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Elaine Galatz oral history interview
Oral history interview with Elaine Galatz conducted by Barbara Tabach on April 22, 2015 for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Galatz discusses her work as a past Jewish Federation president, her marriage to renowned attorney Neil Galatz, and her career as an accomplished horsewoman.
Archival Collection
Margot Mink Colbert oral history interview
Oral history interview with Margot Mink Colbert conducted by Barbara Tabach on November 11, 2014 for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Colbert discusses her Jewish heritage and her background in ballet dancing. She also talks about “Transitions Trilogy,” her original story of Jewish immigration into New York and Jewish contributions to mainstream media, all expressed through dance.
Archival Collection
Ellen Barre Spiegel interview, December 4, 2017: transcript
Ellen Barre Spiegel grew up in Jericho NY, a predominantly Jewish town in Long Island. Her ancestors had migrated to the United Sates prior to the outbreak of World War II. And for much of life her exposure to cultural diversity was limited. Ellen was born in 1962. She attended Cornell University, located in upstate New York, and graduated in 1984. Though the student population was 30% Jewish, the university expanded her knowledge of the world: her Protestant roommate explained that she had never met a Jew and Ellen replied, I have never met a WASP. Her college studies centered on consumer economics and she was a public policy major. Ellen was an early adopter of technology and her career path included positions at American Express, Prodigy (a joint venture of IBM and Sears), the Weather Channel, and Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Each company used her increasing experience with using technologies to improve connections with consumers. Ellen describes her Jewish identity as conservative and is a member of Midbar Kodesh Temple in Henderson. She talks about her bat mitzvah and her move back to New York to recite the mourner’s Kaddish for the year following the passing of her father. Later, she moved to Santa Monica, where she met Bill, her husband, using a new dating site called Luvitt AOL. After marriage, the couple saw financial advantages to living in Las Vegas and relocated their business and home to the valley in 2001. Soon Ellen noted that there was no active Democratic Club in Henderson and it became her mission to reignite the club. This launched a long list of political and civic accomplishments for Ellen. She has been an assemblyperson in the Nevada legislature (2008, 2013-2017). Her list of accomplishments and affiliations are on pages 46-47.
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Transcript of roundtable interview about Kristallnacht with Esther Finder, Raymonde Fiol, Alexander Kuechel, Philipp Meinecke and Rabbi Felipe Goodman, by Barbara Tabach, March 17, 2015
In this interview, the participants discuss their experiences during Kristallnacht, and the commemoration events in southern Nevada with Holocaust survivors and their families. Mr. Kuechel recounts his journey through concentration camps and being liberated by the Russians. Rabbi Goodman talks about meeting Mr. Meinecke, whose grandfather was a high-ranking SS officer. Meinecke discusses his upbringing in Germany and trying to learn about his family's involvement in the Holocaust, and the hope he felt after the fall of the Berlin Wall as Jews returned to Germany. The group discusses the importance of Holocaust education because there are still so many untold stories.
On November 9th to November 10th, 1938, in an incident known as Kristallnacht, Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses, and killed close to one hundred Jews. In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, also called the Night of Broken Glass, some thirty thousand Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. German Jews had been subjected to repressive policies since 1933 when Nazi Party leader Adolph Hitler became chancellor of Germany. However, prior to Kristallnacht these Nazi policies had been primarily nonviolent. However, after Kristallnacht conditions for German Jews grew increasingly worse. During World War II, Hitler and the Nazis implemented their so-called final solution to what they referred to as "the Jewish problem" and carried out the systematic murder of some six million European Jews in what is now commonly known as the Holocaust.
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Shawn Willis oral history interview
Oral history interview with Shawn Willis conducted by Barbara Tabach on May 05, 2017 for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Willis shares her journey to "acknowledging" being a Jew, a transformation that occurred after moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2004. She also talks about her role as the Director of the Jewish National Fund.
Archival Collection
Biographical essay by Jacques Ribons, 2014
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.
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Suzie Chenin oral history interview
Oral history interview with Suzie Chenin conducted by Barbara Tabach on September 29, 2015 for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Chenin discusses her father, one of the first Jewish dentists in Las Vegas, Nevada, and moving there when he was stationed at the Nellis Air Force Base. Chenin also talks about her career as a real estate agent and selling advertising for the Las Vegas Sun newspaper.
Archival Collection
Audio clip from interview with Elliot Karp, December 17, 2014
Part of an interview with Elliot Karp on December 17, 2014. In this clip, Karp talks about his vision of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas as a tent under which all Jewish people can find a place to thrive.
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Audio clip from interview with Suzie Chenin, September 29, 2015
In this audio clip, Chenin discusses her father's career as a dentist in Las Vegas.
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Transcript of interview with Bob Arum by Barbara Tabach, October 20, 2016
Bob Arum is the founder and CEO of Top Rank boxing promotions company in Las Vegas, Nevada. Born in New York, Arum is a former attorney and a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He promoted his first fight for Muhammad Ali in 1966 and moved Top Rank’s headquarters to Las Vegas in 1986. He has produced countless fights in the city and helped to make it “The Fight Capital of the World.” In this interview, Arum talks about the path that led him to a career in boxing promotion, from childhood in Brooklyn, New York, to education at New York University and Harvard Law School, and finally meeting Muhammad Ali while working at New York law firm. He discusses his work with Ali, as well as other boxers, including Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Roberto Durán, George Foreman, and Oscar De La Hoya, and the growth and evolution of the sport over the past forty years. In addition, Arum talks about the role of Judaism in his life, his involvement with the local Jewish community, and the importance of the Chabad movement.
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