Documenting Our Region's Jewish Community

In August Special Collections launched the Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project.  With assistance from a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the UNLV Libraries will collect historical primary sources (e.g., photographs, documents, newspapers, and more) about the Southern Nevada Jewish community, conduct oral histories to capture first hand testimony about Jewish life in Las Vegas, and create a digital collection to provide online access to these historical resources. 

So far, we've been contacting individuals and groups in the community to get them involved in the project and start thinking about how we can find and collect evidence about Jewish life and the contributions of Jewish individuals in Southern Nevada. We've also started digitizing many photographs and manuscripts from our collections, including from the Jewish Federation, the Mary Barkan Collection on the Las Vegas Jewish Community, the Edythe Katz-Yarchever papers, the Shelley Berkley papers, and the Dorothy Eisenberg papers.  In addition, we're digitizing oral histories we've conducted in the past with Jewish individuals, such as with Adele Baratz and her brother Charles Salton, Al Levy, Chic Hecht, Susan Fine and her father Hank Greenspun, Gertrude Greenblatt, Stanley Hyman, Irving Kirschbaum, Al Levy, Bess Rosenberg, Stanley Schwartz, Herb Tobman, Louis Wiener, Stanley Weiner, Stuart Mason, Arne Rosencrantz, Henry and Anita Schuster, Milton Schwartz, Jean Tobman with her daughters Janie and Marilyn, Walter Weiss, Edythe Katz-Yarchever, and Burton Cohen. Barbara Tabach, the project coordinator, has also recently completed oral histories with Faye Steinberg, Rabbi Shea Harlig, Arthur Marshall, Susan Molasky, Myra Berkovits, Douglas Unger, Steve and Wendy Hart, and Michael Cherry. 

Edythe and Lloyd Katz, and their families on their wedding day, 1948.
Edythe and Lloyd Katz on their wedding day, 1948. Edythe is kissing her father, and Lloyd is hugging his father. Edythe and Lloyd Katz Photograph Collection. UNLV Libraries Special Collections.

We're seeking more historical materials, so please help keep an eye out for any newsletters, photographs, scrapbooks, minutes, flyers, directories, correspondence, diaries, videos, and more that will help tell the story of the Jewish community in Las Vegas.  

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