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.
Mel Exber (1923-2002) was an innovative sports book operator and the longtime owner of the Las Vegas Club casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Exber was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 3, 1923. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and moved to Las Vegas in 1947. With his business partner, Jackie Gaughan, Exber opened the Saratoga Sports Book in 1953. Exber bought the Las Vegas Club in 1960, and also owned interests in the El Cortez, Plaza, Club Bingo, Western, Nevada, Gold Spike, and Barbary Coast.
Walter Weiss (1935- ) is a former boxer and casino professional in Las Vegas, Nevada. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Weiss started his boxing career at 16 years old and moved to New York City in 1953 to train professionally. His aptitude for boxing led him to be a sparring partner in New York City’s famous Stillman’s Gym, where he worked with some of the greatest fighters of the era including Rocky Marciano and Jack Dempsey. In 1958, Weiss moved to Las Vegas to find work with a local bookmaker, Elliott Price.
Harry Mack (1902-1985) was a Southern Nevada businessman and a founder of the Jewish community in Las Vegas, Nevada. He came to Las Vegas in 1937 with his brothers Louis and Nathan "Nate" Mack. He invested in land and commercial properties and owned Main Auto Parts and a builders supply store. Mack and his brothers were founders of the Las Vegas Jewish Community Center, built in 1946, and board members of B'nai B'rith in Las Vegas.
Jackie Boiman (née Brooks) was born July 21, 1946 in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Levittown, New York. Her religious connection began in the Levittown Jewish Center Sunday School and under the close relationship she had with her grandmother, who kept kosher and inspired her to do so.
David Dahan was born January 23, 1957 in Casablanca, Morocco. After a hasty departure in 1970, the family came to America and to Las Vegas, Nevada. By 1977, he married an Israeli nurse named Yaffa, who died in 2007. Her legacy is the Yaffa Dahan Nursing Education Fund, which Dahan established to assist outstanding nursing students in their dissertation research.