Oral history interview with Mauricia Baca conducted by Claytee D. White on March 7, 2019 for the Remembering 1 October Oral History Project. Mauricia Baca discusses her early life, her education, and her experiences living in New York City, New York before she moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. She also relates her experiences on and after the 1 October mass shooting. Baca relates information on her agency, Get Outdoors Nevada. Baca shares how her agency worked with the City of Las Vegas in the construction and operation of the Healing Garden. Finally, she discusses the book she helped author regarding 1 October.
Interview with Justice Michael Cherry by Barbara Tabach on September 19, 2014. In this interview, Justice Cherry talks about how he came to Las Vegas and his work as a public defender and as a lawyer in private practice. He also discusses his involvement with Jewish organizations in various capacities, and his involvement with high-profile cases such as the MGM Grand and Las Vegas Hilton fires, earning him the nickname "master of disaster."
Justice Michael Cherry was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and went on to spend his childhood in the Jewish neighborhood of University City. He attended University of Missouri and became a leader in his fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi, and a committed ROTC cadet. By the time Justice Cherry graduated from Missouri and was heading to Washington University School of Law, he was a second lieutenant; halfway through law school, he was promoted to first lieutenant. It was also during law school that he married his college sweetheart, Rachel Wolfson. When a bad back prevented him from becoming an active air force officer, he and his wife decided to follow his mother to Las Vegas. Justice Cherry worked both as a law clerk with the Public Defender's Office as well as a security guard at Wonder World when he first moved to the city. After passing the Nevada bar, Cherry took at position with the Public Defender's Office, and later went into private practice as a successful criminal defense attorney. Cherry was elected as district judge in 1998 and 2002. In 2006, he won his campaign for state Supreme Court justice. Justice Cherry was reelected to office in 2012 for another four-year term. He is currently the highest-positioned Jewish official in the state of Nevada. Throughout his years in Las Vegas, Justice Cherry has been an extremely active and influential member of the Jewish community and served as chairman of the Anti-Defamation League and is active in the Jewish Federation. Justice Cherry attributes his commitment to service to his mother. In addition to his service to the Jewish community, he has been active in numerous other service organizations, including March of Dimes, Olive Crest, Adoption Exchange and American Cancer Society.
Interview with Adele Baratz by Claytee White on March 19, 2007. In this interview, Baratz talks about her parents who came to the United States as teenagers from Russia and eventually settled in Las Vegas after a short time in California. She discusses the Jewish community in Las Vegas when she was growing up, and her father's job selling bootlegging supplies, then as a real estate broker, then as a bar owner. Baratz attended the Fifth Street Grammar School, which was built after a fire destroyed the original school, and Las Vegas High School. As a teenager, she worked at Nellis as a messenger and in the rations department, then went to nursing school in Baltimore at Sinai Hospital. She talks about her father's bar, "Al's Bar," that was popular with Union Pacific Railroad workers, and how the bar was forced out for the building of the Golden Nugget. Baratz recounts where her family lived, the growth of the Jewish community, and building the first synagogue on Carson Street.
In 1976, Jacqueline "Jaki" Baskow was an aspiring actress when she and a friend accepted an invitation to worked in a movie studio in Las Vegas. She had three-hundred dollars to her name, a dream and lots of dynamic energy. Though the movie studio offer did not quite materialized as she hoped - the invitation had come from Batman co-creator Bob Kane - Jaki's trajectory into Las Vegas, working with talents and planning events became an over forty year career. In this interview, she talks about growing up Jewish in Camden, New Jersey where her father was a murder victim; her tenacious effort to find the perpetrator included the help of celebrity detective Joe Schillaci. She shares stories of the colorful array of A-list entertainers she has worked with to build her successful business, Baskow and Associates. She has built a niche of handling large corporate events, hiring talent and attention to details for exciting events. She reflects on the people and moments that impelled her on; mentors such as Bobby Morris and Frank Sinatra and Jilly Rizzo.
On March 14, 1981, Alisa Fife interviewed her friend’s grandmother, telephone operator and housewife, Rita Golub (born May 1st, 1920 in New York City, New York) in her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. The interview covers Rita Golub’s life in Las Vegas and includes discussion in regards to Queen Mother. Rita also discusses the Strip, night entertainment and social and religious activities in Las Vegas.
Oral history interview with Talia Levanon conducted by Barbara Tabach on January 21, 2019 for the Remembering 1 October Oral History Project. In this interview, Levanon discusses her role as the Director of Israel Trauma Coalition (ITC), an organization that provides trauma care and counseling in Israel and around the world. She recalls that three weeks after the 1 October shooting, she and a team from ITC arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada to offer training and support and worked closely with Las Vegas Metro Police Department.