The Bulletin is the monthly newsletter from Temple Beth Sholom. This issue includes columns by the Temple President and the Cantor, religious school news, announcements and calendars, event photographs, and advertisements.
In this roundtable discussion video, members of Temple Beth Sholom discuss the history of the long-established congregation. Interviewees are Sandy Mallin, Oscar Goodman, Jared Shafer, Joel Goot, Arne Rosencrantz, Jerry Blut, Jackie Boiman, Gene Greenberg, and Flora Mason, with Shelley Berkley joining in later in the interview. Most of the interviewees have been involved in the leadership of the congregation. They discuss relationships with various rabbis over the years, and successful fundraising efforts to build the original synagogue. Other early leaders in the congregation were Edythe Katz-Yarchever, the Goot family, Stuart Mason, Herb Kaufman and Leo Wilner. Until the 1980s, Temple Beth Sholom was the only synagogue in Las Vegas, but after a dispute over the burial of a non-Jew, a new synagogue formed (Shareii Tefilla), and at nearly the same time, Temple Beth Sholom began investigating a move from their site on Oakey Boulevard. Most have nostalgia for the former location, but discuss the changes in the neighborhood that necessitated the move to Summerlin. Then they discuss the other initiatives that were borne out of Temple Beth Sholom, such as bond drives for Israel, B'nai B'rith, and the Kolod Center. They share other memories, and discuss the leadership and Sandy Mallin becoming the first female president of the temple. They credit Mallin with keeping the temple going through lean years, and helping to recruit Rabbi Felipe Goodman. The group goes on to mention other influential members of the Jewish community including Jack Entratter and Lloyd Katz, who helped integrate Las Vegas.
Inside the San Pedro Saloon. Men sit at tables or congregate near the bar. Inscription with image reads: "Table 1st at right was in Underhill home when Lee Phillips took residence in 1965."
The Bet Knesset Bamidbar is an adult-only Traditional Reform Congregation that was founded in 1990. With over 500 members, it’s one of the largest congregations in Southern Nevada. They hold their Shabbat Services twice a month, they observe many ritual holidays, there is a choir that sings at each service, and they make sure to cater to the senior communities with various activities and clubs.
Rabbi Mel Hecht was born July 8, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan. At the age of five, his family moved to Miami, Florida where they had a large, extended Jewish family, complete with relatives who were hazzans and mohels. Soon after moving to Florida, his parents bought a hotel in Hialeah, a city 10 miles outside of Miami, where Hecht spent the remainder of his childhood.