An Interview with Paul & Sari Aizley

AN INTERVIEW WITH PAUL & SARI AIZLEY

An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach

Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas

©Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project

University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014

Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV – University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans

The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a

Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first- person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish.

The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator.

The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project.

Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas

iii

PREFACE

Paul Aizley was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1936. He earned degrees at Harvard University, University of Arizona and his doctorate at Arizona State University. His 1968 move to Las Vegas was to begin a long career at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

From 1968 to 2008, Paul Aizley served UNLV in a variety of important capacities: a mathematics professor, dean of Continuing Education for 13 years, and the founder of the popular programs of OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.) In 2008 he was encouraged to run for the vacant District 41 State Assembly office. He won and held the position from 2009 – 2015. Among the legislations he championed was one to advance gender equity. He continues to be an active Democrat, firm that there are not enough seniors in these positions.

Sari (Guffenberg) Aizley was born in Newark, New Jersey and raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she was in a Jewish minority. She moved to Las Vegas shortly before Paul, who she would not meet until their paths crossed at UNLV. Sari was a single mother who worked for UNLV, where she also earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees.

Sari’s resume includes working for the Jewish Family Services, ACLU, selling advertising for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and starting the memorable CLASS! with her son David Phillips and Paul. For 16 years, CLASS! was distributed to the students of Clark County schools; featuring articles for and by the students.

For this oral history they highlight many of their accomplishments as individuals. Together they create a valuable legacy for the entire Las Vegas community, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Interview with Paul & Sari Aizley November 13, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach

Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………..iv SESSION 1

Tell the story of how they met while at UNLV working in university’s president office. Paul talks about being director of summer programs, Dean of Continuing Education until 2008, and being a founder of EXCELL which later became OLLI [Osher Lifelong Learning Institute]. Sari was on the Jewish Family Services board during that period and its connection with the history of continuing education…………………………………………………………………..….1 – 5

Sari talks about family Russian ancestry; settling in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; family grocery; father was a clothing factory cutter. Paul recalls his family history of settling in Boston; regrets not learning Yiddish; growing up with Italians; discovering that he grew up near another Las Vegas resident, Mimi Katz. Each tells story of how they ended up living in Las Vegas: Paul, a Harvard alum; Sari moved from upstate New York to follow her former husband who was offered a position at UNLV. Both began living in Las Vegas in 1967-1968…………..….5 – 15

Recollections of Las Vegas was like in the late 1960s; Paul went to dealers school; working for UNLV President Don Baepler. Sari worked for Channel 5 TV station; getting involved with IBEW [International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers] union; then worked for Las Vegas Review-Journal for six years; helped initiate classroom program of newspapers………..16 – 21

Sari and Paul talk about Allied Arts Council, starting Art and the Great Outdoors using open billboards and involving Roger Thomas as a judge. Started CLASS! Newspaper in 1994; son David involved; Paul’s involvement with ACLU; more about civic organizations they were active in including Nevada Faculty Alliance; assorted publications Sari became responsible for at UNLV……………………………………………………………………………….……..22 – 29

Sari talks about being on board of Jewish Family Services role in the community of Las Vegas (1987-); the mission to assist people in need, not just Jewish; who was on the staff at the time; how she put together a newspaper for fundraising, sold ads……………………………….29 – 31

Paul speaks about being faculty senate chair at UNLV; working for the university President Baepler; stepping into local politics; becoming assemblyman for District 41; working on a bill for transgender rights; the important role that older members of the Nevada Assembly can play.

Mention names of other notable Jewish people in local and state politics, such as Flora Dungan and Myrna Williams…………………………………………………..……………………31 – 35

Talk about the significance of being Jewish in their lives. Paul describes growing up Jewish in Boston; raising their blended family of children……………………………………………36 - 37

SESSION 2

Begins with conversation looking at copies of CLASS!, a publication that the Aizley’s started with son David Phillips in 1994; publication written for and by high school students. Talk about Elise (Ax) Wolff; how CLASS! was created and distributed; getting funding for it; support from leaders in the community, many who were Jewish. Sari talks about her thesis on how to start a nonprofit organization and researching Justice Thurgood Marshall. Talks about the success of CLASS!, closing it and donating equipment to Judi Steele and Public Education Foundation; the Review-Journal’s Regeneration page for school articles and competition with them; Spanish language section of CLASS!...... 38 – 48

Paul describes the Alliance, the American Association of University Professors, a national group and newsletter; adjusting to technologies and tools in doing publications, eventually on a Mac/Apple computer………………………………………………………………………49 – 51

Paul talks about education and the number of Jewish teachers. More about Jewish upbringing in Boston; importance of education for him; attending Harvard University; and long lasting friendships. Sari talks about growing up in Lancaster PA, where few Jews lived; being picked on by a teacher; cultural impact of being Jewish; assimilation of Jews into American culture; Yiddish……………………………………………………………………………………..52 – 55

Speak about raising children; sense of Jewish identity; Paul being only Jew in the Nevada Assembly at one time and then enough to form a Jewish caucus; irritation with prayer at the Assembly……………………………………………………………………………………56 – 58

Talk about ACLU and observations of anti-Semitism here; friction between northern and southern groups of Nevada’s ACLU. Anecdotes about FOCUS, Myrna Williams, Flora Dungan, George Rudiak, and others that they associated with. Story about hiring of Coach Jerry Tarkanian; how Sari came to be hired by ACLU in 1989; her experiences there………….59 – 66

Share 1977 article written by Sari about the Southern Nevada ACLA Strategies and Tactics; story about JFSA fund-raising dinner and newspaper she published, sought advertisers; 1977 summer course listings and cover art using………………………………………………...67 – 69

Index…………………………………………………………………….………………….70 – 71

vi vii

viii

This is Barbara Tabach. Today is Friday, the 13th, November 13, 2015. I am sitting with

Paul and Sari Aizley.

Tell me how you two met.

PAUL: We met at UNLV when I was working in the president's office and directing the summer term. Sari was in the publications office.

SARI: I was the publications director.

PAUL: Trying to design the cover for my summer bulletin. We had really met long before that, but that's really when we got to know each other.

You walked into the office or you asked her out on a date? What else do you remember about this?

SARI: We actually met less formally before that as the president's office was just across the hall from my office and I would sometimes hang out over there and talk with secretaries. He came in and I really loved his beard. I mean that just really attracted me. He had a great beard. We started talking there and we got very friendly there. Then after that was when he had to use my professional university services and he came to me for a cover for the summer bulletin.

PAUL: Which was designed with someone's foot on a skateboard and I thought the foot was ugly.

SARI: It was a man's beat up foot, barefoot, this big on the cover.

PAUL: We agreed on a compromise with repeated feet on the board so it looked like it had some motion to it as a summer activity.

So what year was that? Approximately.

PAUL: 1974, maybe, around then.

So in 1974, Paul, how long had you been living in Las Vegas at that time?

I arrived in 1968. I had been in the math department as assistant prof. Elected to senate from

Science/Math College; ran for the chair of the senate and lost (1969-70), but I won the next year

(1971-72). Then after that year, which is now about '74, I was working in the president's office

as assistant to Don Baepler.

What was your job description there?

Anything and everything. When the summer director got upset and left because he wasn't

dealing well with the faculty—they gave me the job. They just said, "You'll do that now."

And you didn't mind?

I did it from 1974 to 2008. Sometime, about four years in the 80s, I gave it up. Then I got it back

as Dean of Continuing Ed and summer term. Then I gave that up in 2008…until I retired, yes.

Well, I look at your resume here. It's a partial history of leadership. Founder of the

UNLV Center for Lifelong Learning for retired, semi-retired residents.

It's now called OLLI [Osher Lifelong Learning Institute].

Yes. People talk about that all the time.

Good program.

How did that come about?

A woman named Stephanie Smith. She was working at the Jewish Family Services—that's why

she was clearing her throat—and she was complaining (to Sari) about being rejected by all the

UNLV deans.

SARI: I was on the board of the Jewish Family Services at the time.

PAUL: Sari said, "Why don't you talk to my husband?" I was doing continuing ed. So

Stephanie showed up. Stephanie brought a guy from the Harvard program. His last name was

Rush; I'm not sure of his first name. Shirley Harris was involved. Carrol Steedman was involved. Edythe Katz's husband—I don't know if they were married at the time—Gil

Yarchever. We formed a group. Gil was involved.

Oh, not Lloyd.

No, no, no, Lloyd was gone. It was Gil. So we just sat and plotted. We gave them a place in

Continuing Ed and the program grew very easily. It was called EXCELL at the time, Extended

Education Center of Lifelong Learning. [15 years as EXCELL; 10 years as OLLI]

Where were the classes held then?

Anywhere there was space.

And not on campus?

No. But I had had the job of assigning unused space to the world.

On campus.

On campus, yes. It's the same thing I did in summer. I scheduled courses, too. And continuing ed uses unused space. We still don't have a continuing ed building, not because I didn't try to get one, but because I was always one upped by someone else.

The popularity of those courses: describe that to me over the years.

Continuing ed in general or just lifelong learning?

Both of them, yes.

They're tied together. Continuing ed has a big history on the campus. They were doing nurses' recertification, they were doing real estate, any kind of a certificate that didn't involve credit courses, non-credit education. In fact, the policy at the time was if you were going to hire someone and pay their salary from your revenue that would be called a continuing ed course.

That hasn't held up. As the deans wanted that money, they would do it themselves, too, but they

weren't supposed to. But back then we did. So part of the dean of continuing ed's job was to

schedule the courses. I already went to academic courses and if there was space available, we

would use it. Then there was a three or four-tiered rental agreement available for the outside

world to use it. Government, nonprofits and then for profits, all of them used the campus, which was small. It wasn't very big at the time. The policy stayed as the thing grew.

I think that's interesting. I don't know that I was aware that it had a Jewish Family

Services connection to it.

Well, yes.

Why did that happen?

PAUL: Stephanie Smith was either working there or a volunteer.

SARI: She worked there in the office and I was on the board and I hung around a lot, did a lot of

work for them.

PAUL: And Stephanie was familiar with the Harvard program in Cambridge and she knew that I

was a Harvard graduate. So that was another connection to put all of us together.

SARI: She and I just sat around a couple of times for several hours and just talked about things

especially education. Stephanie was very excited about education and said she desperately

missed going to those classes. I told her that Paul had some ideas and she should go and talk to

him.

That's great how that turned out and the popularity is just constantly growing. So in those

early days what were some of the favorite first classes?

PAUL: Well, it was done a little bit differently then; everything changes. But the idea from

Stephanie was that there would be no leader or teacher of the class. You'd pick a topic. So, for

example, one topic was China and Sig Stein, a local pharmacist, that was his hobby, China. So

that was a very popular class. I don't know what they have now.

Soapbox with an open topic course. I don't know if we had one of those. But whatever

the local person was interested in they did. I know they did...What was her name? I forgot her

name. Something like, after divorce what do you do with your life? Things like that.

SARI: I know who you're talking about, but I can't remember her name.

PAUL: It was interesting. She and her husband came here because of the program. They were

shopping schools and if there had not been something for them to do with the university, they

would have moved elsewhere. I'm almost getting her name. It'll come back.

Doris Oberstein. She divorced and took her maiden name back. So I forgot the first name. She's gone. She's moved to Florida. …

So we're going to go back even further then. We'll come full circle back into more modern

times: What do either of you know about your family heritage, your Jewish lineage? How far back can you tell me about it?

SARI: I can go back as far as my maternal grandmother and my paternal family, whole family.

Where did they come from?

Well, they were all from Russia. My grandmother grew up in the area...it's a small town outside of Kiev. She was learning to be a seamstress. Do you want to know of a particular incident that happened during her time?

Oh, yes. Love the anecdotes, yes.

She was an apprentice to a family in the city of Kiev and she lived with them when she was sixteen.

This is your grandmother?

My grandmother, my mother's mother. She lived with them and while she was there one day there was a pogrom and they started going to houses looking for Jews. Well, she wasn't with a

Jewish family. She was with a nice family. And they were looking for Jews. The family moved some furniture. They stood her up in a recessed doorway and moved a very large piece of furniture in front of the doorway. She stayed there until they felt it was safe, until the soldiers left, and they freed her from that. That was vivid when she told me about that.

My grandfather, I don't remember what city he was from, but he was also from Russia.

They came over individually. They weren't married then. My grandmother came here with her sister and her mother. My grandfather I don't know a whole lot about.

My father and his family, he was the youngest of ten children. They were from Odessa and they lived in a beach house, a house on the beach. They were rich over there. His father had a factory making certain parts of shoes. One time he told me it was the little metal holes for lacing.

Oh, like the eyelets.

Yes. They were doing that. But then he told me they made something else. So I get the sense that he had this small factory that made little metal things. They grew up there. Then some of them came over; I think five of them came over at one time. Three sisters and two brothers came over. His oldest sister, Gania, came over and then Betty and Brica; those were the three sisters.

Abe and---. At the moment I forgot the other brother's name...and my dad.

I thought there were ten.

There were ten, but they didn't all come over. One sister stayed there and became a doctor. She drowned. That was the end of her. She was going across a frozen lake to a patient who needed her for an emergency and she went through the ice. This is bizarre.

Well, to be a female doctor back in that era would be very—

There were a lot of female doctors in Russia, yes.

There were? I didn't know that.

They were passionate.

Yes. So did your family settle in Pennsylvania?

They actually all went to New York. Then my grandfather had a friend who moved to Lancaster,

Pennsylvania, and opened a little grocery store. This is weird, too. He wrote to my grandpa and

said, "It's wonderful here. This is a wonderful city and I'm making a lot of"—not a lot of

money—"I'm making a good living," in Russian he said, "in my grocery store and there is room

on the next block, one block away." A block was probably from here to there. It wasn't like a

mile or anything.

Short blocks, huh?

Oh, yes, about twenty steps. He said, "There is a building there for sale and you could make a

store there, too." So my grandfather and grandmother with their two daughters moved to

Lancaster and opened a grocery store on the other corner. There he made friends and they both

were able to support their families from the grocery stores.

What was the name of the grocery store?

J.M. Booth. It used to be Bootelcuff. So he became a Booth. Sam Aptigar was the friend who suggested my grandfather come.

Then Mother was working in New York. She met my dad there somewhere. I think she was sitting in a theater and my dad was walking by her. He liked her and he gave her in his business card. He had them made up. It's not a business card; I mean he wasn't doing anything—yes, he was selling insurance for one of the biggies, one that's still going,

Metropolitan; I don't know. He liked the way she looked. So as he was going past her knees, he

gave her his business card. I guess she must have called him.

Yes, she must have. Right?

She wasn't shy. I'm pretty sure that was the story. That was their story on how they met and I

tend to believe them.

Yes. Well, it sounds very romantic.

Oh, yes, it was very romantic.

So your dad, you said he was in grocery as well as a tailor?

When he and Mother moved to Lancaster, he got a job at a place called Ottenstein Coat Factory.

He was actually a cutter. He did the cutting for the coats and suits and dresses and skirts. But I

didn't know what to call him, so I always referred to him as a tailor because he was in the

clothing business. Then my grandfather got very sick. So my dad left his job and took over the

grocery store for my grandfather.

Did you ever work in the grocery store yourself?

Oh, they would let me scoop ice cream sometimes and they let me sell cigarettes. They would

sell them for a penny apiece. Open the packs. The packs were only ten cents. So at a penny

apiece, they were making a lot of money.

That's the second day in a row that I've heard about selling individual cigarettes. I never

knew that that was even possible.

There were no rules back then about it.

So before I get you to Las Vegas—Paul, what do you know about your family ancestry?

PAUL: I really don't know much. I know my father came over probably 1895. He was born in the old country. To me the old country is somewhere in the Soviet Union. He was very secretive about it. I don't know where they came from. And the name was Egracovitz back in those days. He changed it when he was in the military, maybe nineteen years old. He took the name—I guess it was easy to do and he did—he took the Aizley name then. I think he just made it up. So there's no history to the name to go back.

More confusing than that, he had probably an uncle—my father, Egracovitz, and another brother Patowitz, they were blood brothers, but they had different names. The Patowitzes ended up in New York; the Aizleys ended up in Boston.

My mother was born in Boston, but her oldest siblings were born somewhere in the old country. The family name was Abramovitz then and became Abrams when she got here.

My dad was convinced that we would be Americans. Much to my regret they did not teach us Yiddish and I struggled with German later. They picked very American names for the kids. My brothers are Robert—I'm Paul—and Daniel. They were Goldie and Meyer and they didn't want that. They wanted to be Americans. We were all bar mitzvahed, but we have not been close to the temple. I'm closer now because we belong to two temples. We belong to

Congregation Ner Tamid and we belong to be P’nai Tikvah with Rabbi Yocheved Mintz.

There isn't much Jewish history. I only know of one grandparent that I have a connection with. They were all gone by the time I was three. She was hit by a car, run over. That's the last

I've heard of grandparents. Now, some of the older cousins know more about it, but we just have never talked much about it.

I think that's not abnormal especially those immigrants that were wanting to Americanize

and that was the way that they thought they could plug in.

Well, my dad was a social worker without college training in a settlement house called the North

End Union in the north end of Boston. What I know about it is that it was Presbyterian run, but it was all Italian Catholics in there, being run by a Jewish guy. He was the manager or whatever his title was. I have a lot of Italian culture that I grew up with.

Oh, I think that's a good blend.

Didn't your parents have siblings?

Yes. My father was the youngest of five and my mother was the youngest of eight. But what's there to offer historically there? My mother's family had a lot of illegal bookmakers in the family. In fact, one of my aunts had—and I deliberately said aunt, not "ant"—one of my aunts was the first female bookie in Boston.

Now, there's a claim to fame. What are the stories about her? How do you know this about her?

Well, it was pretty much known by the family because the brothers that were bookmakers didn't use the Abrams then. They used Ford. In fact, there was a boxer, Uncle Henry Ford.

I was from a very colorful family, but I don't know anything more about the details on that. The women were definitely housewives, homemakers. I do know that my grandmother during Prohibition made gin in the bathtub and my mother had to deliver it. I do know that story.

That grandfather was a tailor, also, definitely was a tailor. But like I say, he was gone before I was three years old, so no contact.

So what neighborhood were you growing up in Boston?

I grew up in Brighton, which is in Boston. My mother grew up in the North End. I was born in the North End, which was mostly Italian at that time, the Jews having moved to the suburbs.

Isn't that where Mimi Katz was brought up, too, where she lived?

Mimi Katz and I happened at one time and at different times to live on the same street in

Brighton, Chiswick Road. Mimi lived there and it was ten years between me and Mimi and I think I was there ten years after. I couldn't find anybody—even my friends' older sisters didn't know Mimi Goldberg or Miriam Goldberg. So we never established a connection, but we both went to elementary school, Hamilton Elementary briefly, and we both knew Rabbi Shubow from the local temple. So we had those little connections.

Isn't that amazing? How did that come up in conversation? How did you figure that out?

Again with OLLI, with the learning and retirement group. We were at someone's house, I think

Stephanie Smith's house, and there were several of us from Boston in the room and that discussion grew.

Hamilton was the first thing that came up.

And the Hamilton school, yes, which just recently closed. It was open all the years.

So get me from the east to Las Vegas. Who wants to go first on that?

Well, I had never been outside of New England and barely outside of Boston. I was in Maine one summer and I was determined to go somewhere. So after graduating from Harvard while I was a senior, I applied only to western schools—California and Arizona. Got an offer with a scholarship or help at U of A in Tucson. So I went there. Then after I got my master's, I went back to Boston. I taught at Tufts for two years. It snowed and I left. There is no reason to live in a snowstorm. So that time I went to Seattle to see what the Northwest is like, which I now refer to as the Great North Wet. It rains all the time except when Sari and I visit. Then it doesn't rain.

I have never seen rain in Seattle. It's magic.

You're one of the fortunate few.

Then since I didn't get a degree at the University of Washington, a place I really didn't like, I called my friends in Arizona who had changed and gone to Arizona State University and I got an assistantship there and went there. Then when I was finishing up the Ph.D. at ASU, I wanted a job. I wanted to make some money. And the job was available at UNLV except it was Nevada

Southern University when I applied. Then when I arrived they had the big change. The structure changed, the school changed, the president changed; everything had been changed and it was

UNLV.

So all was good, right? The change was good?

Yes.

I can think of two things you've left out.

What's he left out?

Number one, you used to work in a knitting mill and, number two, he got his bachelor's degree at

Harvard.

Well, I said that.

He was one of those walking around students. He wasn't in residence there. What do you call them, day school?

Commuter.

Commuter, thank you.

They don't allow you to do that anymore. You have to live in Cambridge. We had a commuter house; Dudley House was for commuters.

You had an interesting summer job.

Well, the knitting mill, but they weren't Jewish knitting mills. New England was known for its

textile industry and I was in one of the last knitting mills and I worked there for five summers I worked in the mills. Each time I would come back. I was a union member, Textile Workers of

America, and had that job for five years.

That was probably good experience to have—coming to a union city like Las Vegas. You appreciate what the unions mean.

I'm a union guy all the way, and so is Sari. You can't negotiate by yourself if you're working for a big company including UNLV.

Now, I need to ask you something. Didn't you tell me that Harvard was limiting the number of

Jews?

That was rumor at the time that there was a quota, an old-time quota on the number of Jews they would accept. So they did have somewhat of a limit. Now, I can't give you any reference, but that's what we all pretty much agreed to.

Wow. I did not know that. It doesn't surprise me, though, because that would have been the 1960s.

Fifties. I graduated high school in '53 and college in '57. But Harvard admissions in those days was very different than what it is now. I think we did write a letter. You didn't have to pay anything to apply. One of the local high schools—there's a history of competition between

Boston Latin School versus English High School. Boston Latin School was much older—1635, the year before Harvard was founded, which was 1636—and it was for training kids to go to

Harvard. It was really a college prep school and not a high school. So probably a hundred, a

150 years later, English High School was one of the first high schools in the United States. But they did a lot of training for people to go to MIT. The year that I went to Harvard, three of the

English High School graduates went to Harvard; a hundred and one from Boston Latin School

went to Harvard and anybody I can name would probably be Jewish. Almost every one of them

that I knew.

Really?

Yes, yes.

So how did you celebrate being Jewish in Boston? Did you belong to a synagogue or

anything like that?

PAUL: Yes, sure, Temple Beth Sholom, I think. Or is that the one here?

SARI: No, that's here.

Well, Rabbi Shubow, I know, but the temple was a very similar name. Mimi had said Shubow's

name and brought it back. None of my friends or neighbors were really...Well, some did go to

Hebrew school after school, but I didn't and my close friends didn't do that. I had private

tutoring for about four months just so I could read Hebrew and I've totally forgotten that. I

couldn't translate, but I could the Hebrew. I've looked at it since then. It doesn't come back. It's

not there.

Not like riding a bicycle, huh?

No, not like riding a bicycle at all.

But you had a bar mitzvah?

Oh, yes, yes.

Then how did you get to Las Vegas, Sari?

SARI: I was living in Upstate New York in a town of five hundred people. There was one other

Jew in the town and he was a farmer. I was married to someone else at the time who was teaching at one of the SUNY, State University of New York schools up there in the sticks. He was offered a job. It was at the time UNLV or Nevada Southern, and starting a hotel program and

they hired—have you talked to the Vallens, Jerry and Flossie Vallen? They're both Jewish, very

interesting. Jerry has just finished two or three books.

So he was hired. Jerry Vallen was running a restaurant or a hospitality program in

another school in the SUNY system. They hired him to put together a hotel program. So he

hired the man I was married to, my husband then, and somebody else from Upstate New York.

My husband at that time was doing a restaurant program for Morris or something. Anyway,

they offered him a job. Jerry went out and he decided to accept and then he called my husband

and said, "Come out here and look at it." So my husband came out to Las Vegas and he called

me from there. He was out in June. He called me from the airport and said, "It's about a

hundred and fifty degrees here and all the houses are surrounded by concrete block walls. It's

like a giant prison. You would hate it. And I said, "Fine, let's go." That's how I got out here.

So you really were that big of an adventurer.

I was ready to leave Upstate New York. The job I had was twenty miles away in Utica and I had

to drive there twice a day including during the winter when that's some of the worst winters in

the country in this part of the world, in fact. It's called the Snowbelt of the country.

For Jewish history, you have the Vallens and the Levinsons. Levinsons, Charlie and Bea are

both gone now.

Bea just died.

I don't know if the kids are in town. There were three daughters in the Levinson family. I think

even Becky is gone now. She moved to California?

I think she did, too.

So you both got here in about the same year, 1967-68.

Yes.

Either of you can go first, but describe your reaction to seeing Las Vegas back in that time.

What was it like?

PAUL: That wasn't my first time in Las Vegas because I had been at UCLA for a summer program and a guy I knew, we drove up. I had a car and I was driving for the summer because the people that owned the car lived in Tucson and they were moving to San Francisco. I went to

Tucson and got their car and drove to California. Anyway, we did come over in that car. We drove over to Las Vegas in 1961, I think. I had no thought that I'd ever be teaching here, never.

Maryland Parkway was dirt. The only thing at the Boulevard Mall was the Sears tire station and

I needed to go there to get the tires fixed. Other than that I had no idea there was a university here.

When I came back when I was living in the Phoenix area, Tempe, I just came out for the interview. I think I drove up. It was fine with me. The bookie gambling part of my family always thought of Las Vegas as a wonderful place to be. I had been here and I came back again.

I thought I'd have lots of visitors. I even got a two-bedroom apartment when I moved here and I had no visitors.

Oh, that's unusual.

Yes. Well, that was back in 1968.

But it wasn't then, I guess.

Yes, yes. They didn't show up. One of the old profs from Tempe would usually stay with me on his ride up to Utah. He would visit and stay. But I didn't have a lot of visitors. All my friends developed here; all the people I knew were from here.

What neighborhood did you live in when you first moved here?

Just across Tropicana in the apartments.

What were they called?

I forget. Lulu was the street; that was my address.

Yes. I lived there, too, for a while.

My objection to living there was I was downwind from the airplanes. The noise didn't bother me, but the smell did. I would never move there again, in that direction from the airport. We've always lived easy driving distance with the university. Sari always drives west in the morning and east in the evening to keep the sun out of her eyes.

You are a smart woman.

I used to live in Florida and we lived west. The radio station I worked for was on the beach.

Every morning I drove into the sun and every evening I drove into the sun. Never again.

But as a mathematician, I don't know if you're aware of the changes that took place when Beat the Dealer was printed.

No. Talk about that.

Well, that wasn't a Las Vegas product. It was some guy Back East. [Edward O. Thorp] He wrote the book. They had come out and they figured you could beat blackjack and you could beat...What's the other high roller game?

Baccarat.

Baccarat, yes. Those are set fixed behavior on part of the dealers and you could beat them if you counted the cards. Thorp wrote Beat the Dealer. Las Vegas didn't believe that it would work, but it did and they did change the way the game was dealt after that. They went from a single deck to six decks and things, all because of the Beat the Dealer stuff. You can still beat the game, but you have to count and it doesn't make a lot of money very fast. You have to really be intense on it.

So were you a fan of gambling personally when you came here?

Sure. When I came I played blackjack as a customer a lot—not a lot. I always made my rent payments and any food. I never had to go on the dole. But I would never play a slot machine except I was waiting with a friend of mine Louie Simonoff who had been here a little bit longer and while I was waiting I put a nickel in or five nickels and won a hundred dollars. I got hooked on slots and I gave up blackjack. Except I went to dealer school and I did deal blackjack one summer.

Whose dealer school did you go to?

Oh, it's closed now. It was over on Maryland Parkway, right on Twain, right there. I don't know. It's gone now as far as I know.

Where did you deal?

Nob Hill on Las Vegas Boulevard, on the Strip. It was between Harrah's and Imperial Palace— no, Flamingo, Flamingo first and then Harrah's, it was in between. It was owned by Harrah's.

The regent Bill Morris—Bill, even though he was a UNR graduate, he was very friendly to

UNLV. He was involved in getting the land that UNLV is on and he was also involved with Don

Baepler in bringing Tarkanian here as a coach. Since I was working for UNLV President Don

Baepler and I told Bill I'd like to deal, he made sure that I got a job.

Baepler was president and then later he was the chancellor.

Then he ran the Barrick Museum, too, after that.

So, yes, because you are a mathematician, you have a unique perspective about these games of chance, I guess.

Yes, I do. Mathematics built this town, but nobody appreciates it, mainly the public. If you take a look at the math department and see where they're stuck there, it's a terrible building.

So when you came did you take a job right away when you moved here?

SARI: Yes, I did.

Where did you first work?

I went to Channel 5. Do you know the name Charles Vanda?

He owned a TV station, he and his wife—I worked for him for six months. One day he found out that I was instrumental by accident organizing a union in there. He was a really, really bad man. He was vulgar. No, I can't tell you anything because it will go on there. I can't tell you that.

He was not nice and his wife was not nice, too. They just were not nice people and they would take advantage of the employees. They would, for example, tell one guy who was an engineer that he had to go on the air and do this. "But I can't pay you anymore." Anyway, I worked for him for six months. Then somebody else in there got the idea of starting a union because I hadn't been there long enough. She got sick, pregnant actually, and couldn't do any more. She asked me if I would arrange for the first union organizing meeting with IBEW

[International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers]. And I did. I got all the employees together and on Saturday we all met at the IBEW hall. The boss had heard about it; somebody squealed. He sent somebody out to lurk in the parking lot and copy down all the license plates. So he knew who was there. He called me in. It was the day after I had won some kind of award for a commercial that I produced for them. I thought he was going to say something nice to me about it and he told me I was fired because you're terrible; you don't do your job very well; and what's this about trying to start a union? Well, boy, that was a secret why he fired me. I went immediately to IBEW and they did whatever they did and he was

ordered to pay me a salary for as long as I was unemployed.

But it wasn't very long because I went to the Las Vegas Review-Journal and talked to the

general manager and told him I was exactly what they needed. Well, at that time they were

talking at starting a promotions department at the Review-Journal. They didn't have that. So

they asked, could I do it? I said, of course, I could do it. He hired me. He happened to say,

"But I can't pay you any more than the highest paid woman in the editorial staff." Okay. It was

a job. I took the job. I worked there for six years.

We started a lot of programs there. I was the real estate editor when they decided to open a real estate section. I said, "I don't even know what escrow is." And they said, "Look it up." I was the real estate editor. The program that they're still running there—I'm very proud of this—it's called the Newspaper in the Classroom. It used to be called the Living Textbook.

They still do that and this is how many years? It's forty something years since then.

(The program puts) newspapers in Classrooms in the high schools, the junior high, and the elementary school. The kids work with them. Some of the ideas are this: Teaching boys math. Go to the sports page and let's look at the batting averages. Let's learn about that. Let's look at the wins and losses. Oh, the car ads; that's a wonderful math teaching tool. There's something for everybody. Geography was a kick. And history, they used to look at what was on the front page and the teacher could say something like, "Okay, go back to the '40s and see if you see something there that's very much like this particular..." But they used it for everything. I used to go around places all around the area and into California and teach teachers how to teach it. It was big, obviously; they're still doing it.

Oh, that's very exciting. So this was your idea?

I heard about a woman who was doing something with newspapers and who lived in Wichita.

Her name was Hope Shackelford. I invited her to come out (to Las Vegas). We set up a meeting

for teachers. We had two hundred teachers there. She talked to them and told them how the

program works. They were jumping out of their seats; they were so excited.

But you left out the fact that you had some background in promotion at the radio stations in

Florida.

Oh, yes. I had been doing advertising and promotion and production and all kinds of things in

radio and television. I did have a good background for it.

That was a natural spot for you.

Yes. So they really loved it. Very quickly I will tell you the story that she told these teachers that

just stopped the show. Her friend was a teacher with her in a junior high school. This is way,

way long ago; way back in the early 1900s. Her friend was telling her class of junior high

school students how lucky they are to have electricity and lights; and they have television now.

When she was growing up, her family did not have electricity. The kids asked, "Well, what did you do at night?" She said, "Oh, we made out."

[Laughing]

That's exactly how the kids reacted. She figured she had lost any kind of communication with them and she quit the next year.

Oh, no. [Laughing] That's great.

That was a wonderful time. I really loved that.

So how long did you do that?

Let's see. Well, I left in 1974, in July of '74. So I did it all that time. That was just part of it. We did lots of stuff.

Are there other programs you want to mention?

Well, they came later. They're not part of the newspaper.

Yes, there were some other ones. I went to the university after that and was responsible for about five hundred and fifty publications. I was the publications director there.

At UNLV.

Yes, for a long time. Did I start anything?

When you left there you went to the Allied Arts Council and started Art and the Great Outdoors.

And you did a promotional for—well, when we had a cover on the telephone directories. This was all done while she was with the Arts Council. It was competitions, unused billboards for the art program, some of the local artists.

That was good. We worked with Don Rey Advertising. They said, "Fine, we have blank billboards around here." So we had a lot of response. Parry Thomas...Do you know that name?

Oh, sure.

I think it was his son. Roger Thomas was the person. He was one of the judges. We had three very distinguished judges. We got some wonderful art. We just gave them the dimensions and said, "Go for it." We had those all over town for a while and then...I left, I guess.

I featured the art department art in a summer bulletin one time, on the cover, inside pictures just to fill up. The summer directors rejected it as an idea, saying, "What is this, an art gallery?" So

I'm trying to promote department by department in the summer bulletin, and the people in the summer school administration—not administration, the organization—just didn't get it. I said,

"All right." We did other things together. It was fun.

There was one guy from Vancouver who did a collection of the world's worst art. It had to be an oil painting. You had to pay less than five dollars for it. Then during the summer directors' meeting, we had naming the picture competition. Then he would have a black tie event

in Vancouver for the Canadian Foundation.

No. It was the crippled—they had a very crude kind of name, Crippled Children's Organization or something like that.

Yes. Where they auction off the art and things.

They made hundreds of thousands of dollars at that thing.

Well, what a fun thing to be involved in.

Yes, yes.

You've been involved in a lot of—both of you—things that made a difference in people's lives.

The one we haven't gotten to yet is the CLASS! newspaper.

Are you familiar with CLASS!?

No. Tell me about it.

I don't know what year it started.

Ninety-four. 1994.

Okay. So we're both at UNLV then.

No. I left in '81.

Anyway, son David is in high school, graduates from high school, and his idea is that he wants a paper written by all the kids in all the high schools in Las Vegas.

He was a student at Bishop Gorman High School and they had no real interaction with all the public schools and that's where all his friends were in the public schools and he felt that he was cut off. He didn't know what they did, not just sports, but what they studied and how they thought. He wanted their opinions. What's going on at home while we're in school?

Who is this again?

That's our son David.

David Phillips, who was the campus photographer for a while, too. So this lasted for sixteen

years. All the high schools were involved. Forty-thousand copies of the paper were distributed.

Weekly or monthly? Monthly.

Monthly.

It was in residence at UNLV. CLASS! was in residence here over in the Business Services

Building.

How interesting.

Yes. That was absolutely wonderful. I'm sorry I don't have a copy of the paper to show you

because it was impressive. It was tabloid, full color throughout.

Do you have copies at home?

You want to see one?

Oh, I would love it. I think that you may have things—another aspect of this project—oral

histories is one part, but then the other part is photographs and documents and collections

that people donate to us. I'll tell you more about that when we're done with the recording.

But you've done some amazing things. I could see creating a collection of whatever you

might want to donate to Special Collections.

[NOTE: The Aizleys donated a set of CLASS! to Special Collections.]

Regent Sam Lieberman wants to bring CLASS! back.

Do you know Flora Dungan was Jewish?

Yes, I have heard that.

Probably the first female to run an NCHE campus was Judith Eden, who was president of the—

No, that was community college.

That's an NCHE institution, higher ed institution. There are eight campuses in hire ed including the community college. The first female president of any of the eight—

Oh, I'm sorry.

—was Judith Eden. She was president for five years.

And she's Jewish…She's where, in Washington now?

Yes. She has something about an assessment organization. I've lost the name of it. But she left from here.

She was a kick. Little, tiny, thin, wearing stiletto heels even when everybody else was wearing flats, cute, little dynamo.

And she's nice, genius.

Well, talk about some of the other notable Jewish people within the university, I guess.

Have you read John Marshall's book? [Jews in Nevada]

Yes.

We work with John Marshall. Some of these people are in that book, too. The most noticeable exception is that John left me out.

Well, that wasn't nice.

What you may or may not know about Paul is that he was the national delegate for ACLU. He was the state president for ACLU. How he got involved with that is that I accepted a job to start an ACLU chapter in the south. So I was their first director in the south. Of course, I had to recruit him. Why not? So we had the office in our home most of the time, actually, and worked there. But he was very active. We used to meet at Mimi's [Katz] house. He was a very active state president—they don't acknowledge that—and national delegate.

George Rudiak was involved. Do you know that name?

Yes.

You probably met Gertrude or know about her.

Gertrude is definitely in her nineties now.

She's a hundred.

Is she a hundred now?

She's a hundred.

But you haven't talked to her?

No, but I understand she's pretty sharp. So I'm going to try to get her soon.

Gertrude is amazing. …The artist, Rita Abbey, do you have her?

We do have an interview of Rita, yes.

Her two sons, one is in town, I think…You'll get the smallness of Nevada because the number of people is small and the connections overlap everywhere.

Let's talk about...the American Civil Liberties Union, right? So talk about how that really got started. Elaborate a little bit more on that for me.

It was ongoing in Northern Nevada, but there was no chapter in Southern Nevada, bizarre. So

Jim Shields—I don't know if he was the chair or the president—anyway, he was from Northern

Nevada.

Well, he was like an executive director. He was the paid employee.

He was the paid employee? Okay. I don't know how he got my name, but he came here and asked if I would start a chapter and be the director of it. Did we just come back from Europe, from Austria?

Might have been. It's around then, my one sabbatical.

Yes. We spent that in Austria and Boulder, Colorado. But he came down and we set it up. Yes,

we set up the thing and put together a board.

Why did they focus on you to get it started?

We don't know that.

I don't know why he came to me.

Was Jim Richardson involved?

No, I don't think so. I don't know I knew Jim then.

He knew me. He knew Jim.

For twenty years I produced the newspaper for the Alliance for Higher Education in this state.

That's the AAUP affiliate. The alliance was an award-winning newspaper. And the local paper was what, the UNLV paper—Cap & Gown and it won awards.

Oh, yes, I did that one, too, UNLV's monthly newspaper for the Alliance. Anyway, I've been trying to think, why did he come to me? I don't know. He must have known somebody in town and they referred him. I don't know.

So when you say you did those publications, are you saying you managed them; that you

wrote them?

All of the above: writing, editing, interviewing, page layout and managing the printing.

The ACLU was one thing and the Alliance for the...What were they called?

The Alliance. Oh, Nevada Faculty Alliance.

Yes, Nevada Faculty Alliance was the organization, which still exists. It's still there.

I think they just go...technology...on the web.

I was senate chair twice and then followed that a few years later as being president of the

statewide Faculty Alliance.

So would you guys describe yourself as activists, organizers?

Yes.

Troublemakers?

Yes. Keep going.

I'm trying to get a sense. This is a great list. But what about you both brought you to do all of this? That's a lot of energy you're talking about.

She got me into most of the trouble I've ever got into.

Well, I was also the director of the arts organization. What was it called?

The Allied Arts Council.

Allied Arts Council. Yes, but there was something else, too. Okay, Allied Arts Council. I did

that but only for a year because at the end of the year he was given a sabbatical and I wasn't

going to give up a year away. So I gave that up. But meanwhile, we got that Art in the Great

Outdoors and we got the telephone—not Centel, whatever the telephone company was called at

that time—work with them and they agreed to let us do a contest to design the cover of the

telephone book. That was the one I know we talked about it. Roger Thomas was one of the

judges and so on. So we got that done.

Then one year somebody objected to the design on the front because it had children and

one of the children was a black child with pigtails all over her head and they thought that they

was demeaning. The interesting thing was that it was designed and drawn by a black child with

pigtails all over her head. She was the artist. Anyway, that ended that.

Then we (the Arts Council) had the thing that was short lived because they didn't keep

going after I left and that was getting businesses who have grand openings—well, not even the

grand openings—who have any kind of venue that they needed entertainment for, like dancers to

entertain at Christmas and things like that, that they should hire local dancers and musicians from the union or just people individually. That was great when the Meadows Mall opened.

They used a lot of local performers. They used some artists to do signs and things and dancers and musicians. It was great, but it didn't keep up. It was a lot of work. The Discovery Museum had its start at Allied Arts meetings with our board. Robin Greenspun, have you talked to her?

I haven't interviewed Robin yet, but she's helped me out on some other parts of the project.

She's the one who brought (the idea of a children’s museum) to the board. At first, they were talking about doing it in Henderson, but then little by little it evolved into Las Vegas Boulevard.

…No, the Children's Museum, the big one, Discovery that moved over to Smith Center.

Let's talk about your involvement specifically with the Jewish community. What were the highlights of that for you; you [to Sari] were in Jewish Family Services you said earlier.

SARI: Yes, on the board.

What was memorable from that era? What year were you on the board?

1987 and on.

What were some of the hot issues during that time?

Oh, people who had immigrated into town, how to take care of them and medical care and things like that. That was a biggie.

Are these Jewish immigrants?

Jewish Family Services—it was always everybody.

No, all the immigrants they took care of were—am I using that word right? In my ears it doesn't sound right.

I believe they were all Jews. I won't say that now because my memory of that time is a

little fuzzy. But I do remember because I happened to find a publication I did for them, I do

remember that they had a great big fundraiser and it was based on the theme of a USO night,

Veterans Day. I put together this 32-page tabloid newspaper and we sold ads in the paper. We

made pretty good money on that. That was fun. I'll show it to you.

Who else was involved in Jewish Family Services at that time?

Well, the director was Bill Feldman. [Director of JFSA 1996-2004]

We were on the community relations board of the Jewish Federation; Mimi Katz and

Shirley Kravitz were on the staff.

Of the Jewish Federation, yes.

That's what it was then. Right, there was no Jewish Community Center yet.

Right. That came later.

So the big discussion then was getting teachers, particularly recruiting Jewish teachers. That was a biggie.

Yes, because the school district had a habit of going to Mormon centers and not recruiting in

New York or Los Angeles for teachers.

That was what we worked on. That was, yes, the Jewish Federation.

How did you work on that? How did you recruit?

I wasn't there.

What was your strategy in recruiting Jewish teachers?

Well, that was just a policy making board and they had people. I would just be one of the little

cogs there. But they had people who interacted with the school district and with the recruiters.

That was what their job was, the higher ups.

So, in essence, you're just trying to put pressure on them to be open to hiring people of

Jewish background?

Yes.

Was that successful?

Yes. I remember when they announced the first Jewish administrator that they were able to recruit and I think it was a local man. I'm trying to remember who it was and I can't remember it.

The one who got some publicity would have been Eddie Goldman. He'll know most of this story.

I can see the faces on the board. Rabbi [Sanford] Akselrad was very new that year. That was the year I think that he came or the year after. Barbara Kaufman. She was on that board.

And the director of the Jewish Federation at that time was...?

Jerry Countess.

I didn't do many Jewish things as far as organizing or working. Mostly I did things that were interesting, like the ACLU Jews are involved. Most organizing things Jews are involved.

It sounds like you guys were great organizers. Were you part of that go-to group to get things done?

PAUL: You did get a reputation. I was chair of the faculty senate and under that these things were big issues at the time. It became a university senate the next year. Otherwise, I couldn't have been chair for two years in a row. It's against the bylaws. But because it changed...So that establishes me as somewhat of a person working with the faculty. So now I'm known by the faculty. That's followed by four years of working in the university president's office, with

Donald Baepler. And I'm a contact person with a lot of people. In fact, a lot of times that a regent would call the president's office, I got the call, not the president. He's busy. So it just

brought me out into the community as being the person who's around. I'm more active now in

leadership, but I was never so much—it looks like I was more of a leader, but I wasn't. I've been

recruited to do things.

He's a pushover.

When the summer directors—I mean I had been the treasurer of the Western Association of

Summer Session Administrators. They recruited me to become president one year. I would much rather have been the treasurer. It was just easier and I don't like doing things. So it's hard for me to say that back then that I was even a leader of any kind even though, like you said, I was a pushover. If you wanted me to do something, I'd do it, but followed mostly. The same thing in the legislature. I don't care who gets credit for bills that I might have done. The more important thing to me is let's get the bill done. I don't know if we're up to that part of the program.

Yes, I was going to move towards your political career and I think it's a great segue. So go ahead. [Paul is a Democrat in State Assembly District 41.]

(In 2008) My assemblyman was David Parks. He was going to go to the senate because Dina

Titus had just left the senate to go national. There was an opening. When I was with the ACLU,

Barbara Buckley was on my committee. Chan Kendrick, who is now Barbara Buckley's husband, was hired as Nevada director of the ACLU. So anyway, this establishes that Barbara

Buckley knows me. She has seen me run meetings. We were onboard for the same ideas, for helping people. The Assembly is looking for someone to replace David Parks. Barbara asked me if I would run for the seat on the assembly. I had a previous history of running for regent and I didn't win my regent's elections. Thalia Dondero beat me, which you can see why. I mean she had name and I didn't have the recognition. I don't know what would happen if we tried again.

But anyway, that's over.

Jim Rogers who first—well, he was anti me, because he was for Thalia. Myrna

Williams had just called Thalia an old dinosaur and had taken over her seat on the County

Commission. Thalia is looking for something to do. She wants to be a regent. The community elected; that's just the way it is.

Now I get to be a legislator [Feb. 2009 – Feb. 2015].

In my first term I wanted to do a bill that was to bring the movie industry into town. It was multiple thousands of dollar industry here and we were losing. And we were losing because we did not offer a portable tax credit to the industry. Well, it failed because someone didn't like it in the assembly, someone stronger. The following session it passed. Someone else took it and ran with it. That's okay with me. We got it passed.

I may be mixing up my years. But on the transgender issue, a transgender female asked me if I would do something for employment discrimination for transgender. That one I did do two years in a row and we did get it passed. Nevada is one of the first states to protect the transgender both in the workplace, in the home and in public accommodations. We passed three bills that year. I never thought they'd do it. They did it, though, and the governor signed them.

Work still needs to be done. There's no real penalty for firing a transgender person simply because they're transgender… and there should be. There should be more.

Absolutely, yes.

That one is needed. I still need to work on that. But Jane Heeden is the contact. She's the transgender female that took the lead when we lost it the first time. I told her what she had to do.

She had to talk to all the assembly people because people don't know transgender people. There aren't very many and they're not—When gays came out, I think the world went on their side and started supporting them. So I said, transgenders need to do something like that, too. You need to

get out there and let people know who you are.

She's [Jane Heeden] very articulate. She's a psychological counselor.

Marriage counselor, too.

She's very personable, very articulate. She was a good spokesperson for the trainees.

Excellent…So how long were you involved in politics?

PAUL: 2009 was my first session. 2011, 2013. 2015 is the one I lost. 2017 is the one I'll get back.

There you go. I like that.

If you could just convince enough people that it's okay to be old. It doesn't mean you're senile.

It goes back to topics we keep touching upon.

When you tell someone that you're going to be eighty, they jump back.

Well, find ways to say eighty in a different way.

No, I come right out in front and say, "I'm eighty." That's the way it is.

But it's the new eighty. It's not the old eighty.

SARI: That's right. It's the new eighty.

It's just a number.

The Nevada Assembly needs some older people to listen to. The young ones do things wrong.

A lot of it they just don't know how to do. They haven't had the experience.

They don't know the word finesse for one thing.

In my thirteen years of continuing education, I worked with the hospitals, the hotels, programs with the private sector. I know them. I'm a known quantity in town now.

There's other notable Jewish people in politics, but who is the first?

Flora Dungan was pretty much in the beginning; a regent in the 1970s. George Rudiak and Flora

were in the Assembly before that.

Yes.

Because Flora and George both say that they are responsible—well, they used to say that they are responsible for getting Southern Nevada to have proper representation on everything.

It was redistricting.

Redistricting, yes. Because we were in the south, we're getting screwed because the north had all the power positions.

Now, I don't know how much Flora interacted with the Jewish community. But if you ask Myrna

Williams, she will tell you everything about Flora Dungan. They were close. The Dugan

Humanities building at UNLV is named for Flora.

They were ahead of their time, too. There was a group called FOCUS where they [Flora, Myrna and others] were helping with the drug problem. And there were drugs back then, believe it or not.

There's always been drugs, really.

So what haven't we talked about, though, the significance of your—

Jewishness.

Yes. How do you identify as a Jew or when did you feel like you were Jewish?

Oh, I've felt it always. My elementary school was 90-95% Jewish. My high school was about one-third Jewish.

[To Barbara]—where did you grow up?

Iowa

I think Iowa is pretty neutral on these things. In Boston you knew what everyone was, where

they came from. You knew. And there was some kind of a slur nickname for you whether it was

Wop or Dago or Kike.

That was in Iowa, too.

Those were given up if anybody knew what you were. You knew what you were. It didn't matter whether you were ultra-Orthodox. I mean I certainly didn't wear a black hat and have long hair growing. I've never done that, but that wasn't in my family.

So how was it to raise your children here?

My children were pretty much raised before I met Paul. David was still in school. David was fifteen.

David was at Bishop Gorman.

And Sophia was a senior in high school.

Of Sari's four kids, two are Jewish.

Yes.

And maybe one of the girls—she wears a Jewish star.

Two, Sophia and Jodi are Jews.

Sophia will say she's Jewish, but Sophia's brother will not. And then Jodi, the Jewish one, has an older sister who claims to be a born again Christian, which is questionable because she wasn't born a Christian to begin with.

My other three children, step-children, first marriage, my ex is Catholic. She said she was Catholic. Her mother wasn't Catholic. Her grandmother wasn't Catholic. She was Catholic.

But the kids would think they were Catholic. Of those three, I'm in touch with the oldest boy.

He's still part of our family, but he's not Jewish.

What does it mean to be Jewish today, do you think?

Self-identity. I think that's it.

It's a religion. And it is also a cultural background.

Yes. When we look at this project and the way people participate, it's not necessarily what synagogue do you belong to. It's just a thread of your ancestry and the cultural foundation. So your activism, would you say that you drew from Jewish identity?

Oh, absolutely. I accept the culture. The desire for education and to live in this world right now that's what makes me a Jew. I don't care about the next world. You can't even tell me what it's like.

Well put.

And besides when you get there as a Christian, you're not going to like it anyway.

Well, I'm sure we should explore more things. You've listed a lot of things.

[End of first session]

This is Barbara Tabach. Today is December first, 2015. Wow, the first of December.

SARI: My father's birthday.

Oh, really? Well, happy birthday to him. How old would he have been?

He would have been, I don't know, a hundred. I don't know when he was born.

He was born in 1904.

I am sitting with Paul and Sari Aizley in their home today and it's a chilly one.

We're looking at these newspapers, samples. These are examples of things that would be wonderful if we could figure out a way to start an Aizley collection and archive what you have in Special Collections. This would be something I would like you to consider and to show our Director of Special Collections.

Somebody did, I think, put them online through the Henderson Library. One of the young girls who worked for CLASS! while she was in high school, she put them online. I don't know if they're still there.

Well, they should be. Once they've been digitized, they should be easy to access.

So they might be around, yes. She had everything but one issue and that was one we didn't have either. I don't know what happened to it.

I believe we did talk a bit about CLASS! However, let's start by explaining again what

CLASS! was.

In brief, we say CLASS! is a newspaper written by, for and about the high school students of

Clark County. That included all the high schools including the private schools. We had kids at every school who were kind of our correspondents. We worked with the journalism teachers, with the principals, with anybody who wanted to get involved.

The Spanish section was started by Elise Ax. Have you met Elise Ax?

No.

SARI: That's not her name anymore. Elise Wolff. Oh, that's somebody you may want to meet.

She's Jewish and her father—oh, she was wonderful. She was such a biggie in the school district. When she found out what we were doing, she asked us if we would please do a section for Spanish language kids. That's why we have this section in every newspaper. It's at least four pages.

It's called Diagnos.

Diagnos. I think that means talk to us.

Let's talk.

Yes, let's talk; something like that. So that got started in there and it just...

But you left out the part about why David wanted to do this.

David is David Phillips?

Yes.

And that's your son?

Yes.

Explain why he wanted to do this. That's good.

PAUL: Well, he was a graduate of Bishop Gorman High School and he didn't know what other kids were doing and he thought the newspaper would allow the kids to talk across the county. So that was his idea.

SARI: All his other friends were going to regular Clark County School District schools and he didn't know what they were doing. They were all over the area; it wasn't like they were all in one school. So David said he wanted to have a sense of what his friends were doing. They could share their ideas and their happy times and their hard times. There have been some very heavy

duty editorials in that paper written by kids.

PAUL: The schools themselves put too much restriction on what the kids can do and say. We had to pay attention to that also, but they were able to say things in CLASS! that they couldn't say in their school newspaper.

So there was less censorship.

Yes, less censorship.

Now, if we got something that was politically slanted one way or another, we always went out and got an opposing view and we matched them up. We would have the two views in the same issue, on the same page, actually.

How did you get the students involved?

Started by going to schools and talking to the principals, asking if they would allow the publication in the school, and could we involve the journalism teachers or the English teachers or whoever we wanted, and nobody said no. It was amazing. If we ran into an issue that was a little touchy, we would talk to the teacher about it.

I was amazed that one that we had that didn't raise anybody's hackles was a girl, a senior

I think she was, who wrote an editorial—it was anonymous—that her father was molesting her and had molested her for a lot of years. The reason she didn't run away from home was that she had a younger sister, three years younger, and she knew if she left home that her father would probably start with her. I never asked her why she didn't call the cops or tell a teacher or anything. But it was very touching. I think that's the issue that I can't find a copy of. I'll have to go through them one day.

So there wasn't pressure from the outside to try to reveal who she was?

Never heard a word about it from anybody in any context. It was amazing.

But David's idea was fabulous. I mean they grabbed it up. I think the first issue we printed seventy-five hundred and we had about ten schools. Then we started giving them an example of what we were doing and pretty soon just about everybody was onboard.

The teachers were using it as part of their lesson plans in the appropriate courses.

Well, that's fascinating. There's a lot of content in here.

Oh, yes.

Before I retired I would always ask the freshman classes if they knew about CLASS! Magazine and it was about fifty-fifty when I left. The kids knew about it.

So distribution was done how? How did you get it to the students?

We figured out how many each school needed or consumed and then physically delivered them.

For a while David and I were doing all the deliveries out of the trunks of our cars. Then we had a delivery company pick up and deliver to the schools. They had a place in the school where they were told to put the papers.

So how did you get funding? Where was that coming from?

Well, the first funding is sitting across the table. [All laughing] Then David figured that we were going to need some advertising. In the very beginning he hired a young woman to do the sales and we were also doing sales.

He had planned to make it a for-profit magazine, but then he realized it would be about two-thirds ads. Well, he didn't want that. So he went to nonprofit and began the fund-raising.

We had quite a few people interested. When people have some money and their kids are in high school and there's a topic like this, they end up supporting it. Most notably was Mark Fine, and his kids were in high school. Mark eventually became president at one time.

I see names here, this 2000 issue that we're looking at here, where it says, "These are the

people and companies that make CLASS! part of your life," and there's a lot of institutions and politicians. Elaine Wynn is right up there at the top.

She gave the first money when we weren't a not-for-profit. She just wrote Sari a check for five thousand.

And she gave us five thousand dollars a year as long as it was published.

She's a big supporter of education.

She was major. She came to our fundraisers. She just liked to be there. Sometimes she came in a little late and left a little early, but she just wanted to have a presence there.

She spoke one time, too.

I see Mark Fine's name and Toni and Victor Chaltiel.

You know he's gone now?

Yes. Judi Steele.

She was a supporter right through.

Shelley Berkley, Myrna Williams, Robin and Danny Greenspun, Arlene and Jerry Blut.

I'm just pulling out the Jewish names for this project. Renee and Leo Diamond, Dorothy and Paul Eisenberg.

Is anybody a bigger kick than Arlene?

Yes, she is a lot of fun and so was her interview. I have to agree with you totally on that.

Yes. She's wonderful.

Just by coincidence, my daughter was the editor of the newspaper for two years at LVA, which she probably sent articles from her staff.

What was her name?

Maggie Tabach.

Maybe that's why your name was familiar to me from the beginning.

She worked really hard on that newspaper and she got a lot out of the staff. So I really am fascinated with this for sure.

Sari's master's thesis is how to write a newspaper.

No, it's how to start a nonprofit organization and I based it on my experience with that. I was

halfway through another issue for my thesis. Do you remember that?

Oh, I do.

I went with him to Washington and went to the Library of Congress. I was writing one on

Marshall, the Supreme Court justice.

Thurgood Marshall. That's what I was writing on and I got a ton of material. I still have

it. I've got a whole drawer full of material. I was part way through it and then it occurred to me

this would be more interesting one. I mean not that he wasn't interesting, but I've never seen

anything written about how to start a nonprofit.

What are the challenges of starting a nonprofit?

Money. Getting organization—well, it didn't turn out to be a real problem. What I thought

would be the problem is getting people interested. You saw the list of names. Nobody turned us

down. They, "Oh, yeah." In fact, we started to get calls from people in the community who

wondered how to get on the board. Who was the assemblyman? He was new. Mark...

Mark Manendo. But he didn't get on the board, did he?

He was an honorary board member. The rest of the board didn't want him.

He's still a senator.

He was kind of lightweight back in the beginning. That was his first year in the legislature and

he wanted on the board. That was okay. I couldn't say no to him. So we made him an honorary

member.

But putting together a board I expected was going to be really hard, but it wasn't.

Barbara Buckley was our first president. But Barbara wasn't saying no to either one of us at any

time. We introduced her to her husband; that's why. So that was a problem, putting together a

board was a perceived problem, which turned out not to be. But getting together the money.

Then as we pursued, went through and started doing it, it was just a lot of legwork for us

because of the nature of this particular nonprofit. We had to run to every school, talk to every

principal, every journalism teacher. Fortunately, back there, there weren't that many high

schools.

How many were there? What year did you start again? Remind me.

1994.

And it existed for twenty—

Sixteen years. I retired.

I guess thirty-five to forty high schools now; something like that.

No, now there's over fifty, Paul.

Oh, my.

Yes.

I didn't know that either. Gee.

I think there may have been twelve or so, maybe about a dozen high schools.

Well, they were opening up every year at that time.

Yes. Still I made it sound as though I was going to thirty-five schools. In all the principals and

then come back and see all the journalism teachers and then, oh, the English wants me. Even the

theater teachers want me. Oh, then there's the biology teacher doing...So it was a lot of that.

But it was well received; I can't complain about it.

Then working with the IRS, I thought that was going to be a big problem and it wasn't.

You just follow the rules and don't fight with all these people and just do what they say and

things get done. We got the 501(c)(3).

I think my thesis was more about the procedures and how to make it easy on yourself, but

not talking about how really tough it is because it wasn't really tough. Everything fell into place.

I get a sense that you're one of those people that obstacles are easily surmounted. You

overcome them.

I don't give up.

How did you decide to close it? What was the closing decision?

We didn't. When I retired I think we had a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in the bank,

which was a lot for us. It's not big for a corporation. Whatever it was, the president and her

choice for executive director decided to make some unwise decisions, like they doubled the cost

of printing, they changed the format and went to a smaller format and increased the kind of

paper, and I don't remember what else they did. But it went from forty-five hundred a month to

nine thousand a month to print. That and hiring people all over the place to do special things, it

ran out of money. When we went in to clean out the office, they were down to five thousand

dollars. We donated that to a nonprofit organization. Gave away everything to Judi Steele's

organization—the equipment, the copiers, the cabinets and everything.

When you're talking about Judi Steele's organization, you're talking about the Public

Education Foundation?

Yes.

Who actually was doing the printing for you?

It was called Southwest Printers, who have since been sold to Creel. They were the one who had this kind of press. Isn't that awful? They could do newsprint. They were the only one at that time who did it outside of the Review-Journal. And the Review-Journal always for some reason saw us as a competition to try to shoot us down.

There's that page in the R-J. What's it called, Regeneration that they run? When did that start? That was back in—

I've never even seen it.

Oh, I've seen it. It's stuff by kids or it's kind of like this.

Oh, kids’ pages. I've seen the kids’ pages. I've never noticed the name.

Yes, by high school kids. They started that I would say within a year after we started. But I was trying to work with the R-J. I had called this one guy who's still there. I kept calling him and writing a letter just trying to contact him so we could get together and do some things in collusion, like if we found—we did find a boy who was as mature a writer as I have ever seen and he was doing some really good stuff for us. He teaches journalism now, by the way.

What's his name?

I'm trying to remember. Don't ask me to remember stuff. It'll come back. Somebody will remember him. I wanted to suggest that he write a column for them or do something, but they got upset at us because the kids wanted CLASS!—now, this was kid initiated. The

Review-Journal for a lot of years was doing a competition among the schools where they judge the quality of writing and design. They had twenty different criteria. They always had Green

Valley as the winning school. I can understand why they were influenced that way because the program at Green Valley was fabulous and the kids were good writers. Found out later that the teacher was doing a lot of editing before their stuff got out, and that's okay, but they shouldn't

have submitted that as original stuff. But anyway, so the kids started to ask us, "Why don't you have your own competition?" So we did. I sent a note to the R-J and asked whether they wanted to do a combined competition. Never heard a word from them. So we went ahead and did it and we had that going every year. It was good. We made sure that as many different schools as possible were represented. The R-J just hated us.

They still do.

Well, newspaper business and print publications have been in trouble for a number of years. The papers get thinner and thinner.

That was the point that what we're doing is introducing kids to newspapers. I don't know very many kids who take the daily newspaper at home and read it. They take this and read it and this is an introduction to newspapers, assuming that they'll continue reading newspapers.

The Spanish section was a way to get information about the schools to the non-English speaking parents. That was something that I had in mind. I picked it up from the summer directors' organizations that I belonged to. One of them made a big point of...They wiped out a whole drug cartel in either L.A. or San Diego by going with the parents through a Spanish-speaking paper.

So this was just our attempt to let the parents know what's going on in the schools.

Did you get any feedback from the Spanish-speaking community at all?

Not directly.

Well, we got support from them. The people on Sixth Street, the Hispanic organization and I can't remember what their name was, they liked it. Every now and then we did get clues about what kind of story to write about one of the kids.

The other thing that it was used for and we didn't anticipate this, the teachers who taught

Spanish used the paper because the kids preferred reading the Spanish language section, learning from the Spanish language section. They preferred that to reading their textbooks.

That's according to one of the teachers. So it worked both ways, teaching the Spanish kids

English and teaching Spanish to the English-speaking kids. So that was a good thing.

It would be interesting to see if anybody's tapping into that at all in the high schools.

Well, we had a professor at UNLV did the Spanish editing once. Was Judy a UNLV student?

She was a student, trilingual.

She spoke Spanish, German and English. She now has a company called Twin Translations.

Something like that, yes.

Because she has an identical twin. So together they know every romance language there is.

She's a translator and an interpreter.

Judy's remained a friend, a family friend and a friend. She grew up in Austria, went to high school or earlier in Mexico and then came here.

And she lives here now?

Yes.

That's great. So her business is local.

So you had that going on. Was that your full-time work at the time for sixteen years? Or you were doing other things.

I was doing that.

So you were doing that. You're pointing to the Alliance. Who wants to give me the history of the Alliance? Did you start this as well?

I started it in that format. They had a simpler format. I think it was an eight and a half by eleven page, is that what...?

UNLV had its own version. I think I started that because I was president of the Alliance at

UNLV.

Explain what the Alliance is, what we're referring to. Who's the audience for this

publication?

The American Association of University Professors is the federal group. Each state, I think,

has—I'm mixing up ACLU in '09. One of them has affiliates and one of them just has groups,

one in Reno and one in Las Vegas. But we worked with the Reno group most of the time. I had

the paper at UNLV. I forget what it was called. It was a one-page. Then Sari, I think, later did

the statewide. I don't remember the timing of that; whether I became statewide president or this

was going on before that.

I don't remember when you were president.

You and Richardson did it for years, though.

What year did you start doing this?

That would be in the early eighties, I think.

I started doing it in our guest room. I converted our guest room in a little condo. When we started that I was actually typing this on an IBM Selectric and then physically justifying the lines, cutting out all the copy.

Do you know what a light box is?

Yes.

Cutting the copy, pasting it on layout sheets, which I got from that printer that I mentioned.

That's a trip down memory lane. I'm just like, wow, we've come so far.

Oh, boy, yes. Then I guess I learned how to use a computer. You probably taught me.

I taught you how to do PageMaker, yes.

Oh, that's right, yes.

I was doing the university summer bulletin at the same time. So I learned PageMaker to do that.

That was an interesting thing because it wasn't installed properly on my PC and the only font size it would print was 75 percent of whatever it was I was trying to print. So I'd have to shrink it, blow it up, shrink it, blow it up.

Oh, my.

Then I got that fixed. PageMaker was developed mostly for the Mac and not the PC. I finally went to a class and saw what the Mac could do. I didn't know the terminology of printing. Sari knew what they meant. Together we figured out how to get the computer to do it.

So you guys were really a great partnership in content and production.

Oh, yes.

Both in managing these.

None of this would exist if Paul hadn't been there to teach me everything.

And then the Alliance newspaper still exists today?

I don't know. It should. I don't know if it does.

I don't know if it does. I think it's only on the website

Oh, not on the paper?

Yes, I don't think they print anymore.

Now, Greg Brown—his picture is there—he's still at UNLV and he's got some kind of an executive position. He might know whether there's an Alliance.

He and his wife are Jewish also, Greg Brown and Jessica.

And the picture's there. Oh, that's interesting. Raggio's dead. Milt is dead.

You're looking at the cover photo here.

Yes. And then what's his name, Dickerson, Dickson?

The one they named the library—

No, not the library. Jim Richardson's friend.

Oh, Dickens, Robert Dickens.

Yes. He's Jewish.

Robert Dickens is?

Yes.

Yes, he is.

He may have just retired from UNR.

But you're not doing the northerners, are you?

No.

Oh, so was Milt. Milton Glick [University of Nevada Reno president 2006-2011] was Jewish,

too.

What have you ever heard about—or have you ever heard anything about being Jewish

and teaching in Las Vegas? Has that topic ever come up that you can recall?

No, not that I know of.

Because you were in higher education...

PAUL: Well, I heard the other thing. The first time I had anything at all to do with Jim

Richardson, he was—he still is—a sociologist, but at that time he was doing the influence of churches, particularly the Mormon Church, on voting in Nevada. I think he told me that there weren't very many Jewish teachers because they only went to centers of Mormonism to recruit

teachers. They didn't go to New York. They went to Salt Lake City, and so they found Mormon

teachers. But that's all that I ever heard and I have no numbers to back it up or say there were

this many or that many. In fact, the one guy...Eddie Goldman? Yes, Eddie. He would probably

know more of that topic than anybody else.

I think he's the go-to person. I just haven't been able to go to him yet. But, yes, Eddie is.

There's good and bad about Eddie, too. But he should know this topic.

For sure. Today I wanted to kind of just summarize. We really went through a lot—

We did.

—in our session the other day. When you look at—you came here in the later sixties. And

you've been part of the community both in a secular and a spiritual way, would you say?

No spiritual.

All right. So culturally, if you look back at your lives and your upbringing, what do you think about your Jewish upbringing or roots impacted you?

PAUL: If you want me to start, when I grew up in Boston and went to the Alexander Hamilton

Grade School, it was 95 percent Jewish. When we stayed out for the holidays, essentially they

closed the school. There was nothing going on. The discussion was always which college are

you going to go even in grade school and it was never if you're going to go, but just where you're

going to go. So I think that set the thing off.

My father had a history of losing a job because he didn't have a degree. Even though he

was a successful social worker in the north end of Boston—he lived on the west end; my mother

lived on the north end; that's probably where they met—in the settlement house and he was

running it for a while and then he lost the job because he didn't have a degree. So it was a Jewish

guy running a Presbyterian-owned settlement house for a bunch of Italian Catholic kids.

[Laughing] That sounds like Boston, doesn't it? It synthesized it all.

PAUL: So school was the thing. I once counted up—not that all the kids stayed in Hamilton, but

most of them did stay—thirteen of us went to Harvard from that elementary school at one time or another. In fact, we went back for...the twenty-fifth reunion, thirty-fifth reunion? And this guy now, he's a doctor specializing in sports medicine, and I heard him tell someone else in the bus,

"I went to kindergarten with that guy." I think that was our thirty-fifth reunion.

SARI: He still has a circle of friends. I think there are six guys that he has known—well,

MortieSari’s you knew since you were pushed in a carriage.

PAUL: Since age two.

SARI: The last of the six joined in high school. We used to meet in Maine every year for a whole string of years and then illness and various things broke up that old gang of his.

Life happens, right?

Life happens.

Yes. And how about for yourself, how would you answer that?

My upbringing was really different because of the neighborhood we lived in. I was brought up pretty much in Lancaster. I was born in Newark and when I was a year old, my family moved to

Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There were no Jews there. I mean I was kind of the neighborhood freak and the kids took advantage and called me Guffenberg the Hamburg Jew. That's what they used to call me at one point. They outgrew that one, too. But I was such an oddity there that kids let me move in and watch them play and things like that, but I wasn't the first one they called to come out and play kick ball or anything. In fact, there was a while when my parents kind of hired a little girl to come and play with me or spend the afternoon with me. How they paid them was to give them a really nice lunch. I still remember this girl that used to come to my house. I think I was about five, six, seven years old. They just had to hire somebody to play with me. I

didn't have any Jews in my life, kids. I mean I didn't have any Jewish friends until I got into high school and there was one there.

In junior high I think I might have mentioned Mr. Fenstermacher, the Nazi. He hated me because I was a Jew. Anybody who associated with me kind of suffered for it. Did I tell you about going out to lunch in the school?

Their system for lunch was all the kids at lunch hour would go into the auditorium and sit in rows. He would come in there and he would pass them. He would say, "Okay, this row."

Then they could go down the stairs to the cafeteria and when the cafeteria told him that they wanted more kids, he would say, "Okay, this row." Pass this row, pass this, pass this. If I was in the row, they were last. Consequently, the kids noticed that pretty fast and nobody sat in the row with me. They were too hungry. But he really hated me. He was horrible. I remember him yelling at me once for messing up a—remember mimeographs?

Oh, yes.

I was doing some kind of project for some teacher and he came in and yelled at me about ruining everything. I don't know anything that happened to him. But I did have one friend in high school. So that was that.

But my parents took me to a very, very liberal synagogue every now and then. We didn't have a lot of religious upbringing, but we had all the Jewish ethical upbringing. "Jews don't do that; Jews do it this way. Well, of course you did that; you're Jewish." That kind of preparation.

I know that I was confirmed. We didn't have bat mitzvahs then. Never heard of it. But I was confirmed when I was thirteen and that was nice. They did sent me to Hebrew classes, but we kind of drove the guy crazy. He was very young at the time. He finally quit teaching Hebrew and that was the end of my Hebrew lesson.

But the funny thing is that I met him again out here. He had moved to Las Vegas and he was writing a column on food for the newspaper. When I went to work for the Review-Journal, one of the things I started was a cookbook and the annual cooking contest. He was one of the contestants. I kept seeing this Elliott Crane and it turned out to be him. He showed up with...He called it bachelor eggs. We had a cook-off at the very end of the contest. He was a finalist. So we had ten people bring their concoctions in and either cook them there or bring them in when they were freshly cooked; something like that. We had a group of ten or twelve top chefs from

Las Vegas who were judging it. He came in with bachelor eggs. He also came in with a showgirl wearing a very, very skimpy outfit and a very low-cut thing. She helped him out by distributing plates for the people to taste his bachelor eggs. She distributed like this, "Would you like a plate?"

To show off her cleavage?

Everything, yes. Well, of course, all those male chefs kept saying they loved it. They thought it was funny. So he started his bachelor eggs. He also brought a silver...What did we decide that was called? Silver thing that you put Sterno under it and keep things—what's it called?

He brought that and he cooked the eggs in that along with a very colorful pattern until the eggs cooked. He took a little off and started to serve them and eggs and sterling silver don't get along well; the eggs were green. They were disgusting looking. He didn't win, but everybody thought it was a hoot.

Green eggs and ham, my friend.

Yes, Elliott Crane.

I have to look up his column.

I don't even know if he's still around.

No, he died, but his wife, Charlotte, I think she's still here.

I'll look up his column. It might be kind of fun.

I don't even know that had nothing to do with what you wanted to know, but it was funny.

No, no. But that shows how the cultural roots of being Jewish. It's that foundation on

which you are raised.

My father was convinced that we would be American kids. The names they picked were Robert,

Paul and Daniel.

Assimilating.

Yes. And they didn't teach us Yiddish and I'm still angry. That's how bad it is.

That second language or third language is always nice to have.

When you think about raising—your children?

Four, three girls and a boy.

Three girls and a boy.

What would you say about raising them? How did you transfer a sense of being Jewish to

them as parents?

I didn't.

Remember I wasn't that. My other family, the mother was Catholic in those kids. I don't know

how religious they are now. I'm always amazed. Growing up in Boston, if you met a Catholic,

they were Catholic all the way back, the parents and everything. My ex-wife's mother wasn't

Catholic and her grandmother might have been Catholic, but you don't know.

Well, it was pretty hard to get married in the Catholic Church. In fact, it was impossible in

that era if somebody didn't convert.

Depending where you lived. In Boston, my mother's Catholic friends could not go into the

synagogue for her Jewish wedding, which they did anyway. But the church said, "No, you can't." The Italian Catholics did what they want. The Irish Catholics probably would have said,

"Okay, we won't go in."

Yes. We'll go to the bar. [Laughing]

Now, these are stepchildren.

Right. I recall that.

I have seven steps, yes.

So with your children, Sari, how did you raise them or did you give that a thought?

It really wasn't a big issue for me. We just kind of lived. I was very busy working full-time. I was supporting my own children, jeez. It just didn't happen. They knew they were Jewish. Of course, two of them now are not.

David and Sophia didn't know they were Jewish.

Well, somehow Sophia did know.

Sophia has become Jewish, I think. But David is definitely not Jewish.

No. And his father was Methodist. He tried to take them to church and they were so badly behaved that he wouldn't take them anymore. My first family was two daughters. That husband was Jewish, came from a very, very observant Orthodox family. But that didn't seem to translate to him. He didn't do a lot of very Jewish things. I think he was trying to move away from it.

Strangely, his older sister became a very observant Christian. Oh, gosh, it was one of those

Pennsylvania—not Baptist, not Methodist. That's too liberal. I can't remember. She had, for example, Bible study classes at her house every Wednesday and every Thursday something else

My two middle daughters do consider themselves Jewish, especially Jodi, the one in New

York. She married a young man who just recently—well, he's not a young man anymore. He's in

his sixties.

That's a Jewish family completely including the spoiled children and everything.

Oh, yes. Yes, they're very Jewish.

That's always interesting how people seek something, probably.

So as far as in your political life, Paul, do people relate to you as a politician of

Jewish background or has that in Nevada politics ever been significant?

I don't know if this is a true statement, but it's one I understand. People don't know I'm Jewish unless I tell them I'm Jewish as opposed to James Ohrenschall, whose mother was Jewish. She was an assemblywoman. He's in the assembly. They don't know that his stepfather was Catholic and James is half and a half. So he's identified that way. So in one term I was the only Jew in the assembly and in the next session there were six of us. So we formed a Jewish caucus.

Did you really?

Yes. It didn't do much, but we were there.

Well, you had a Seder.

Well, that was right. Everybody came to the Seder.

There were twenty-two people there; six of them were Jews and they had a rabbi.

And the house wasn't—it wasn't owned, but the woman who had the house that time was not

Jewish. She just had the Seder. A lot of the lobbyists are Jewish. I think the Jews get to know each other. But it wasn't a big issue. The biggest aggravation I have is that they pray most of the time in Christ's name at the Assembly, which I believe is totally inappropriate. But when there's forty-two people in the room and you're the only Jew, what are you going to do?

You learn to shrug it off, don't you?

Well, yes. If I get to go back again, I'm going to—I don't mind them praying, but I don't like it

being part of the Assembly. So I can rationalize and say, okay, they do it before, but until we do the pledge to the flag, we're not in session. Now, one woman in town, Lori Lipman Brown, got elected to be a senator and she would stand outside and wouldn't be there in the prayer time and

she did not get re-elected because that was a big issue in her campaign. That was going back.

That's even before—was that in the eighties, probably?

That was during ACLU days. So it would have been late eighties.

Yes. But that might give you an idea about the community and how they react to Jews, the legislative community, not the cultural people here in Las Vegas. I don't think there was ever a problem there. I mean the hotels were owned by Jews.

Absolutely. The Jewish history of the development of gaming industry is significant. Well, with the ACLU and your experiences there, were there any times, stories of anti-Semitism

that you can recall in local history?

The only hostility that was very visible was between Rich Siegel and me.

How's that? What do you mean?

We had the northern ACLU; we had the southern ACLU. All the power is in the north, the

office, until Sari opened an office here. When I got involved I wanted to bring it together. I

mean they shouldn't have the power in the north if the people are in the south. So I did nothing

with that group. I got along with them. I would go north for their meetings. I would be here for

our meetings. But they had an election and they kicked out Rich Siegel, who had been doing

ACLU forever. He's a political science professor.

In Reno?

At UNR, yes. So I'm sure he blamed me for his losing that election. Then I became the delegate

to the national ACLU, which is something that he had always done. There's hostility there. He

did say to me when I was in the Assembly—he came down I think in 2013—and said all the past

is forgotten; he's happy. Well, I didn't think so, but maybe he thought so. Then he had retired

and he went out of picture. People didn't like him is what the problem was.

Remember there's a recorder on, Dear.

I know.

So the ACLU, it's two separate entities now, the north and the south?

No. There's one in Nevada. It's a Nevada affiliate, but they have local groups, yes. I don't know

where the office is now, but there is a presence in Southern Nevada. We didn't even have a designated lawyer in Nevada and that was one of the things that national had promised me that within five years we'd have a lawyer. But then all that blew up and I quit. It had nothing to do with ACLU. Now there is I think a couple of lawyers stationed in Southern Nevada, but they change. Alan Lichtenstein just quit. Maggie McLetchie just quit. Rebecca Gasca, she's moved on to something else. I don't even know. Tod Story is now the local leader and Tod is not

Jewish.

What years were you involved in ACLU, approximately?

Eighties.

Are there any other anecdotes you'd like to share with me that would be significantly or mildly significantly important to this project that you think we should know?

Well, you must know the fact that Nevada was powered from the north with the people in the south, we needed to have better representation. So George Rudiak and... Flora Dungan. Okay, so Flora and George each had a term, maybe two, as assembly people, and each claimed to be the one that got the state redistricted so that we had one person one vote representation. So I think that's an important point in the Jewish history. Then there's a picture of me supporting Flora as

she ran for regent. I could possibly find that picture for you.

That would be great.

I gave it to them when they had the hundredth year or whatever, but I have it back. It's somewhere in my office. The other two people in the picture are professors. I think they both have died now, Sheila Brooks and I forget who the third one was. We were supporting Flora.

Not that any of those were Jewish. Sari was working with the group called FOCUS. You know the FOCUS group?

No.

Have you talked to Myrna yet, Myrna Williams?

No, she has not been able to sit down.

She's not feeling great these days, but she's okay. But anyway, they were working with the druggie kids to overcome their addictions and things. So Flora was involved. Myrna was involved. I don't know whether you were involved or not.

Yes.

I went to one of the FOCUS meetings, probably with you, but I wasn't directly involved with the group. But that's why I was supporting Flora, because I knew about her from that group. Her husband was Ben David.

Ray Ben David, a recovered addict who graduated from or worked through the Synanon. Did you ever hear of the Synanon House?

No.

That was probably before your time. That was in California and that was a drug rehabilitation place. So he came here and married Flora and they started a Synanon House type of organization called FOCUS. They got Myrna involved and then they got me involved. Myrna, I

think, got me involved. I can't even remember how. But I used to go to their meetings, too. I

was very naive back then and I was all eyes and ears and didn't really contribute a damn thing to

them except they had a big party for the kids one time and I went as a witch and I read their

Ouija board. I did Ouija board stuff and that was fun.

So what kind of personality was George Rudiak?

Oh, he was great. As a lawyer, I saw him do one contract for us in incredible detail. Oh, there's

George.

I got these out for different reasons and realized that they're relevant here.

So go ahead. So he did...?

He was a very, very meticulous kind of guy and that's all I really knew about him. We went to

their house. They have a big Seder—they used to have. Gertrude is still alive, his wife.

Gertrude is 100 years old.

She's a hundred years old, oh, my gosh.

They would put on this very elaborate Seder, catering to the: I don't eat salt; I don't eat this; I

don't eat that. But she did it all.

What kind of personality was Flora Dungan?

I didn't know Flora Dungan.

I knew Flora. She was...now, the kind of person that you almost ascribed to me. If she wanted

something done, it was done. She was outspoken and sometimes very colorfully so. She just got

things done.

The one thing I know about Flora is that if she had lived as a regent, we would not have had

Jerry Tarkanian as a basketball coach.

Oh, wow. That would have been a big change in UNLV history.

Exactly. But she was on the collision course with Don Baepler over that.

I want to tell you something about him that you probably won't get from anybody else.

About George Rudiak?

Yes. He was a dynamite lawyer. He was brilliant, brilliant. He was also one of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest men. At the personal level he was just wonderful.

How did he demonstrate that? How did you observe that?

Just his manner in talking to me. I could talk to him. If I had problems I could talk to George.

He's the only one that—the only one I guess outside of Naomi Cherry and Mimi Katz. I have people, a series of them, just one at a time. But he was easy to talk to. He understood. He listened. He gave advice. Just his whole demeanor was sweet and gentle.

You must find that out in this stuff you're doing. There is a tendency for you to associate closely with people roughly your own age. You've lived through the same kinds of times and you have that in common. That's why the Brighton boys, I can meet the Brighton boys and we can have a conversation just like it never stopped because it's the same thing going on and on. But then when you meet someone here in town, it's different especially as being a professor. The kids are all in different categories. There is a kid that helped me run my campaign, Adrian, who's now in law school and never lost an election that he worked on. He was a writer for CLASS! So these crazy kinds of connections, but you see them differently when you're older and you feel differently about them. Adrian to me could be one of my kids as far as I'm concerned, but not a contemporary. George, I think, and Sari related to each other. They talk. George is a Russian family.

Yes. My Russian family.

I remember when his sister came to town. I think we met her, didn't we? The woman that went

into our grocery store and started crying because of all the stuff that was available?

Oh, no, I didn't meet her. I just heard about her. I heard so vividly that it's hard not to think we were there. But he is a sweetheart. I don't know if you want to borrow this when you talk to them.

That would be great, yes.

Do you know that Mimi and I went to the same elementary school?

I think you told me that, yes.

Ten years apart.

She had close encounters with all kinds of people, I swear.

Oh, yes.

That Boston connection.

And she knew the community for sure.

So how did you, Sari, become the ACLU chief?

Oh, isn't that funny?

It was Jim Shields. You probably don't know Jim Shields. He was doing ACLU. I don't know if he was the president. He was in Reno. I guess they voted that they should have an office in Las Vegas. I think we had just come back—

Well, the connection is Jim Richardson because he knew Jim Shields.

Oh, is that why it was?

Sure. Richardson would have told Shields to see if you wanted to do that because you had been working with Richardson on the paper.

Okay. He has a much better memory than I do. So Jim Shields from ACLU in the north came down and asked me if I'd be interested in that; working part-time. I'd have to put quotes around

part-time. I said, "Sure," because we had just come back from his sabbatical year away. So I

said, "Okay."

And we were in the Israeli Army.

Did you mention the Israeli Army? I don't remember that.

Do you have that paper?

Yes, I definitely want to borrow these. This is great.

…

What is this article? This is a City Life article?

I don't even remember. I pulled them out.

Oh, this is about CLASS! This is great.

Why do I have this? Oh, ACLU, names new executive director. It's the same old thing.

So you were named in September of 1989 approximately.

Oh. Well, I'm glad you looked at that because I wouldn't have known it.

When people knew you were head of the ACLU, did they bug you all the time when you were out in public?

Kind of. They liked to talk about how much they hate the ACLU. It really had a bad reputation down here. But we did get a couple of people who walked into the office. We had one of them who walked all the way out to—no, I was living somewhere else. I had a condo there. He

walked from downtown probably twenty miles and walked in our front door. The door happened

to be open just for air. He walked in there. It was odd. But for a very short time I had an office

downtown and was sharing a building with the Teachers Association, with Chris G (Chris

Giunchigliani). One of them walked in and he was either on drugs or drunk or something and he

threatened me. So we pretty much closed that office and started to have the office in our house.

Oh, yes. That would be frightening. Who in the black community did you work with?

Oh, boy. What was his name? That was a long time and I can't remember.

For ACLU, black?

Yes.

Mo, Mo—not Mo. Not good. I just can't remember his name. But I did go quite a few times to that facility down on Owens, I guess, where they have a boxing ring now. I can't remember. I interacted with the woman at the front desk. It's been too long ago for me to remember.

That's all right.

The other David Phillips' mother, what was her name?

She's probably the most famous black person in [Las Vegas]—Ruby Duncan.

Ruby, yes. I was going to say that's Ruby Duncan, yes, yes.

You know she has a son named David Phillips.

I had forgotten that. But I've met him once, yes.

That's what we have in common.

His wife's name is Jackie and David's first wife was Jackie.

And David used to get his mail.

It looks like you wrote an article, Sari, the Southern Nevada ACLU Strategies and Tactics.

Oh, okay. Here were two things that I did that I was very pleased with. 1977 was the Year of the

Woman, International Year of the Woman. They asked me to do a publication of some kind that will recognize that with local women. So I did this.

Choices, Exploring the Lifestyles of Nevada Women. Wow.

All articles by local people.

So is Myrna in there? Flora? Are they in there?

I don't remember. Flora was. She wrote the (?) of Sisyphus. I remember when she did. He was

a big, big supporter, Harry Sax. You've met Harry? Harry is a wonderful guy.

Yes, he is. Oh, what a great publication.

Did you ever see this?

I've seen it. I don't know that I've looked through it. I've seen you've had it out before.

Then I got together with an art student who wanted to do something, a young woman. She did

all the sketches.

The sketches that are in here. Oh, this is terrific. Oh, yes. We need to make sure we have one at the library. This is great. What else is there? You've got one more. What's the

Stars and Stripes?

One more thing. This has to do with the Jewish Family Services. They did a fund-raising dinner or dance. I did this newspaper for them because the theme was veterans and war years and military. So I did this for them. This is what I did where it has news stories. This is probably all of the original stuff that I wrote about the event, if I remember correctly. But you'll find when you go through it that there are a lot of current news stories. I got an old newspaper and cut them out of the newspaper, people that had been there. I just needed content so that we had pages to put ads on.

Now, was it a continued publication or just a one-time thing?

Just a one-time shot, yes. Everybody got one of these. It was a lot of reminiscences with these

stories and the cartoons.

Yes. And look at these advertisers and letters from Chic Hecht and Richard Bryan, Ron

Lurie. He's a character. Wow, this is great. So this was cut and paste from other

publications.

Yes. The news was from old newspapers, from that era.

I see. But you had to do the research to find those articles and pull them together.

Yes. I just copied a whole lot of old newspapers from the library. They're just some things you have to put in a memorial like that.

See, you guys have got a whole collection. I bet we've only scratched the surface here. This is December session of 1977.

Oh, that's Paul's baby.

Oh, sure.

Seventy-seven.

Different courses.

I wonder if the pages were that color when we first put it together.

It's nice paper, though. This is summer list of courses. 1986 list, too.

We were married by then. Seventy-seven is the year that I think that's when I met him. I know that was when he got his divorce in '77. He called and told me. No, I think I married in '81, or two, one of those years. [Laughter] *We'll turn the recorder off on that one, right? Oh, this is great. Well, these should be in the library. I think we have a special section for these, but I need to find out.

[Pause in recording]

The summer sessions of 1977. I was admiring the cover photo.

Well, the original photo had one big foot right down the whole thing. I was doing summer and

Sari was doing publications. And I said no to the foot.

It was an ugly foot. I do agree with that.

So this was a personal negotiation is what you're saying.

Yes, it was. It was.

On the cover art. That's great. That's a really good story.

See, I didn't design that in the first place. I gave that job to do the cover to the art director at the

university. He had an office in the basement of our building. He took a picture of his own foot,

which was really banged up because he was very athletic. It had corns on it or blisters or

whatever it was and it was on a skateboard. Is that on a skateboard?

Yes. This is the multiple foot.

The same picture but multiplied. I had forgotten how that was evolved.

Black was in. Everything coming out of the campus was black and some people hated it, but the publications office liked it.

We thought it was fun and they didn't think it was.

I wasn't looking for these when I went in there. I just happened to find them. One person knew that there was something wrong with this picture and he's a biologist and he knows that it should have been this way.

Oh, goodness.

I took the picture. So it's one of my pictures. I liked it.

That's a tree with—oh, my goodness.

That's a Palo Verde tree.

That's funny. Shall we call that a good session?

Sure. It's always fun.

Thank you.

INDEX

Fine, Mark, 42 A FOCUS, 35, 61 ACLU, 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, 49, 59, 60, 64, 65, 66 G Akselrad, Rabbi Sanford, 31 Alliance for Higher Education, 27, 48, 49, 50 Glick, Milton, 51 Allied Arts Council, 22, 28 Goldman, Dr. Eddie, 31, 52 Aptigar, Sam, 7 Greenspun, Robin, 29 Arizona State University, 12 Greenspun, Robin & Danny, 42 Art and the Great Outdoors, 22 H B Harris, Shirley, 3 Baepler, Don, 2, 18, 31, 63 Harvard, 2, 4, 11, 12, 13, 53 Barrick Museum, 18 Heeden, Jane, 33 Beat the Dealer, 17 Berkley, Shelley, 42 I Bishop Gorman High School, 23, 36, 39 Blut, Arlene & Jerry, 42 IBEW, 19 Boston, MA, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 35, 52, 56, 64 Israeli Army, 65 Brown, Lori Lipman, 59 Buckley, Barbara, 1, 31, 32, 44 J Business Services Building, 24 Jewish Community Center, 30 C Jewish Family Services, 2, 4, 29, 30, 67 Jewish Federation, 30, 31 Chaltiel, Victor and Toni, 42 Channel 5, 19 K Cherry, Naomi, 63 CLASS!, 23, 24, 38, 40, 41, 42, 46, 63, 65 Katz, Mimi, 11, 14, 25, 30, 63, 64 Congregation Ner Tamid, 9 Katz-Yarchever, Edythe, 3 Continuing Ed, Dean of, 2, 3 Kendrick, Chan, 32 Countess, Jerry, 31 Kravitz, Shirley, 30 Crane, Elliott, 55 L D Lancaster, PA, 7, 8, 53 Diamond, Renee and Leo, 42 Las Vegas Review-Journal, 20, 46, 55 Don Rey Advertising, 22 Levinson, Charlie & Bea, 15 Dondero, Thalia, 32, 33 Lichtenstein, Alan, 60 Dungan, Flora, 24, 34, 35, 60, 61, 62, 67 M E Manendo, Mark, 43 Eden, Judith, 24, 25 Marshall, John, 25 Eisenberg, Dorothy & Paul, 42 Maryland Parkway, 16, 18 mathematics department, 18 F Mintz, Rabbi Yocheved, 9 Feldman, Bill, 30

N V

Nevada Assembly, 32, 34, 35, 58, 59, 60 Vallen, Jerry & Flossie, 15 Nevada Southern University, 12 Newspaper in the Classroom program, 20 W Nob Hill casino, 18 Williams, Myrna, 33, 35, 42, 61, 67 O Wolffe, Elise Ax, 38, 39 Wynn, Elaine, 42 OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute), 2, 3, 11 Ottenstein Coat Factory, 8 Y P Yarchever, Gil, 3

P’nai Tikvah, 9 Parks, David, 32 Phillips, David, 24, 39, 66 Public Education Foundation, 45

Richardson, Jim, 27, 49, 51, 64 Rogers, Jim, 33 Rudiak, George, 25, 34, 60, 62, 63 Rudiak, Gertrude, 26, 62

Seattle, WA, 11 Shackelford, Hope, 21 Shields, Jim, 26, 64 Shubow, Rabbi, 11, 14 Siegel, Rich, 59 Simonoff, Louie, 18 Smith, Stephanie, 2, 4, 11 Steedman, Carrol, 3 Steele, Judi, 42, 45 Stein, Sig, 4

Tabach, Maggie, 42 Tarkanian, Jerry, 18, 62 Temple Beth Sholom (Boston), 14 Thomas, Roger, 22, 28 Tufts University, 11

U U of A (University of Arizona), 11 UNLV, 1, 2, 12, 13, 14, 18, 22, 23, 24, 27, 35, 48, 49, 50, 62