In this interview, Phyllis Friedman reflects upon her extensive work with the ADL in Las Vegas. She discusses the city?s relatively low anti-Semitic activity, and how this allowed the Las Vegas ADL office to focus its efforts more broadly than in other cities. She also touches upon her family history, and how the community of Las Vegas has evolved since first visiting in 1963.
A Chicago native, Phyllis Friedman first came to Las Vegas in 1996 to become the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas? first foundation director. After two years, Friedman moved to year Los Angeles to work for ORT. Itching to get back to Las Vegas, in 2007, Friedman returned to the city to became director of the Nevada regional office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In this position, she worked with schools as well as law enforcement, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), teaching about tolerance and justice. She is a recipient of the FBI?s Las Vegas Division Director?s Community Leadership Award as well as the first awardee of Jewish Federation?s Jewish Professional of the Year. Three weeks into retirement, Friedman gave this interview, reflecting upon her extensive work with the ADL in Las Vegas. She discusses the city?s relatively low anti-Semitic activity, and how this allowed the Las Vegas ADL office to focus its efforts more broadly than in other cities. She also touches upon her family history, and how the community of Las Vegas has evolved since first visiting in 1963.
Daryl Morris discusses growing up in Las Vegas and his love of acting.
Daryl Morris is a native of Las Vegas. Born in 1961, he is one of three sons born to Paula and Bobby Morris. He recalls his childhood of the 1960s and 1970s with great fondness of the fast friendships formed within the Jewish community. His day job is in insurance, but his great love is for acting. He tells of being smitten at the age of 11 and taking acting lessons as a youngster and then later studying with actor Jeff Goldblum. He has an impressive list of films in which he has appeared, including the opening scene of Mall Cop 2. He enjoys voice-over acting and teaching acting classes. He also tells about his Navy service, attending UNLV, and coming to settle in Las Vegas-the place he calls home. Daryl also participated in the January 31, 2016, Growing Up Jewish in Las Vegas panel discussion for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project.
Interview with Mark Fine in two sessions, November 18 and December 2, 2014. In the first session, Fine begins by talking about his sons and their business interests, then discusses his own childhood growing up in Cleveland. Fine moved to Arizona as a teenager and attended the University of Arizona for college. After college, he moved to New York city, and describes his employment at Chemical Bank, and then at the investment firm Loeb, Rhoades. He was married and started a family in New York City, then moved to Las Vegas to assist in his in-laws' (the Greenspuns) business ventures, which included real estate development and Sun Outdoor Advertising. Fine talks about Las Vegas in the 1970s and building Green Valley and Summerlin, the "social engineering" aspects of developing a community and the importance of building incrementally. In Part II of the interview, Fine discusses his family history and raising his children in Las Vegas. He talks about the growth of the Jewish community and ph
Mark Fine was born in 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio, and was raised with a strong Jewish identity. When Mark was in fourth grade, his parents moved the family to Shaker Heights, and again moved to Arizona during his senior of high school. Upon graduation, Mark enrolled at the University of Arizona and became a member of the ZBT fraternity; determined to graduate in four years, he finished in 1964 with a degree in business administration with an emphasis in real estate. Though never having been, Mark took his degree to New York City and established a career on Wall Street, first working for Chemical Bank. In 1969, Mark married Susan Greenspun, and soon after, the couple had their first child. By this time, Mark had taken a new position with Loeb, Rhoades and Company, and worked there for nearly five years in their corporate finance department. In 1973, Mark moved to Las Vegas to assist his father-in-law, Hank Greenpun, with his nonnewspaper business operations, largely under the auspices of American Nevada Corporation. Mark soon capitalized on this passion for real estate and community development, leading several integrated real estate projects to create the Green Valley area, the city's first large-scale master-planned community. Mark went on to launch a similar project in Summerlin, and at one point, he was leading the development of the country's two fastest selling planned communities (Green Valley and Summerlin). Ultimately, Mark became one of state's prominent real estate developers, and continues to lead significant projects positively impacting the city's growth and appeal. His fundamental goal has always been to create a sense of place, to develop thriving communities with generational stamina. His success in this endeavor is recognized, in part, with the naming of Mark L. Fine Elementary School. Over the years, Mark has also been an important member of the Jewish community, among the "second generation of pioneers," coming after those heavily involved with the hotels during the 1950s and 1960s. He served on the Temple Beth Sholom board of directors, and initiated events to bring older and younger generations of the Jewish community together in meaningful ways. Mark has five children?Alyson Marmur, Katie Erhman, Jeffrey Fine and Jonathan Fine and Nicole Ruvo Falcone?and is married to Gloria Fine.
Jacques Ribons describes his life during the Nazi occupation of Poland. During the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto, his family decided to turn themselves in to the Germans. They were sent to a prison and separated. He and his brother survived and went to France with the OSE, and came to the United States in 1947.