Carolyn Goldmark Goodman (1939- ) is the mayor of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. She began her first four-year term in office on July 6, 2011 and was re-elected for a second term in April 2015. She succeeded her husband of 50 years, Oscar B. Goodman, who served three terms as mayor. Carolyn founded The Meadows School in Las Vegas in 1984, the state's first nonprofit, college preparatory school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. She oversaw planning and daily operations of the school for 26 years, retiring in 2010. Carolyn and Oscar Goodman arrived in Las Vegas in 1964. Carolyn Goodman started out working in the hotel industry, and later earned her master's degree in counseling from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) while raising four children. As mayor, Goodman has focused on improving public education and the local economy. She is a board member of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and serves on the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance (LVGEA). She is actively involved in the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), as a member of its Advisory Board, vice-chair of its Task Force on Education Reform, and chair of the Mayors? Business Council. In 2014 Goodman received the UCSM?s Large City Climate Protection Award. As leader of the Meadows School, Goodman was recognized nationally by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the National Association of Independent Schools in 2006 with the Seymour Preston Trustee Award for Leadership. She has also been honored by UNLV, receiving the Distinguished Nevada award in 1989, an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree (PhD) in 2006, and Alumni of the Year in Education in 2010. In this interview, Goodman talks about her family background and touches upon her childhood in New York City and attending Bryn Mawr College, where she met Oscar. She discusses the growth of the Las Vegas Jewish population since arriving, efforts to build Jewish community, and her involvement, including with Temple Beth Sholom and the Jewish Federation. In addition, Goodman talks at length about her husband?s political career as well as her own, both dedicated to developing Las Vegas into a safe and prosperous city, with quality education, health care, and arts and culture offerings. She also discusses establishing The Meadows School.

Bruce Isaacson was born in 1956 in Castro Valley, California to Betty Griffin and Bernard Isaacson, and spent his childhood in Oakland. He received his bachelor?s degree from Claremont McKenna College with majors in economics as well as drama, and continued studying for his Masters of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. After receiving his MBA, Isaacson started a career in finance, focusing on mergers and acquisitions. In 1995, he moved to Las Vegas to pursue a real estate career alongside his father. In June 2015, Isaacson became Clark Country?s first poet laureate to encourage poetry as an art form in Southern Nevada. Although Isaacson began writing poetry at a young age, he wanted to develop his craft further. So he attended Brooklyn College for a Masters of Fine Arts and studied with famed poet Allen Ginsberg. Isaacson is known in the San Francisco Bay Area as organizer and poet in the Cafe Babar readings in the 1980s. He is also a co-founder of Zeitgeist Press, where he remains publisher and co-editor. In this interview, Isaacson discusses his childhood and how he maneuvered his career path from finance into poetry. He talks about applying for and serving as the county?s first poet laureate, and describes the programing he?s started in this capacity. Isaacson also speaks about his earlier involvement with Bay Area poetry scene as well as the impact of his Jewish upbringing on his life and his art.

Irwin Kishner (1933 ? 2017) was a noted real estate developer, attorney and longtime community leader. In this oral history interview conducted in 2013, he briefly shares his childhood growing up Jewish in Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn, New York. He often speaks of himself in the third person, as he brings to life his roots, his family?s move to Miami where he graduated from high school and the tale of his relocation to Las Vegas to work with his uncles Herman and Maury Kishner. He describes his entrance to Las Vegas as that of a bon vivant. And truly, Irwin, fell in love with the city from the moment he arrived in 1960. Irwin was a graduate of University of Florida (1954) and University of Miami Law School (1958). Both his daughters, Sharon and Joanna, were born in Las Vegas and he reminisces about becoming a Jewish bachelor father to them. In June 2013, shortly before this interview, Irwin celebrated his 80th birthday. He was a proud father, grandfather and energetic businessman who left an indelible mark on everyone he knew. As a developer, he was known for the Somerset Apartments, Somerset House Motel, Somerset Gardens apartment complex, and the Somerset Shopping Center. He enjoyed reflecting on the many community organizations he dedicated himself to, from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to Opportunity Village to the original Las Vegas Rotary Club to the Community Concert Association?and that?s just to mention a few.

In this interview, Unger reflects upon his long and successful career in hotel management in Las Vegas and also in Arizona and Pennsylvania. He shares stories as a local celebrity, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s when he worked at Caesars Palace, as well as the big projects he oversaw, including organizing the first big fight nights, World Series of Tavern Poker and Grand Prix race. He talks about working with Morris Shenker, Moe Dalitz, Cliff Perlman and Billy Weinberger, and the role of the Jewish community in the city, and specifically in the gaming industry. Unger also discusses his non-gaming industry ventures which have included a satellite communications business and a bagel business.

Mike Unger was born in Queens, New York in 1947, and spent most of his childhood in Long Island, growing up in a predominantly Jewish and Italian community. As a young adult, Unger was already working hard, running one of his family?s restaurant after school. When he was in high school, his family moved to Los Angeles to accommodate his father?s health needs, and eventually end up in Las Vegas by 1967. Over the next two decades, Unger would work at nine properties in the city. Unger is one of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas? first hotel management graduates, and started his career with Summa Corporation in its management training program at the Frontier Hotel and Casino. After a brief stint at the Airport Marina Hotel in Los Angeles in 1972, Unger returned to Las Vegas, serving in management capacities at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino, Summa Corporation headquarters and Landmark Hotel and Casino. In 1978, he joined Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino management team, and was integral in creating the city?s first large boxing events, the World Series of Tavern Pool, and the Grand Prix race. Unger also ran properties for the White Mountain Apache and Colorado River Indian Tribes in Arizona, as well as the Showboat Hotel and Casino. In this interview, Unger reflects upon his long and successful career in hotel management in Las Vegas and also in Arizona and Pennsylvania. He shares stories as a local celebrity, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s when he worked at Caesars Palace, as well as the big projects he oversaw, including organizing the first big fight nights, World Series of Tavern Poker and Grand Prix race. He talks about working with Morris Shenker, Moe Dalitz, Cliff Perlman and Billy Weinberger, and the role of the Jewish community in the city, and specifically in the gaming industry. Unger also discusses his non-gaming industry ventures which have included a satellite communications business and a bagel business.

In this interview, Arlene discusses her family and important friendships; her relations with and impressions of the disparate Las Vegas Jewish communities; the meaningful ways her Jewish relationships in Duluth, Winnipeg, and Las Vegas intertwine; her theatrical, professional, and philanthropic work; the reasons she and Jerry became active Zionists; and their support for Israeli causes. Her liberal sprinkling of Yiddish terms enriches her speech as it exemplifies her deep cultural attachment to and identification with her Jewish heritage, despite the fact that her wide and diverse circle of friends remains predominantly non-Jewish.

Actor, director, friend, mother, producer, wife, and volunteer extraordinaire Arlene Piekoff (now Blut) arrived in Las Vegas in 1971 with two young children and husband, Michael Peikoff, who was opening a surgical practice. Arlene was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota, where she attended a Conservative Jewish temple but had mostly non-Jewish friends. She met Michael at the University of Minnesota, and they married before he began medical school in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Arlene and Michael followed his residencies and fellowships to California, Michigan, and Manitoba before they came to Las Vegas Through her brother in law and Ayn Rand?s intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff, Arlene was exposed to Ayn Rand Objectivism, a philosophy that still influences her political outlook. After her 1975 divorce she began working at the Jockey Club; founded the Meadows Playhouse, Las Vegas?s first professional black box theater; and started Renta Yenta, the valley?s first full-service event planning business. In 1980 she married tax attorney Jerry Blut in a Renta-Yenta-produced, Fiddler-on-the-Roof-themed wedding at Paul Anka's Jubilation Restaurant.

In 2015, Todd S. Polikoff was named the President & Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. (The organization is now known as Jewish Nevada). Todd is a graduate of Stockton University and earned his MBA at Cleveland State University. He has three children: Samuel, Shira and Jordan. Born in 1971 to a steelworker and hairdresser, Jack and Judy Polikoff, Todd grew up in Philadelphia, became a bar mitzvah there, and shocked his mother when he explained he was putting college on hold to move to Israel. In addition to stories about these life memories, Todd also traces his career path to decision-making to a meaningful trip to Moscow a where a defining moment helped him understand his own relationship with Judaism. To the time of this interview, Todd has invested over twenty years in leadership of Jewish Federation and AIPAC in states that include New Jersey, Delaware, Texas, Ohio and Nevada.

Interview with Doris, Gerald "Jerry", and Marcy Welt by Barbara Tabach on November 30, 2014. In this interview, the Welts discuss how they came to Las Vegas in the early 1970s from California, and Eli Welt's pawnshop, Stoney's, which he acquired from Doris's father, Jerry Fox. Jerry and Marcy talk about how they met and came to Las Vegas, where Jerry worked for Harry Reid's law firm. They talk about the community that existed in Las Vegas at the time, and their involvement with B'nai B'rith.

Just before the start of the Great Depression, Doris Fox was born in Detroit, Michigan. At the age of fifteen, she met Eli Welt, and the two were married three years later in Alexandria, Louisiana, where Eli was stationed with the United States Army Air Corps. Eventually, Doris and Eli moved to southern California with their three children-Gerald (aka Jerry), Richard (aka Rick) and Susan (aka Sue). In 1971, after all their children were out of the house, Doris and Eli moved to Las Vegas. They followed Doris' father, Jerry "Stoney" Fox, who had moved to the city in the 1940s, and was one of the first entrants into the local pawnshop industry. Like many migrants to the city, Eli became active in the Jewish community, particularly with B'nai Brith and Jewish Family Service Agency. Doris and Eli's eldest son, Jerry, and wife, Marcy, moved to Las Vegas in 1972 with their two small children. Tiffany and Cory. Jerry and Marcy had met through a Jewish youth group as teenagers in Anaheim, California. Having just finished law school, Jerry found that legal career opportunities were plentiful in the growing city. His first job was as a law clerk with Harry Reid's law office, Beckley, DeLanoy, Jemison and Reid, later becoming an associate attorney. He assisted Reid as lieutenant governor and on his early political campaigns. Jerry left Beckley, DeLanoy, Jemison and Reid to work for Oscar Goodman's firm-Goodman, Snyder and Gang-focusing on civil litigation. In 1975, Jerry opened his own practice, continuing to specialize in civil ligation, and served as general counsel to Las Vegas Clark County Library District. Since their arrival, Marcy and Jerry have been dedicated to community service, particularly within the Jewish community. Both were active in youth programs at Temple Beth Sholom, Jerry even serving as youth commissioner and later, education director. Marcy worked with Edythe Katz at the Holocaust Resource Center and assisted with producing a film and training program for educators. Both are avid supporters of youth travel to Israel and work hard to ensure these opportunities continue to be available for those interested.