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Luis F. Valera interview, January 23, 2019: transcript

Date

2019-01-23

Description

Interviewed by Nathalie Martinez. Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez also participates in the questioning. Luis F. Valera serves as the Vice President of Government Affairs at UNLV. His heritage is from Venezuela and Cuba. He has served as the Chairman of the Latin Chamber of Commerce and has been an active member of the Latino community since his pursuing his undergraduate degree at UNLV in Political Science and his Juris Doctorate degree from the William S. Boyd School of Law. His various achievements in the community and nation led him to become recognized and awarded the Arturo Cambeiro Hispanic of the Year Award in 2011.

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Transcript of interview with Elliot B. Karp by Barbara Tabach, December 17, 2014

Date

2014-12-17

Description

Interview with Elliot B. Karp by Barbara Tabach on December 17, 2014. In this interview, Elliot Karp discusses growing up in a culturally Jewish household in New York and becoming more observant in his teenage and college years. He decided, after a trip to Israel and a year in a rabbinical program, that he wanted to be a "Jewish professional" with a focus on social work and community organizing, and attended a Master's program at Brandeis University. Karp goes on to talk about his work for the Jewish Federation in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and being recruited to come to Las Vegas. He talks about the challenges in the Las Vegas Jewish community and the Jewish Federation's role as an umbrella organization to partner with other agencies to grow and sustain a robust Jewish community in Southern Nevada.

On October 6, 1955, Elliot Karp was born in Mineola, New York to parents of East European heritage who identified as culturally Jewish. As a teenager, Elliot felt the calling to become kosher, balancing this practice with household norms that were not as strict. He eventually became shomer Shabbat just after enrolling at State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he majored in Political Science. After graduating from SUNY, Elliot spent a year living in Israel considering a path in rabbinical studies. By the end of his time, he decided on a different, yet related path, and registered as a graduate student in Brandeis University's School of Jewish Communal Service, on fellowship from Council of Jewish Federations. After graduating, Elliot moved to Columbus, Ohio to work for the Jewish Federation, focusing on fundraising, but was exposed to many different operational areas of the organization. After three years, Elliot was recruited to the Philadelphia office as its director of leadership development. He then left the Federation to work in development at Brandeis University, but after two years, returned to the Federation as the Cincinnati office's chief development officer. In 2008, Elliot received a call to take his highly cultivated leadership and fundraising skills to another Federation office: Las Vegas. After much consideration, he took the job - and challenge - as the office's new chief executive officer. Since then, Elliot has done much to promote communication, coordination and collaboration within the local Jewish community and beyond, through relationship building and successful fundraising efforts. His ultimate desire is to expand funding for programs that get more people involved in Jewish life - while also empowering community members define what a Jewish life means for them.

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