Sanford Akselrad is the rabbi at Congregation Ner Tamid. In this interview he describes his rabbinical training, coming to Las Vegas, and the growth of the congregation.

More inclined in his youth to pursue a career as a scientist than rabbi, Sanford Akselrad (1957- ) became the rabbi at Congregation Ner Tamid in 1988. Turning his tenure, Rabbi Akselrad has lead the congregation through its move from Emerson to Street to its permanent home on Green Valley Parkway and I-215 and shares a fun story about buying desks and chairs from the Clark County School District. He talks about many of the milestones including: Project Ezra which he started during the 2008 recession to help Jewish community members find jobs; the NextGen program which was initiated to bring young adults in their twenties and thirties back to the temple. For over twenty years Rabbi Akselrad was a member of the board of the Nevada Governor?s Council on Holocaust education, a topic that was the focus of his rabbinical thesis. He was the founding president of the Clark County Board of Rabbis and has served on the boards of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, Jewish Family Services, and the Humana Hospital Pastoral Advisory Board. He was also the chair of the Federation?s Community Relations Council (CRC). Rabbi Akselrad is a board member of the Anti-Defamation League Nevada region office and the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada. Sanford Akselrad was born on October 6, 1957 in Oakland, California and raised in Palo Alto. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles and then went to graduate school at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion. He spent the first year of his graduate program in Israel, the next two in Los Angeles, and the final two years in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rabbi Akselrad met his wife Joni in Reno, Nevada and married her during his third year of rabbinical school. The couple has two children, CJ and Sam. After his ordination in 1984, Rabbi Akselrad was associate rabbi of Temple Israel in Columbus, Ohio, one of the largest Reform congregations in the Midwest. His choice of career was inspired by his father, Sidney Akselrad, who was a prominent rabbi involved in social justice issues and the Civil Rights Movement. Sanford Akselrad has followed his father?s example of community involvement, both in Las Vegas and on a national level: he served on the board of the National Conference of Community and Justice (NCJJ), he was chair of the NCJJ's Inter-faith Council, and he is active in the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ).

Oral history interview with Marvelys Lopez Omaña conducted by Monserrath Hernandez and Barbara Tabach on February 21, 2020 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. In this interview, Marvelys Lopez discusses her childhood and growing up in Caracas, Venezuela, where her father owned a toy store. She attended an all-girls Catholic School and from a young age knew that she wanted to be a doctor. In 1993, at the age of seventeen, she was able to study abroad in the United States for one year and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. She returned to Venezuela to attend medical school and while attending medical school she met her husband, who was studying to be a registered nurse at the time. Lopez Omaña recalls volunteering as a firefighter in Venezuela, and discusses the political change that happened in Venezuela during her last years in medical school. She moved to back Las Vegas with her husband in 2003 and began working as a caregiver. She recounts Her first son's birth story, and describes how she became a Certified Professional Midwife.

Oral history interview with Dana Su Lee conducted by Stefani Evans, Vanessa Concepcion, and Cecilia Winchell on February 10, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Dana talks about her childhood growing up in California and her parents who were both born in China. She discusses her educational background and her move to Las Vegas with her husband in 1997. Dana also shares her various community and philanthropic pursuits related to education and the arts. Subjects discussed include: Greg Lee; otherness; Nevada Women's Philanthropy (NWP)