The Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project (SNJHP) was a four-year community history project, beginning in 2014, that identified, collected, and preserved historical content about the Las Vegas Jewish experience and developed a digital portal to provide online access to this unique material. As part of the project, the Oral History Research Center collected some 200 oral history interviews from a diverse array of Jewish residents in Las Vegas ranging from lawyers and teachers to rabbis, gaming executives, and more. The SNJHP also filmed video interviews with Holocaust survivors and roundtable discussions featuring Jewish leaders and community members. A number of private donations supplemented the project’s initial grant from the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) which was funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and administered by the Nevada State Library and Archives.
Interviews conducted for the SNJHP weave a rich tapestry of memories from the Las Vegas Jewish experience that demonstrate their deep connection with the city’s history. From the birth of synagogues, the opening of restaurants, the construction of hospitals, hotels, and residential developments, the management of casinos, and establishment of community organizations, the Jewish population has long been part of the Las Vegas story.
Much of this population emigrated from other parts of the country. Shelley Berkley, the UNLV alumnus who served seven terms in the US House of Representatives, was one such transplant. Reflecting on her family’s move across the country from the green of the Catskills to the searing heat of a Las Vegas summer in 1963, Berkley described her initial feelings: “This was hell, absolute hell. I thought my parents took me to hell.” Still, once they had settled, she found Las Vegas a wonderful place to grow up. She was an engaged and active student at Valley High School, and even more so, “very, very active at Beth Sholom, in the Jewish youth groups… I think that's what defined my existence.”
Las Vegas dancer Diana Saunders was also an East Coast transplant, having grown up in the Bronx in a Jewish neighborhood. She came to Las Vegas as part of a touring company of Sweet Charity, and would later return as a dancer (not a showgirl) in the great Strip spectaculars including Casino de Paris and Hallelujah Hollywood. Her interview covers the early days of her Jewish upbringing in New York City to a show business career that has taken her far and wide and back to Las Vegas. Reflecting on her Jewishness, Saunders remarked “I have to say I'm really proud to be of Jewish faith because it's like when you see somebody else that's a Horowitz or a Schwartzberger, you're back, ‘Oh, one of mine, one of my people.’ And I don't go around flaunting, but there's a bond.”
-Su Kim Chung
Oral History Recordings
As part of this exhibition, we are specially including recordings of the actual oral history interviews. See the interviews of Shelly Berkely and Diana Saunders below:
Recording of Shelly Berkely interview
Recording of Diana Saunders interview
Notes:
Berkely, Shelley. “An Interview with Shelley Berkely.” By Barbara Tabach. Oral History Research Center. 13 February 2015.
Saunders, Diana. “An Interview with Diana Saunders.” By Barbara Tabach. Oral History Research Center. 17 April 2017.
Continue learning about the "Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project" here.
