Sanford Akselrad is the rabbi at Congregation Ner Tamid. In this interview he describes his rabbinical training, coming to Las Vegas, and the growth of the congregation.

More inclined in his youth to pursue a career as a scientist than rabbi, Sanford Akselrad (1957- ) became the rabbi at Congregation Ner Tamid in 1988. Turning his tenure, Rabbi Akselrad has lead the congregation through its move from Emerson to Street to its permanent home on Green Valley Parkway and I-215 and shares a fun story about buying desks and chairs from the Clark County School District. He talks about many of the milestones including: Project Ezra which he started during the 2008 recession to help Jewish community members find jobs; the NextGen program which was initiated to bring young adults in their twenties and thirties back to the temple. For over twenty years Rabbi Akselrad was a member of the board of the Nevada Governor?s Council on Holocaust education, a topic that was the focus of his rabbinical thesis. He was the founding president of the Clark County Board of Rabbis and has served on the boards of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, Jewish Family Services, and the Humana Hospital Pastoral Advisory Board. He was also the chair of the Federation?s Community Relations Council (CRC). Rabbi Akselrad is a board member of the Anti-Defamation League Nevada region office and the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada. Sanford Akselrad was born on October 6, 1957 in Oakland, California and raised in Palo Alto. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles and then went to graduate school at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion. He spent the first year of his graduate program in Israel, the next two in Los Angeles, and the final two years in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rabbi Akselrad met his wife Joni in Reno, Nevada and married her during his third year of rabbinical school. The couple has two children, CJ and Sam. After his ordination in 1984, Rabbi Akselrad was associate rabbi of Temple Israel in Columbus, Ohio, one of the largest Reform congregations in the Midwest. His choice of career was inspired by his father, Sidney Akselrad, who was a prominent rabbi involved in social justice issues and the Civil Rights Movement. Sanford Akselrad has followed his father?s example of community involvement, both in Las Vegas and on a national level: he served on the board of the National Conference of Community and Justice (NCJJ), he was chair of the NCJJ's Inter-faith Council, and he is active in the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ).

In 1964, the year that Vincent Kethen was born, desegregation of Las Vegas schools began. Like many African-American children living in the Las Vegas Westside neighborhood, Vincent was bused out of his neighborhood in third grade to attend a white school. In his case, this meant attending John S. Park Elementary and later other predominantly white schools. He talks about these experiences. John S. Park was a neighborhood of manicured lawns, while the school bus and the classroom were places fraught with fisticuffs. The experience of growing up during that era are recalled. Vincent provides a sense of that it was like to reside in his home neighborhood and the onslaught of the drug culture altered gang-lead neighborhoods. Being bused had positive results he explains, such as athletics, which served as an equalizer. For Vincent, a solid upbringing, which included love of church and the chance to attend college, encouraged him to make good decisions about his future. He received a four-year degree and he returned to Las Vegas to "give back." For over a decade and a half, her has coached young basketball players and helped them see their options for a brighter future than they might otherwise have seen.

Commencement program from University of Nevada, Las Vegas Commencement Programs and Graduation Lists (UA-00115).