a great institution. JB1: My name is Jerry Blut. I came to Las Vegas in the latter part of 1966. I joined the temple probably the following year in '67. I raised three sons, who were all bar mitzvahed here. I've been a very active member of the synagogue for these past?I'm trying to add up the math here; thirty-three and fifteen, fourteen, forty-seven?forty-eight years. At one time I practiced in the same law firm with the mayor, but I wised up at an early time and I went out on my own and practiced law from the late '60s through actually the current time; I'm still working. As I said this temple is a very major part of my life and I continue as long as I'm here to make it a major part of my life. JBo: I'm Jackie Boiman. My folks moved here in 1977 and I used to come here and go to Temple Beth Sholom. I lived on Stony Brook, Long Island. And in 1985, I moved out here. My daughter and myself lived here all these years. I worked for Temple Beth Sholom from 1985 to 5 1995 as the youth director and office manager. My daughter was one of the first students to go to the Hebrew Academy. She went there for her whole education except the last two years when they closed. And now I work for Touro University, another Jewish organization. I've been there ten and a half years. I work in the administration. I guess this is really the only synagogue that I ever went to. When I left Temple Beth Sholom, I was on the board of directors of Shaarei Tefilla for four years and then I retired and went to Touro to work. I came out of retirement, so I'm working now. GG: I'm Gene Greenberg. I'm probably...I came here in 1976, so I'm one of the shortest tenured at the table. I came here to work at Channel 3 and spent thirty years at Channel 3. I remember coming into Temple Beth Sholom. I had not even gone into the station yet to tell them I was in town and I found Temple Beth Sholom and walked in to find out about joining and Leo Wilner tried to talk me out of joining. "Why do you want to join here?" But I joined anyway. It's been a very great time here. I raised three children, also, two bat mitzvah and a bar mitzvah and two weddings at Temple Beth Sholom that I'm still recovering from. I was honored to serve as president of Temple Beth Sholom for three years. I had more hair at that time. I'll turn it over to Flora. FM: My name is Flora Mason and my husband and I and our three children moved to Las Vegas in April of 1965. So it will be fifty years. We had been in town a month and I went over to the temple, joined and became very active in Sisterhood to start out with and then other temple things. At the time our children went to the preschool, which was known throughout Las Vegas as the best preschool in town. And so there were people that brought their children here from every walk of life, from every denomination. The preschool was a fabulous asset for the temple. My husband, Stuart, who is deceased, was president of the temple at one point. We found that 6 most of our social life revolved around the temple. We had the Jewish Center Social Club at the time that we moved here and that's where all the social events occurred for the young Jewish couples. We did everything from bowling to picnics up at Mount Charleston; all kinds of things like that. Then we were involved with USY, United Synagogue Youth, and we did housing for them. One of the most fun things was when they had (Keyness) here, convocation of students from all over the Southwest, everyone would house; members of the community would house the kids. And Stuart and George Katz, also a blessed memory, would do the cooking. The ladies who are not here tonight, but the ladies of Sisterhood who were in charge of the kitchen went crazed that there were men in the kitchen and they would stand there at the door watching to make sure that they didn't use anything wrong. And the kids loved it when the fathers cooked because they liked what they chose to cook. So that was great fun. It's a great place. SM: As we went around the table, I was thinking, Joel, your uncle was on the board. JG: He was president. SM: Was president, rather. JG: My father was on the board. SM: Your father was on the board. And Arne, your dad. Naturally, Stuart. And Flora, you were on the board. FM: Yeah. SM: I went through a lot of the old minutes. Some of them are really funny. They're stories. They're priceless. But, Flora, yeah, you were the secretary. FM: Well, I was the first woman elected to the board. Elected to the board, not as a Sisterhood member. And I took that as a great honor; I did, and served on the board, I think, four years. 7 SM: And Arne's father had a furniture store near the temple and he was on the board. And when I was reading a lot of the minutes, there was about three months of the board deciding which chair to choose for the social hall. And poor Arne's father was bringing samples. It was in vivid detail. So I was wondering does that...? AR: I do not remember that. Unfortunately, I was probably a little too young. But I also served on the board, as you remember. JG: As did I. SM: You did, oh, yes. JS: Did I miss that? Because I tried to get you to join the board? AR: No, I was on the board. JS: When? AR: Well, Herb Kaufman was president for many years, right? So it was during Herb's time. JBo: Actually, Arne and Stuart convinced me to get on the board so I think he could get off. JG: And I served on the board right after this building opened. SM: Correct. Yeah, yeah. JB1: Because I recall, going back to being on the board and then later on president, the turmoil that would occur at these board meetings. Irwin Molasky, who served on the board, he had a great line. He said, "I'd rather do time than serve on the temple board." The individuals we'd have on the board, none of the people here, of course, would argue over the...you can't imagine what they would argue over. And the meetings could go from seven to midnight like they had no place to go. FM: And they would go continue in the parking lot. The meeting would be called, dismissed, and then you'd go to your car and, sure enough, there's two, three, four. The parking lot meetings 8 were very interesting. JG: They'd be arguing at Foxy's the next morning at breakfast. It never stopped. OG: I'll tell you this. I've represented people before the United States Supreme Court, before the Nevada gaming regulatory agencies and every federal court basically in the country, every state court, and they were picnics compared to the time that I was president of the temple here because it was the most aggravating time that I've ever had in my life. I think they made me serve two years, I think. I blotted it out of my memory to be quite frank with you. FM: Two terms. Two terms, not two years. oG: Four years did I serve? FM: Oh, yeah. OG: Oh, my god, no wonder I am the way I am. I never drank before that and now I'm drinking to excess still from that experience. I was raised to think of rabbis as being spiritual leaders, men of the cloth, holy. And when you get on the board and you see the way the rabbis are acting, you want to pull your hair out. I'm saying to myself, "I hope priests are acting this way because if it's just the Jews, we're in real trouble." [Shelley Berkley (SB) enters the room] OG: Talking about Jews... GG: Fortunately, there was never any conflict between the office staff, rabbi, cantor and executive director. We always got along. OG: Oh, boy. They didn't talk to each other. It was brutal. And they each come to you separately and they tell you their woes. And then the board members, they give you their opinions as to what the rabbis doing. We've had a storied history here of rabbis, too. I got here when Rabbi Gold was the rabbi. Now, he was a very handsome?does anybody remember 9 him??charismatic guy. JS: Oscar, you left out one word, naive. OG: Well, I didn't know him as particularly naive. All I know is that in those days the temple was surrounded by such rumors and stories and people who supposedly were involved in murder and frauds. It's a great training ground for a lawyer; I'll put it that way. FM: Well, like the rest of Las Vegas, we had a very dramatic history. And it was dramatic. There were a lot of things going on in this town and the Jewish people and Beth Sholom were very much a part of it. One of the things I remember when we moved here was what an ecumenical town it was. Everybody helped everyone else. When we had an event at the temple, all the Catholics came and the Catholics helped us, the Protestants, whatever. The same thing there. So it started, I think, in the casinos where the owners were...whatever and they worked together. And it happened with the events at temple. If you needed some money, you went to everybody. JG: And it started years before that. I only can remember what I was told. I think it was 1947. The priest of the Catholic Church on Maryland Parkway? JS: St. Anne's. And that was father... JG: ?St. Anne's, came to my father and asked him to help raise the money for the first school buildings. Several months later? JS: Father Ryan. JG: Yes. Several months later there was a function, a luncheon in the Flamingo showroom with Eddie Cantor and my father on the stage and in that two hours they raised all the money needed and that was done. JS: And Father Ryan?Beldon Katleman owned the El Rancho. I was eleven. So that would 10 make it 1953-ish maybe. I worked at the El Rancho in the summers as a pool boy. My dad worked there, one of the hotel bosses. There was a slot machine. These are old-time slot machines, mechanicals. There was a slot machine in a corner and it always was covered. And Father Ryan periodically would come in the hotel and miraculously the cover disappeared and Beldon would show up, Mr. Katleman, and you would see this going on. He'd be walking around with the father. "This is so-and-so," introducing him. He says, "By the way, Father, that's been a lucky slot machine. Go play it." They had rigged the slot machine, a dime slot machine. And the father would get a role of dimes and put in and always win a couple of hundred bucks just like it was nothing. And my history in my mind reminds me that when he retired they gave him a Cadillac. Now you've got a priest at the Catholic Church driving a Cadillac that came from the Jews on the Strip. There's some interesting?you're right. That's part of what went on in this town in those days. FM: And it was terrific. You wouldn't find it anywhere else. JS: And the preschool, which you liked, was started by Edythe Katz. I had kids and she came to me one day. She says, "You're going to get involved in the temple." "Uh, I'm a member." "No, no, I've got something else for you." "Okay, what am I going to do?" FM: She was very good at that. SB: Yes, she was. JS: "You're going to run the preschool." JG: She didn't ask. JS: I'm going to what? "You're going to run the preschool." All right. So I went in. I walked in the first day to meet the teachers. Lo and behold, all the teachers were Mormon. That's one of the things. One of the teachers, she was our neighbor across the street from us and I never knew 11 this when we lived on Eighth Place. So for a number of years I ran the preschool. Then the happy family fight started; we made money and the Sisterhood wanted the money. So I rehabbed the preschools before they got their hands on the money because it was going to disappear and then the school would have no money. They didn't like me for a long time. Then unfortunately, your husband [Stuart Mason] and Herb Kaufman and a few others said that it was time for me to go on the board. I said, "Fine, I'll go on the board." FM: Why do you say "unfortunately?" That was fortunate. JS: Yeah. FM: It was a good thing. JS: Let me finish the whole?let me finish this line and then you'll see if it?well, I guess it was. But anyway, I went on the board and all of a sudden they came to me and said, "You're going to be the next president." Huh? What? "Yeah, it's your turn." So I became the next president; I think it was '84. At that time there was one synagogue in Las Vegas. This is when the birth of the others started. The minyan and a lot of the synagogue activities were basically run by the orthodox side of the synagogue. A gentleman died who worked at the Dunes, which was where my father was at that time. All my life I had known this guy and he was always Jewish. In the old synagogue he had seats in the front row for High Holidays, his kids were bar mitzvahed, the whole bit. Never knew anything. He passes away. Come to find out he's not Jewish. And the synagogue had sold him side-by-side graves in the consecrated ground. So they're yelling and screaming. The wife wants him buried and I don't...So I went to the rabbi. Now, that was Rabbi Schneerson and we got him fired. 12 OG: That was the aggravation that I had for four years. JS: You had Schneerson, yeah. ?: He was the rabbi when I came to town. JS: Yeah. He was very difficult. And I went to him. But I said to him, I said very simply, "Rabbi"?or was it Lederman? JG: It had to be Lederman then. JS: It had to be Lederman. ?: Well, it could have been?no. Because Stuart hired Lederman. JS: Yeah, it had to be Lederman; that's who I got whacked. Anyway, so we went to him and I said, "Rabbi, you're in charge of all religion. I never said you weren't. I need an answer. What would God say? Would God accept this man as a Jew? All his life he lived his life as a Jew. What would God do?" versus what would Jesus do, of course. He had to say the right answer, "God would accept him." So I went back; we had a board meeting?not a board meeting. FM: (Inaudible.) JS: Yeah. And at that point I had already approved the funeral. And they came off the wall. And I said, "Gentlemen"?and I had the backing of Herb and your husband [Stuart Mason] and most of the board members at the time. I had gone through this pretty good, but I was going to take the heat. I said, "Gentlemen, if you don't like the way we do things, leave." And they did. And so the next morning we get a call from Leo. "We don't have a minyan." I said, "Start calling the board members." So we all showed up and started the board. At the same time, the national had come down and said that women can make a minyan. So I said from the place as president, "Women are now going to be accepted in the minyan unless this board says no and the rules are there." So the women came. So we started the minyan and everyone started 13 showing up at seven something; I don't know what time in the morning. About twenty days into it, you look around and the minyan's got forty, fifty people in it because women were coming. Everyone was coming. It was interesting to see what happened. And that's the change; that's what formed...what's the name, Shaarei Tefilla? FM: Yes. JS: That formed Shaarei Tefilla. And then the other conservative synagogue in Green Valley. JG: Midbar Kodesh. FM: No. Ner Tamid. JS: Well, Ner Tamid first, but they didn't form out of a fight; they just formed. They were reform and they wanted a synagogue, which was good. So we lost them. And then we got into a fight because I appointed a committee to look into moving the synagogue in '84 or five; somewhere in there, all young guys, fathers were in building and all that. And we had two sites, over there and here. That was the only two sites. My biggest enemy, if you really want it, was my mother. We lived walking distance from the synagogue. Also, Eileen Brookman. They were not happy campers with me. So it didn't go anywhere. But while we were doing that the young guys?Gold?oh, the attorney from Lionel Sawyer. SM: Goldstein, Mark. JS: Mark Goldstein. He kept coming to board meetings hammering and hammering, "Make a decision; move out to Green Valley," blah, blah. And we couldn't make a decision. So they formed the new synagogue. That's how they were formed. GG: Well, I think the Greenspun family gave us land. JS: They gave the land. GG: In Green Valley. We at one time decided to go? 14 JG: They started the whole thing by giving the land. GG: ?that way because I followed you in that awful chair. JS: Yeah. They did. But they couldn't? GG: And then I think a lot of the temple membership was out here. JS: Didn't want to go. Well, they had moved out here and I said move out here. I didn't care where we moved. We needed to move. If you look at the demographics of where we were sitting, we were getting encompassed. GG: And I lived a block away, also. ?AR: You lived down the street from my mother and dad. OG: There's something about that old temple. It was so great. SB: Loved it. OG: We got here in 1964 and that's the first thing we did is join temple. SB: Us, too. OG: It doesn't matter. There was something about it. And this is a beautiful temple here. This is gorgeous when you walk in. But there was something about that old temple that really represented Judaism as far as Las Vegas was concerned. ?GG: I agree. SB: I loved that temple. We also moved here in '64. So I was thirteen years old at the time. I was a kid. And the first thing my father did was go and get a job so he could support his family. The first thing my mother did, of course, in a brand-new town was join the synagogue. This was the only synagogue. It was the center of my life for as long as I can remember. I was involved with USY. I was president of BBG. And you are exactly right. That synagogue meant everything and I'm going through?looking at it through a child's eye, a preteen's eye. But my 15 whole social life was there. ?: As a child the social life definitely was important. SB: It was wonderful. Leo Wilner was a surrogate father. Periodically he would pull me aside. "So how are things going for you?" Have a conversation with me. The beautiful thing about Leo is you know he was asking you that question because he cared how were things going for me. But being a kid and being mentored by some of the people that were sitting in the front of the synagogue, they made a difference in my life. The Greenspuns, the Marshalls, the Molaskys, they took an interest in me primarily because they were going to the synagogue and I was a kid running around the synagogue. To this day we're very close friends. But it started at a young age. High Holiday services were the best days of my life. I couldn't wait to go and see everybody. All the kids in those days, as you will remember, were in the back of the social hall on the stage. There was my social life. There was my dating life. There was everything that was important to me at that time in my life that formed the woman that I am today; it came from Temple Beth Sholom. And I suspect that I am not the only person in town, only adult in town that could be sitting here and saying that. OG: Well, I resisted the move. I really did because there's something about the temple being down at 17th and Oakey, 16th and Oakey. That was a central part of Las Vegas. SB: Yeah, but it's not now. FM: But it was then, but it probably wasn't anymore. OG: I know the demographic change. But I'll never forget how proud I was. I used to walk with Carolyn and the four children. We walked from the Scotch 80 area all the way down to the temple through the Naked City and other the railroad tracks. I was so proud because I had my tallit bag and people would go by and they would honk. And I wasn't the mayor then. I was 16 representing some pretty rough people. They would honk their horn and they'd wave. I was so proud of being Jewish. On Yom Kippur in particular, the children fasted from my home in Scotch 80 to Winchell's. [All laughing] OG: And then they were so hungry and exhausted they had to have a doughnut. They got their doughnut. We went to the temple. And then Jerry Blut's son and my youngest son, who is now a judge, they went to services for about two minutes and then went out into the parking lot and? JG: Like every other kid. OG: No, not like every other kid, no. These two were juvenile delinquents. They would take the little air things off the tires. Oh, yeah. Oh, at the end of the service they had about forty little air things in their hands. And your son was as bad as mine. GG: Is there a statute of limitations on that? OG: Not on that, no. As a matter of fact, he came by the house today and I told him that I was going to give him up. FM: You checked your tires? OG: Oh, forget about it. No, but there was something about it. I don't know. I guess it's like implosions of buildings here in Las Vegas. We used to do that and now there's a tendency to preserve our history. When I went in there?I think they have some kind of a school there now? SB: Or a church. OG: Whatever it is. SB: It's a church. OG: I think I almost would have rather had it razed than see what's there because there was nothing like those doors. There was nothing like the burning bush that was in front of it. I 17 remember it like yesterday. GG: Well, the doors are here and the bush is here. OG: It's not the same. It's not the same. This neighborhood is too nice. GG: There was another thing about Oakey that wasn't so good because at one time, and it was during our terms, the skinheads moved into the neighborhood. OG: Right. But that's part of it, though. I mean there is a certain pride about? SM: That's part of it. [Laughing] OG: No. It's the pride of being Jewish. I don't know. JBo: I can tell you I worked there when those skinheads were there and the police were there and we had numbers to call and weren't allowed to open doors. The back doors had to be locked. It was pretty scary working there during that era. FM: No, no. It was time, yeah. JB1: You know what's funny about that? My mother, a blessed memory, who was a very religious woman, she lived two houses away from where the skinheads were. They never bothered her or anything. And she would walk to synagogue on the High Holidays. She lived on Lamplighter off? JBo: We came to work and the rabbi and the cantor's parking spots, there were swastikas on it. At least the police knew what houses it were and told us, "We're on top of it, so don't worry about it." But we had to go through training and everything. OG: I know. But even up here, during the High Holidays in particular, there were all sorts of police officers out there. Now, they're saying they're directing traffic, but they're looking over the safety of the congregation. SB: But that's all over the world right now. 18 FM: But that's all over the world. That's the whole world. JG: We started that? GG: For the last few years we've had a mayor that's been here on the High Holidays and I think that brought a few more to come out. SB: And a congresswoman. Excuse me. JG: But that was started for a reason in 2011 when the World Trade Center happened. Jerry called me and said, "We need to do something quick." And we did; we got the security together. SB: We didn't live in the neighborhood. We lived in the apartments on Desert Inn Road and this was our synagogue. I have to tell you. There was nothing I wanted more as a kid than to live in the neighborhood by the synagogue because these were the fanciest homes and I had one picked out that was absolutely my ideal. Now I wouldn't let my dog live in it. But at the time it was the thing you aspired to. All of the people at the synagogue were people you wanted to emulate and be like when you grew up. And I think that was a wonderful example that the adults at the time that were involved on the board, that were president of the board, that were in the minyans, they set the example for those of us who were younger because you wanted to be that. You wanted to do that when you grew up. And I think that was a very good example to set. FM: I wanted to add a story that I think you should know, actually. It's a young man, Bill's friend, fifty-two years old, just passed away, and he was very active in USY and came from a family that didn't have anything. He had a single mother and a sister. His time at Kolod Center, his time at USY were very formative and he often said that. He ended up a huge success. He was a brilliant, brilliant young man, a scientist and an inventor, if you will. When they did the funeral for him, many of the memories that were talked about that the family talked about and that he had talked about in the weeks and months before he died were all at temple, USY, Ruby 19 Kolod Center. And so when I think of that I think we really made a difference. This congregation made a difference in that life for sure that I know and hundreds and hundreds of other young lives. You. SB: Absolutely. When Eileen Brookman used to walk in, in her splendid (orange), the holidays, I thought I died and went to heaven. I said, "That's what I want to do when I grow up." GG?: You did. SB: I did. I know. FM: There were some negative things. OG: When you say that the truth of the matter is the members of the congregation were special. SB: Yes, they were. OG: They were the leaders of this community. JG: Without a doubt. OG: They were most respected people in the community. They were the bankers. JG: And the leaders of this organization, as well. OG: Right. But they went there and then they were the casino executives. You were just so proud to be sitting there with them. SB: I didn't think anyone else mattered but the people, the congregation at Temple Beth Sholom. That was my world. FM: I'm going to throw a question out. Let's name some of the things that grew out of Temple Beth Sholom in those years. We already mentioned all the other synagogues grew out of us, right? SB: Yes. Oh, yes. FM: And so that's one thing. How about some of the other stuff? 20 SB: The youth groups, the B'nai youth groups. AR: What about bonds? Israel bonds and UJA all started at Temple Beth Sholom, basically. Kay Wallerstein and Edythe Katz who were at each other; did not like each other very much, two different organizations. JS: Netanyahu came and spoke here. The prime minister of Israel in his twenty-year-age group came and spoke and I remember listening to him speak and I thought, wow. JG: That was huge. JS: What a dynamic speaker he was as a young man. I remember High Holidays. What did we do on High Holidays? Well, the synagogue did two things. It collected money for the synagogue through Kol Nidre and then we got people going up there and doing a bond drive during the holidays. And it was very interesting. We didn't have Federation at the time. It was strictly a bond drive. I cashed in bonds not too long ago. JG: Really? JS: Yeah. FM: And you remember the day of the Yom Kippur War. We were in synagogue and we all remember that. It's like remembering where you were when Kennedy was shot. We were here. We were at temple. SB: Yes. That's exactly right. JB1: The Six-Day War, too. SB: Yes. I remember the Six-Day War. JB1: I had just moved here the end of '66. This was '67. I can't tell you how impressed I was with the people that were in that room and raising money. Remember it was just a time? 21 FM: They stepped up to the plate. JBl: You thought Israel based on the news was destroyed; NASA had driven them into the sea. This was like a day after before you knew what was going on, but it was like Israel was gone. JS: No CNN. SB: Transistor radios in synagogue. JS: One of the turning points at the synagogue came of diversity?or, not diversity, but out of sadness. When Danny Goldfarb passed away. He actually died on the lake, if you folks don't know that. He and Mike Soskin were good friends. Mike Soskin's father was executive over at the? FM: Did you say Danny Goldfarb? No. Danny Kolod. JS: Kolod. Get me confused. Thank you. SB: But I do want to talk about Danny Goldfarb. JS: I am older. So you have to give me? FM: Ar