In this interview, Joyce Mack discusses meeting her husband, Jerry Mack, in Los Angeles,their early life as a couple, and moving to Las Vegas at the suggestion of Jerry's father, Nate Mack. She discusses how Jerry met Parry Thomas and their banking and real estate investments. Mrs. Mack talks about the opening of the Thomas and Mack Center at UNLV, and the development of the strip hotels, and discusses her children.
Joyce Mack: wife to Jerry Mack and matriarch of one of the most influential families of Las Vegas history. During this oral history conversation, she begins by tracing her family ancestry from Kiev to New York to Omaha and then Los Angeles, where she was born and raised. At a UCLA fraternity party in the early 1940s, a teenage Joyce Rosenberg was swept off her feet by her older brother's friend Jerry Mack. Jerry was from Boulder City, Nevada and had attended school in Las Vegas. In 1946, the couple married and took an extended honeymoon throughout the United States and Cuba. Soon afterwards, Jerry's father Nate Mack, a businessman and real estate developer encouraged the newlyweds to come to Las Vegas. She tells of Jerry sharing his vision of the valley's future. Thus began a successful journey that traverses decades of Las Vegas history and breathtaking growth in which the Macks were active participants and leaders. Joyce recalls the people the first met, who they raised their children side-by-side with and became lasting friends. These people were other Las Vegas pioneers including the Greenspuns and mostly importantly her husband's partnership with Parry Thomas which created the Bank of Las Vegas. It was their partnership she explains that reduced the presence of the mob element. As members of the small Jewish community of the late 1940s, the Macks would participate in the founding of Temple Beth Sholom.
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From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Drafts for the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice file. On the Runnin' Rebels seeded in first round of NCAA in Boise, Idaho.
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Oral history interview with Robin Greenspun conducted by Barbara Tabach on February 09, 2017 for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. In this interview, Greenspun discusses her family background and growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada. She talks about her early interest in the arts, working in television productions, and becoming a film director.
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Ahavas Torah Center is a congregation located in Green Valley. Ahavas Torah Center seeks to create an atmosphere of growth through the synthesis of Jewish ethics, philosophy, law, culture and tradition. They have many youth programs, classes, Shabbos services and hope to be a source of learning for the growing Jewish community in Green Valley.
Ahavas Torah Center was founded by Rabbi Yehosua Fromowitz and his wife Frimie, who serves as the director of women’s programming.
The Adele Baratz papers mainly consist of photographs documenting Adele Baratz's life in Las Vegas, Nevada from the 1930s to 2010. An essay and list of names written by Baratz's brother, Charles Salton, document the early history of the Jewish community in Las Vegas.
Archival Collection
