..inte: Neal Kurn ..intr: Bobbi Kurn ..da: 1985 ..ca: ..ftxt: An Interview with Neal Kurn November 3, 1985 Transcriptionist: Carol Ruttan Interviewer: Bobbi Kurn Arizona Jewish Historical Society This is Bobbi Kurn. I am interviewing Neal Kurn for the Arizona Jewish Historical Society. The date is November 3, 1985. BOBBI: Hello, Neal. How are you this evening? NEAL: Hello, Bobbi. BOBBI: We appreciate your time and effort in allowing us to come and interview you for the Jewish Historical Society. NEAL: My pleasure. BOBBI: Your name, please. NEAL: Neal Kurn. BOBBI: And your birth date and place of birth. NEAL: July 19, 1934 in Springfield, Massachusetts. BOBBI: What are the names and ages of your immediate family? NEAL: Both of my parents are alive. My father, Sam is going to be 79 this month, around Thanksgiving. My mother, Jane is 78. Both of them live in Tucson, Arizona. BOBBI: And your children. NEAL: I have three children. I have Jeffrey, who is 26, going to be 27 shortly; a daughter, Sharon, who is 25, and a daughter, Jennifer, who is 15. I have three siblings. I have two sisters, one by the name of Barbara, who lives in Boston and one by the name of Brenda, who lives in Tucson. The third is Sidney, my younger brother who lives in Santa Rosa. BOBBI: Okay. Let's find out a little bit about the Jewish community when you first moved to Phoenix. What institutions did Phoenix have and can you describe them? NEAL: Well, I first moved to Phoenix in 1959. I'm not positive what institutions they had or I'm not positive that any of the institutions that exist today didn't exist then. We joined Beth Israel; Beth El existed; and I guess the Jewish Community Center existed. I'm not really sure, or was not sure at that time about any of the other agencies or, Jewish institutions here in the community. BOBBI: Okay. I know that you became involved with Phoenix Federation of Greater Phoenix. Let's talk about that a little bit. Who was involved when you first came and what kinds of things were done by the Federation in those days? NEAL: Well, I first got involved around 1967, very shortly after the Six Day War. The people that were involved were people like Sam Shapiro, Phil Taxman, Phil Copeland, Nastasha Todd, Harold Shapiro and Gerald Kaplan. Gerald probably was more responsible for my getting involved than anybody else because he was a partner in the law firm that I had associated with. It's hard to remember back specifically. The Federation was very small at the time; the campaign was, I believe, in the neighborhood of $2-$3,000. If I remember correctly the campaign chairman of the first campaign that I remember was Arnold Smith (or Pearlstein?). They had a community budget process which people spent a great deal of time on, campaign, and I think that was really it. It wasn't anywhere near as active as it is today. There was a CRC committee, but it was relatively small, it was not staffed by any professionals and was not very active at the time. BOBBI: Do you remember any of the politics that were going on at the time? NEAL: Well, I was a little bit young probably to appreciate some of the politics. Sam Shapiro, I believe, was president when I first came on the board, or became president while I was on the board - a man probably more feared than respected; a man who I think was elected to his various offices because people anticipated he was going to make a major gift somewhere and somehow. To my knowledge he never did that. Shortly thereafter Gerald Kaplan became president and he left after one year. There was some politics involved because his successor, at least in terms of the officers, Nastasha Todd and for some reason she was passed over, and Harold Shapiro became president. That's when I became an officer of the Federation. I was probably too young to appreciate the politics of the day but there had to be some political maneuvering in order to achieve that - good, bad or indifferent. BOBBI: What was the role of the Federation in those days? NEAL: Well, I think it was similar to the role today, except it probably didn't have the prominence it has today. It was supposedly the central fund raising agency for the local constituent agencies, as well as Israel. I think they'd like to think of themselves at the time as a central address, but at that time I believe the congregations were really much stronger than they are today, and that the Federation probably, or certainly, was not as strong as it is today. BOBBI: Can you describe the staff and the location and the facilities when you first moved here? NEAL: Well, the location of the facilities is the same. It was on the second floor of the Jewish Community Center. Sol Silverman was the only Federation professional staff member. Mae Horowitz was there; not sure if I remember who else, whether Nettie was there or not, I can't remember that. certainly Mae and Sol, and that might have been the entire staff, as far as I can remember. BOBBI: What changes have you seen in Federation down through the years? NEAL: Really, as it grew the campaign grew I guess primarily prompted by the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Prior to that time the campaign had slowly creeped its way up through the Germanships of Irv Pearlstein and Gail Simon, and may have been close or exceeded a million dollars. If I remember correctly there was a tremendous burst of energy, passion in 1973 as an out broke of the Yom Kippur war and we raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.7 million. That was sort of a recognition, I believe, that there was a strong well of funds that were available for Jewish causes. We sort of went back a little bit, but for a period of four years I believe stuck at a $2 million level. It was at that time that I think we began to go through sort of a re-evaluation. our staff had built up to two people and 1977 probably was the turning point for the Federation in terms of changes and a rethinking of the Federation as it related to the Jewish community. But up until 1977, which by then the staff had grown to two, I'm not sure there was a great deal of change from 1968 when I first went on. There were more people involved, we raised a little bit more money, there were a few more staff people. I think the Federation probably had not become much more sophisticated during that period of time. BOBBI: Were the congregations involved in the Federation in the old days? NEAL: Not to my knowledge. I'm not sure that the congregations have been involved ever. obviously members of congregations were involved, and I think that by in large, particularly from Beth Israel, a lot of the leadership of Beth Israel and possibly Beth El came to the Federation, more than I would observe today. Probably the lay leaders in those days held more pats (?) of a major proportion than they do today. BOBBI: What congregation did you join when you first moved to Phoenix? NEAL: Actually, we moved here in '59. We left in 1960 and I went back to law school, came back in 1963. At that time we joined Beth Israel. BOBBI: What was Beth Israel like to your memory? NEAL: Well, it was in the same facility it is today. I can't remember, but I believe they built the school building after that, so that they didn't have as much of the school building as they do today, but otherwise it was in the same spot. Rabbi Plotkin was there. It was obviously a much smaller congregation; I don't remember the size but it would strike me as it was around 4 to 500 families at the time. Again, probably the largest around, but clearly much smaller than it is today. And very active and a very vibrant force in the community. As I remember most of the leadership in the, Jewish community, and at the Federation level, came out of Beth Israel. BOBBI: Why do you think that was? NEAL: I just think that possibly the other congregations do not have the kind of lay leadership that ultimately went in for communal activities. But as I think back virtually all of the presidents of the Federation had their affiliation at that time at Beth Israel. As the community became a lot larger that became diluted, and today the pendulum has swung a different way. But for some reason a lot of the old time leaders of the Jewish community were situated at Beth Israel, and not at Beth El. I don't know the reason; I don't know enough about the histories of the congregations to be able to tell you that as to why that had happened. BOBBI: Can you name some of those people? NEAL: Well, going back, in my recollection the presidents of the Federation were Newton Rosenzweig and Barry Rosenzweig, Phil Copland; all three of them having been presidents of Beth Israel to my knowledge. There may have been something to that, that they brought in the people they knew and they knew the people at Beth Israel, and there may have been that kind of continuity. I think Sam Shapiro had been at Beth Israel; I know Gerald Kaplan was; I know Harold Shapiro was. I believe that after Harold Shapiro, milt Corwin became president and he was at Beth Israel, but he ultimately changed. Several of the other presidents since then had their roots at Beth Israel and also changed. There may have been a much more religious aspect develop at the Federation that ultimately prompted that. My observation is that the Federation was a communal activity, somewhat secular in nature, and that the more religious people were not as readily accepted at the Federation level during those days. I believe that changed very fundamentally, really prompted probably by the 1973 war and the people began not only to examine what they gave to the campaign and increased it rather considerably, but began to examine their own Jewishness and a lot of them became much more religious, and possibly went back to a more conservative orthodox upbringing as a result of that examination. BOBBI: Is there anything else you would like to add before we close our interview? NEAL: No. The association has been nice and the interview has been fun. BOBBI: Thank you, Mr. Kurn. I appreciate all your help. [end of transcript]