Interview with Morris "Moe" Dalitz by Brenda Baxter, on several dates in late 1977 to early 1978. In this interview, Dalitz talks about his business and career endeavors before coming to Las Vegas, which included a laundry service and military service. Dalitz partnered with Wilbur Clark and became a successful hotel and casino owner in Las Vegas, as well as a real estate developer with properties including the Boulevard Mall and Sunrise Hospital.

Moe Dalitz was born in Boston in 1899, and soon after his family moved to Detroit, Michigan and where his father started a linen supply company. In 1930, during Prohibition, Moe moved to Cleveland, Ohio and he became involved with the then-illegal liquor business. At the age of 41, Dalitz enlisted in the Army and was stationed at Governors Island. Moe was put in charge of laundries and dry cleaning because of his experience in the laundry business. He played an important role in creating mobile laundry units that were used in the front lines in North Africa. His ingenuity won him a non-combatant award for his "unusual interest, ingenuity and talents" applied during his service. At the end of war, Moe returned to Cleveland, where his partners were successfully carrying on their business. It was then that they decided to go into the casino-nightclub business, opening nightclubs in Ohio and Kentucky. A couple years later, Moe and his partners met Wilbur Clark and agreed to finance his inactive project in Las Vegas. Thus, in 1950, the Desert Inn Hotel and Casino opened, and Moe Dalitz ushered in a new era for the city. Moe and partners continued to elevate the sophistication of the Strip when they acquired the operating lease to, and later part ownership of, the Stardust Hotel and Casino. Moe was instrumental in bringing the French Lido de Paris show to the Stardust, which was considered the most spectacular nightclub show produced in Las Vegas at its time. In addition to his gaming industry ventures, Moe engaged in significant real estate development, along with partners Allard Roen, Merv Adelson and Irwin Molasky. Their projects included Sunrise Hospital, The Boulevard Mall and Las Vegas Country Club as well as La Costa Resort and Spa in California. At the time of the interview, Moe was involved with the construction of a downtown hotel and casino. Moe Dalitz was the recipient of the Humanitarian Award from the American Cancer Research Center, and supported the Variety Club and the Home of the Good Shepard, amongst other charities.

In this interview, Susan Molasky discusses her childhood and teenaged years growing up in London, where she worked with in a fabric store. Molasky shares photos and momentos with the interviewer, and talks about originally coming to Las Vegas with her first husband, Leo Frey, in the late 1950s. She discusses raising her children in Las Vegas, and her bout with ovarian cancer, which prompted her involvement in Nathan Adelson Hospice. She continues to discuss her life with second husband, Irwin Molasky, and the causes they are involved in.

Susan Molasky was born in Israel (what was then-Palestine) in mid-1930s, the daughter of Bukharian Jewish immigrants. With the end of World War II, at the age of nine Susan, her sister and mother were able to get visas to live with her father in London. It was in England where Susan learned English and began working, at a fabric shop on Regent Street. In 1957, Susan married her first husband, and the couple moved to Las Vegas on January 1, 1958. She knew immediately that the city would be her home. Susan and her husband moved to Las Vegas to help her brother-in-law, Leo Frey, renovate and manage the Moulin Rouge; their primary business was long-term room rentals to casino employees, occasionally renting to tourists when the casino hotels were full. After two years, her husband changed careers paths and the couple moved to Europe. They had three sons before returning to Las Vegas in 1964. In 1973, Susan married Irwin Molasky, whom she had met through her work with the Sisterhood at Temple Beth Sholom; both sat on the temple's board. Susan enjoyed the excitement and glamour that defined Las Vegas during the 1970s, attending show openings, visiting movie sets, and socializing with stars. But more than this, Susan devoted herself to helping others, most notably through the opening of Nathan Adelson Hospice. Her own battle with cancer, as well as serving as a caretaker for others, ignited her commitment to establish quality hospice care in her beloved city, and she has continuously led the organization's fundraising efforts. There are now two Nathan Adelson Hospice facilities serving the greater Las Vegas area.

Interview with Elliot B. Karp by Barbara Tabach on December 17, 2014. In this interview, Elliot Karp discusses growing up in a culturally Jewish household in New York and becoming more observant in his teenage and college years. He decided, after a trip to Israel and a year in a rabbinical program, that he wanted to be a "Jewish professional" with a focus on social work and community organizing, and attended a Master's program at Brandeis University. Karp goes on to talk about his work for the Jewish Federation in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and being recruited to come to Las Vegas. He talks about the challenges in the Las Vegas Jewish community and the Jewish Federation's role as an umbrella organization to partner with other agencies to grow and sustain a robust Jewish community in Southern Nevada.

On October 6, 1955, Elliot Karp was born in Mineola, New York to parents of East European heritage who identified as culturally Jewish. As a teenager, Elliot felt the calling to become kosher, balancing this practice with household norms that were not as strict. He eventually became shomer Shabbat just after enrolling at State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he majored in Political Science. After graduating from SUNY, Elliot spent a year living in Israel considering a path in rabbinical studies. By the end of his time, he decided on a different, yet related path, and registered as a graduate student in Brandeis University's School of Jewish Communal Service, on fellowship from Council of Jewish Federations. After graduating, Elliot moved to Columbus, Ohio to work for the Jewish Federation, focusing on fundraising, but was exposed to many different operational areas of the organization. After three years, Elliot was recruited to the Philadelphia office as its director of leadership development. He then left the Federation to work in development at Brandeis University, but after two years, returned to the Federation as the Cincinnati office's chief development officer. In 2008, Elliot received a call to take his highly cultivated leadership and fundraising skills to another Federation office: Las Vegas. After much consideration, he took the job - and challenge - as the office's new chief executive officer. Since then, Elliot has done much to promote communication, coordination and collaboration within the local Jewish community and beyond, through relationship building and successful fundraising efforts. His ultimate desire is to expand funding for programs that get more people involved in Jewish life - while also empowering community members define what a Jewish life means for them.

In this interview, Mimi Katz discusses growing up in the Boston area and her schooling, and moving to Washington, D.C. working as a physiotherapist. She returned to Boston and met her husband, and she talks about moving to Las Vegas and adjusting to life here. They became involved at Temple Beth Sholom, and Mimi worked as a conventions coordinator at the Sands and the Sahara. She discusses moving around in Las Vegas from an apartment to a house in the John S. Park neighborhood, working for the Jewish Federation, and helping to develop the Holocaust education program with Edythe Katz, conducting oral history interviews with survivors. She continued working at the Convention Center in the 1980s, and is involved in the Lou Ruvo Center.

Everyone knows her as Mimi. She was born Miriam Green to immigrant parents in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1926. As a youngster she danced, excelled at school and enjoyed an abundance of sports. To pay for her higher education at Massachusetts School of Physiotherapy she worked at Raytheon Manufacturing. In 1957 she married George Katz who swept her away to their honeymoon in Las Vegas. It's a story that she loves to recall-they never left. She sent for her things and energetically settled in to her new hometown and marriage. Mimi found employment with the Clark County School District, began having children (three daughters), and making fast new friends. Many of these friends were from the founding days of Temple Beth Sholom, which roots her to the history of the local Jewish community. In addition, for a decade she worked in community relations for the Jewish Federation. She valued community activism and volunteered over the years for many organizations; such as Easter Seals, Jewish War Veterans, Parent Teachers Association and the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, and many more organizations over the subsequent decades.

In this interview, Milton Schwartz discusses his life in Las Vegas and his business investments. He worked at the Flamingo Hotel right after World War II, and he started Valley Hospital as an investor in 1970. Schwartz has a Hebrew academy named after him in Israel, and owned the Yellow-Checker-Star Cab Company. He was active in the Republican Party.

Milton I. Schwartz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He enlisted in the Army the day after Pearl Harbor (age 20) and did a five year stint in the Pacific as a repeater specialist. After the war he returned to his job as a refrigeration mechanic in Brooklyn and was soon offered a job out in Las Vegas at the Flamingo Hotel, which was owned by Bugsy Siegel. After three months in Las Vegas, during which time he had several conversations over dinner with Beldon Cattleman, Milton returned to New York to work with his father in the fixture business. After ten years he sold that business and bought into Design Equipment Construction, which brought him back to Las Vegas. Milton started or bought many businesses over the years, but the one he's proudest of is Valley Hospital. He and his partners brought the first medical helicopters into Nevada and he feels that many lives were saved because of that. He also invested in Yellow-Checker-Star Cab Company, which he still owns. Two on-going concerns that are important to Milton are his involvement with the Republican Party and the Milton I. Schwartz Hebrew Academy in Israel. Of the many awards and plaques he has earned over the decades, he is proudest of the birthday acknowledgements from the Academy. He believes strongly that the most important achievements of his life revolve around his religion and the children being educated in it. Milton shares many stories, facts, descriptions, and anecdotes about Las Vegas in the decades since 1946. He built a house in the Scotch 80's, contributes to UNLV, and approves of city growth and the proposed changes in the downtown area. He has contributed much to the growth and stability of the Las Vegas valley.

In this oral history, the long married couple Henry and Anita Schuster recall the history of the 1930s and how they eventually met and created a life together. Their childhoods were distinctively different, but charter a future where they would inevitably meet. Born in Germany in 1926, Henry recalls the dawn of Hitler and the Nazism. His mother would arrange for his evacuation to France, where he would not know her fate or that of his two sisters for a number of years. Along with hundreds of other displaced children, he escaped to America and lived with relatives in Louisiana where he finished his schooling and joined the US Army. Anita on the other hand grew up with her family in New York. They share the story of meeting when she was 16, falling in love and marrying in 1948. They had four children and moved several times before settling in California. They retired to Las Vegas in 1993. Henry's recollections include childhood memories of the Holocaust and its affect on his family, including the loss of his mother and one of his sisters. Finding his surviving sister Bertel (Betty Kale) after the war is a heartwarming tale of survival. The Schusters are part of the approximately 300 members of the Holocaust Survivor Group that has settled in southern Nevada and Henry was President Emeritus of the group. He published his memoir, Abraham's Son-the Making of an American, in 2010.

In this interview, Walter Weiss discusses how Judaism and boxing kept him out of trouble in his youth. Weiss grew up in the Boston area, and started boxing as a teenager. Weiss talks about his boxing training, becoming a runner for a bookmaker, and coming to Las Vegas in the 1950s to be a bookmaker for the Stardust Hotel, and working the slot machine floor. He had several different jobs in various casinos, and discusses different people involved in the gaming industry in Las Vegas.

Walter Weiss life story begins in a Malden, Massachusetts during the Great Depression. His early background was a blend of observant Judaism, secularism, and the effects of the era. He was a troubled youth whose older brother encouraged him to join him in boxing. As Walter explains: I was a wild kid and ... boxing saved my life. His aptitude for boxing led him to be a sparring partner in New York City's famous Spillman Gym. There he met and worked out with some of the greatest fighters of the era, including Rocky Marciano. He recalls how he turned professional while attending the University of Miami and how he first came to Las Vegas in 1958 to escape his personal troubles and find work with a local bookmaker. Thus began his diverse employment history in the casino industry. He details his various positions and the cast of famous and infamous characters of the times. For six years he return to New York and worked as a Wall Street broker before arriving back in Las Vegas in 1973. He talks about his property ownership, lobbying for an amendment to Senate Bill 208, his personal religious changes and a sundry of observations about the changes that occurred as the state took over gaming.