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Frances Waldman

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Sylvia Schaffer

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1991

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1998.082.001 Fran Waldman, November 1996

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Interview

with

Frances Waldman

April 18, 1991

Transcriptionist: Carol Ruttan 

Interviewer: Sylvia Schaffer


                                  Log For

                         Frances Waldman Interview

Page

1 Born Wilmington, Delaware 10/5/16

1 Children Kenneth Waldman

Mark Waldman

1 Sister Rose Goldhar

Archie Goldhar

Kay/Isidore Starr

3 B'nal B'rith Women/ADL

3-4 Family history

6-7 Anti-Semitism

Herbert/Ruth Finn

9 Phoenix Council for Civic Unity

9-10 City Council

Lincoln Ragsdale

Ed Korrick

Warren Morrison

11-13 Camelback Inn

14 Human Relations Commission

14-16 Holocaust record

17 Dolls for Democracy Jackie Robinson

Father Flanagan

Emma Lazarus

17-18 Rumor Clinic/prejudices

18 Black-Jewish coalition

18 Hispanic-Jewish Coalition

Harry Everingham

20-21 Anti-Communist groups

21-22 Prejudices of young people

22-24 Martin Luther King holiday

25 Brotherhood and Sisterhood

25 Humanitarian Award Bruce Babbitt

Morris Udall

Dennis DeConcini

Eddie Basha


	Frances Waldman Interview

SCHAFFER: Good morning. I'm Shyrle Schaffer, an interviewer for the Arizona
Jewish Historical Society. It is my pleasure today to have the privilege of
interviewing Fran Waldman, who has given many long years of service to this
community. I would now like to introduce Fran. Would you tell us, Fran,
first of all, your birth date, your place of birth and the names and ages
of your family members.

WALDMAN: This is Fran Waldman and I was born In Wilmington, Delaware on
October the 5th, 1916. My children - I guess I should say my menfolk - are
Kenneth, who is going to be 50 and Mark, who Is going to be 40. I am
married to Simon Waldman and I've been here for a number of years, since
1953.

SCHAFFER: Thank you. What I'd like to know is why you came and how you got
here. What was your means of transportation?

WALDMAN: We came because of my husband's asthma and we came by car. We had
visited here a couple of years before and liked the climate and felt it
would be very good for him. We traveled by car with all of our belongings
packed in the back of a trailer and this Is how we got to Phoenix.

SCHAFFER: Fran, did you have family members, other than your immediate
family, that either came here with you or that you left and who are they -
your brothers and sisters and so on?

WALDMAN: After many, many years of being alone as a family member I now
have my sister, Rose Goldhar and her husband, Archie.

SCHAFFER: Who came here first?

WALDMAN: Rose and Archie Goldhar came here. She is my sister. My sister, Kay and 
Isadore Starr also came a year later. Rose and Archie came in 1974 and Kay and 
is came in 1975.

SCHAFFER: Was there any language in your home spoken other than English?

WALDMAN: Of course, my parents spoke in Yiddish. They were so anxious,
though, to learn English well because they had grocery store businesses and
they wanted to be able to communicate that they asked us specifically to
speak English. I'm only sorry for one reason, that we failed to learn
enough of Yiddish. I can understand It but that's about it. But they did
speak Yiddish, of course.

SCHAFFER: Now, when you came to Arizona where did you settle immediately?
What was the first place that you stopped when you came here?

WALDMAN: We stopped in Phoenix. We had been here in 1949 for a visit and
stayed at a motel, but liked it and when my husband came out in March of
1953 he purchased a home and a business, so we settled here immediately.
The business did not work out very well, but that's another experience.

SCHAFFER: Fran, were there certain kinds of problems in adjusting to the
whole new environment, a new community far away from the environment in
which you were used to? Would you tell us a little bit about that. What
kinds of adjustments did you have to make when you came? You had young
children then, right? Just generally speaking, was it easy for you simply
to integrate yourself in the community? Was there a community for you to
integrate yourself into, Jewishly?

WALDMAN: When I came here I was absolutely delighted with the headlines.
The headlines were that they had Just ended segregation in the school
system in Arizona. This was done one year before the Brown vs. the Board of
Education, so, because I had been involved, literally all my life, with
things dealing with human rights and civil rights I thought I had come to a
forward looking community and I thought my talents for saving the world
would not be wasted here. It took about two weeks to end my naivete about
this and conditions here, In terms of the Indians and in terms of
discrimination against Jews and places of accommodation and, of course, in
the black community as well. I knew there was much work to be done and I
immediately became involved with B'nal B'rith Women and ADL. I did have a
two-year-old at the time - my youngest child was two - and had to give time
to my husband's business, but I found the extra time to do these other
things because they were vital to me and, hopefully, could make a
contribution to the community.

SCHAFFER: Before you came to settle In Arizona, what kind of work did your
family do? In other words, what was the background in terms of your
parents' livelihood?

WALDMAN: My parents were involved with the grocery business. They were
involved in neighborhoods that were poor and black communities. Perhaps
that sort of gave me a background in communicating with people of other
colors, of other religions, but I do come from the household of people who
hated discrimination and talked against it. They were involved with the Jewish 
community, of course, but this was my personal background with my parents.

My mother died when I was 13. We had moved to New York and I was the
youngest in the family. After my mother died my sisters and my brother
remained in New York, but I returned after high school to Wilmington with
my father. There I married at a very young age, worked for a number of
years in the retail clothing department store kind of thing until five
years after my marriage I had my first child, Kenneth. I was involved there
all the time.

I think my first little experience, if you would like to hear this, was
when I was nine and I lived in Seattle, Washington. We had gone there for a
very brief time because of my father's health and he had his only sister in
the United States living out there and we tried Seattle. They had an
integrated school system which was very unusual in the country at the time.
There were very few black people, but one young girl was harassed by the
students and I could not bear this and walked around with my arm around
this little black girl whose name I cannot even recall, but just to show
them that this was the right way to act and that you don't do these things.
That Is my first memory of being conscious of not liking discrimination
against anyone or hurting experiences that Involve people of other color,
other races.

Then I, of course, became involved as I became an adult in B'nai B'rith
Women and Anti-Defamation League, which became my outlet for doing the things 
that I already felt all of my life. I was not even aware of what they did when I 
took the office, but had learning that this was fighting discrimination and It 
was right up my alley and I began my experiences as a human rights advocate at 
that time. That was really the first year of having my first son, being at home 
and having been out In the business world all these years I looked for some 
activity and found it in this direction. I've never left it since.

SCHAFFER: I would like to know something about the Jews that you found here
when you came to this community in 1953. What kind of Jewish community did
we have here? Did we have synagogues, rabbis, Jewish organizations - I know
you said you were involved in B'nai B'rith almost from the beginning. What
I want to do Is get a picture of what the Jewish community specifically
was, as you recall it, when you came, If you can give us some background on
that, please.

WALDMAN: Well, of course, my Jewish experiences were really involved with
B'nai B'rith Women and the Anti-Defamation League, because these were my
experiences that I brought with me from Wilmington. There were, of course,
the temples and the Conservative and, of course, the other Jewish
institutions. I did not join any of them. I joined a little later when my
younger son was ready to be bar mitzvahed. I was not a joiner of
institution. Frankly, I had been turned off from a very early age at the
hypocrisy that I saw with other joiners. I felt that a Jewish life was very
important and that I could lead a Jewish life without participating in the 
institution. I've always felt this way. I did join, as I said, for a brief time 
when my younger son became bar mitzvahed and this was really to honor my mother-
in-law who had moved here and was a strong member of an institution. She had 
joined Temple Beth Israel which had then divided and became another temple that 
was near her home. I don't remember all the circumstances, but there was some 
conflict there and that is the temple that I joined, where my son became bar 
mitzvahed. After that I continued to serve In my own fashion.

SCHAFFER: Now, I want to begin to get into the matter of your life's work.
one of the questions I want to ask you, first of all, Is did you personally
encounter any anti-Semitism when you came to this community? I know you're
interested in all peoples and fairness and justice for all, but did you
have any personal encounter with anti-Semitism as a Jew?

WALDMAN: The only serious one was a family - I had moved to anarea on the
east side, 27th Street and Turney and there was a family that were not only
anti-Semitic, but all of the neighborhood recognized them as very
unpleasant people. They represented a real threat to my children. They had
children of their ages - it was a very disturbing experience, not only
because of the threat, but because my husband who was very volatile in his
feelings about these things became very excited and very upset. There was
even an incident in which he threatened the young people to get off his
land or else. But the Judge was so sympathetic to our cause that
they dropped it immediately. That was the only real experience that was
terribly upsetting. I should not say that. When we visited in 1948 we stopped at 
a motel and in the restaurant there was an experience of some very crude people 
who shouted anti-Semitic phrases and the owner of the restaurant refused to do 
anything. When my husband threatened to throw them out bodily they left. Those 
were the only personal things that I could relate, because most of my 
experiences were with people who were with me in our sympathies and in our 
goals, so they were the only ones I had through the years, because of letters to 
the editor or getting a number of hate calls or something like
that. They were not threatening anything that they could do personally,
because they were anonymous as all of these things are.

SCHAFFER: All right. Now, let's get into the heart of the matter, which is
your lifelong commitment to the underdog and to the disadvantaged and to
the people who have been biased against and prejudiced against. I'd like to
know a little bit about the history of how, once you came to this community
and once you joined B'nai B'rith, how did you get involved into ADL
specifically and, search back into your memory, into the first experience
you had, the first job that you did on behalf of the people.

WALDMAN: If I might relate something that happened just a year before I
came here, because it really is involved with the work that I became
involved in. I moved Into the first Integrated housing area in Delaware
where we built our own homes, but we opened this to everybody. There it was 
segregation by law. one of the black families, a doctor who had seven children, 
could not send his children to the school my child went to. We were very 
concerned about this, because it was so unfair and he had to take his children 
all the way into Wilmington, which was 10 miles away and they were different age 
levels. We went In my living room, a small group, and discussed what we were 
going to do about this. So, we went in to see a black lawyer. There was a case 
that was Involved on the separate but equal - that was the only way they could 
handle it, and won the case. That was very exciting and
thrilling to us. I thought about how wonderful it was that just a few
people sitting in a living room could do this. But I always felt that
minorities could move mountains, so I was not even too surprised at this.
When I moved to Arizona I became very friendly with the Finns, who were
very involved with the human -- as a matter of fact, Herbert had been
involved in a law case that ended segregation in Arizona in the school
system here. I was telling her about this case that had happened and she
became very excited and went to her bookcase and took out a book which was
called, I think, Equal Justice. It involved all the case on which the 1954
decision, Brown vs. The Board of Education, was linked to and discovered
that was one of the cases. So that was very exciting to know that somehow
or another we had made a change. When I came here to Phoenix my first move was 
to join B'nai B'rith Women which was my outlet and became their ADL Chairman 
almost immediately and began to develop all the programs that ADL offered, which 
was a very active program in the school system and in the community and in all 
the areas dealing with human rights. Subsequently, I became the council chairman 
and part of the state ADL, but my priority was to make some necessary changes 
here in Arizona.

There was one other organization that involved Jewish organization but was
not - it involved all organizations and that was the Phoenix council for
Civic Unity. Many of the Jewish organizations and the rabbis were involved
In this organization which was an umbrella organization. I became deeply
involved with this because, as an umbrella organization, they had more
clout and more force to be able to be involved in some of the changes. Many
of the changes are here in this booklet which I discovered when I learned
that I was going to be interviewed and went back in my files. It gives a
very good history of what was done in all areas. My specific area in this
book is in education where we used all the materials of ADL and held
seminars and workshops. It was very effective in changing a number of the
attitudes.

One of the things that I was involved in and I say it because you feel a
great satisfaction in having made some of these changes simply by working
for them. City Council had never had a black member on it. They did have
Jewish members, they did have Hispanic members, but no black had ever been
asked to serve. The manner in which they used to select candidates was through a 
charter government committee which was an ad hoc committee that simply put up 
the candidates and those were the candidates that you voted for and that was it. 
I was rather appalled that this situation existed. So, again, in my living room 
we sat around talking about this and it was under the auspices of the Civic 
Unity Board that this happened, that something should be done. So, we ran a 
slate of candidates which included people like Lincoln Ragsdale and Ed Korrick. 
It was a well-rounded committee and we, under the Act name, we ran this slate 
and, again, a very small group. We did not win this election, but Ed Korrick 
came so very close because of name identification - at that time the Korrick's 
Department Store, but we shook up City Hall. The very first time that there was 
another election they had -- I believe his name was Dr. Warren Morrison -- who 
was a professor at ASU and he became the first member. Every city council., of 
course, now has included members of all the communities.

So. again, it reassured what I had always felt - that if you believe in
something and you work for it even a very small group can make these very
important changes. This we did do. I think I can go to those two particular
incidents, although there were many as we went along in making changes of
attitudes. Certainly the resorts were opened.

Of course, one of the big experiences that affected the Jewish community, I
think, is our experience at the Camelback inn. Camelback Inn discriminated,
but it was notthe only one. Most of the resorts did discriminate. I think
the Arizona Biltmore was one that did not. But most of the others very
quietly discriminated. But Camelback Inn was very, very obnoxious in their
discrimination. If they got a letter from anybody that sounded Jewish and
there were some funny experiences about that, because there were people who
were not Jewish but who had Jewish sounding names - they wrote very
repugnant letters. We, of course, always received these letters under the
auspices of the Anti-Defamation League. I was on the state committee at
that time and we discussed this at length almost at every meeting. we
implored the Camelback Inn on the basis of morality you don't do these
kinds of things to anyone. of course, it bounced off as if it never
happened. Then came the convention era. The Attorneys General were going to have 
a convention here and they were meeting at Camelback Inn. The Anti-Defamation 
League nationally informed them that the Jewish Attorneys General would be 
welcome on the week of that convention, but they would not be welcome the week 
after. We just wanted them to know and they could do what they wished. Well, 
they wished to cancel the entire thing. It made headlines at the time and we 
were very excited about that, because we felt that if we couldn't appeal to them 
from the moral issue then perhaps we could appeal to them from the financial 
one. About a year later, perhaps before, we were called in by a Mr. Stewart of 
the Camelback Inn -- I think he was the owner or manager, it was a big 
corporation. I was on the committee that went to see him with the Anti-
Defamation League, representatives from Los Angeles and another member of the 
Jewish community. At first he regaled us with stories about how abused he had 
been from the Jewish community for attacking him on this Issue and he was not at 
all prejudiced. it was only that he liked to have people of the same family like 
in his resort, but since it was so meaningful to us that he would now change and 
he would open up his doors, but with no publicity. He said, "I want nothing 
headlined about this." But we asked for a letter, which we got, stating that 
religion would no longer be a criteria for coming to the resort. He was very 
unhappy, we could see, about doing this, but he was recognizing that this was 
the only way to go, since the resort business and the convention business was 
becoming very important to the financial needs of Arizona.

About a year later -- and we were testing all this year -- we got a copy of
the letter that was sent to someone who had asked for accommodations. In
their letter of asking they said, "By the way, I am Jewish." The letter
they got from Mr. Stewart was, "You are very welcome to come, but I want
you to know that we just had four Jewish families here and they were
obnoxious." So, of course, the letter came across our desk. Again, we made
an appointment and as soon as he saw us he had the letter right in front of
him. He said, "I just want you to know that nothing suited these people.
They didn't like the program, they didn't like the food, they didn't like the 
accommodations and complained bitterly from the time they were here." I 
answered, remembering some of the things that I might have said, but I said, "I 
know that through the years you must have had a number of obnoxious people. Did 
you ever write a letter that stated 'I just had four Christian families and they 
were obnoxiously." He said, "No, I never wrote that letter." I said, "That's all 
we're asking, is to treat us in the same way. If your requirements are 
financial, that's fine. There are only a small number that can afford the price 
of the accommodation." From that point on, of course, there were no complaints. 
We had to kind of talk the Jewish community into going there, because we felt 
that if you open doors it's best to go through them. There were many people that 
just felt this was too difficult - they had suffered too many years with the 
abuse of being told they weren't good enough to come to this Camelback Inn.

Under the Civic Unity program there were a number of us that were involved
with various areas. Because my particular area with ADL was with education,
that was the area that I prioritized, but there were others. In this
booklet, which you can certainly look through - I'd like it back, but - it
gives the other areas that people were involved in, the black community and
various areas that were very meaningful to them.

SCHAFFER: Fran, I know you did a lot of wonderful work making inroads into
the schools and I think that's very important. It's Important that it be
noted here. Would you tell us some of the things you did in regard to the public 
schools and human relations, please?

WALDMAN: Before I just talk about the educational area, I think that one of
the important things that was accomplished too was the establishment of a
Human Relations Commission. We, in the Civic Unity area, had approached the
mayor and city council for several years before it was finally achieved - a
Human Relations commission. I served for five years on the Commission and,
again, I would have to go through -- it was in the earlier years, it wasn't
the first Commission year, but it was probably about the second or third
year after it was established that I served for five years. of course, in
that we were able to look into discriminatory practices and housing and
education and all of the areas. As I said, education was my particular priority, 
because I felt that unless we placed in the school books all the things that are 
necessary to build the kind of community that would be responsive to the needs 
of the community in terms of discrimination that we had to deal with. of course, 
this is where the ADL became most Important because they supplied all of the 
materials and expertise that we were able to use and there were any number of 
times where we became very important to the educational community in supplying 
these materials. Several personal experiences stand out with this. One is the 
distribution of the Holocaust record. The Holocaust program on TV was being 
shown at that time and we involved

the schools in distributing we distributed personally, a group of B'nai
B'rith women over 100,000 copies of the Holocaust record. The teachers
cooperated to the point where they gave credit for those who looked at the
program and studied the Holocaust record. It was very rewarding to us. I
remember delivering a lot of these papers to one school that requested
more. As I was taking them out of my car a young student came over to help
and he said, "Oh, this is the Holocaust record. I thought it was wonderful.
I just never knew that these things went on." I thought this was so very
important because if we don't sear the consciences of the young people it
will be a forgotten record and it must get into the school system. Since
then ADL nationally has been able to place a number of programs and courses
dealing with the Holocaust and I don't believe they've gotten sufficiently
into the school books as yet, but It Isn't a forgotten thing. There are
many films, there are many courses, there are many things that deal with
the Holocaust and I think that this is most important.

one of the other memories that I have, which was rather frightening in
terms of how little the teachers knew about what happened in the Holocaust.
I was asked to give a two-hour course, a credit course for teachers. All
communities were asked - the black community, the Asian and we all made our
contributions in certain ways. My particular course, I decided, would be
first on Judaism Itself and I asked Bea Stoloff, who was a teacher, to give
a little artifacts kind of description and basis of Jewish life for an hour. 
Then, I gave the anatomy of anti-Semitism. I went from the very beginning of how 
the ostracism and how, in many cases, we choose to be ostracized through history 
right up until the Holocaust. During the question period the teachers absolutely 
knew either nothing about the Holocaust or they knew the distorted version, of 
"Was there really six million Jews?" and I knew that the job not only had to be 
with the students, they had to be with the teachers as well. of course, there 
are still seminars that ADL is involved in. We do have an education committee 
that is involved with giving school programs and seminars for teachers and 
that's an ongoing thing and we do what we can.
In these earlier years it was volunteer. We did have the program director
from Los Angeles but the distance made it impossible to be here at all
times. And it was the volunteers and mainly B'nai B'rith women or people
from the other organizations that I was involved in that really made this
kind of thing a priority. We did this as volunteers and worked very hard.
It was the kind of thing that was almost a day to day thing. I know I had
little time at that time between raising children --

SCHAFFER: Let me ask you a question. I want to stay in the education field
because it's vast and I know you did wonderful things. There were two other
things I recall from my history with this area. one was the calendar, which
was very, very helpful. You did that and if you could talk about that a little 
bit. Also, the Dolls for Democracy program. what kinds of programming did you do 
in the schools?

WALDMAN: One of the very Interesting and effective programs that was given
by B'nai B'rith women was the Dolls for Democracy. That was introduced
many, many years ago and they were dolls that actually were replicas of the
people they represented, like Jackie Robinson and Father Flanagan and Emma
Lazarus. We went to children of the ages of the third through the sixth or
seventh grade and told the stories of the contributions of these people.
The women of B'nai B'rith formed a number of committees and one of the most
wonderful people to do this program was Shirley Schaffer.

SCHAFFER: I want you to talk a little bit, also, about the Brotherhood Day
that you instituted in B'nai B'rith women, how over the years that has been
an ongoing program and well attended. Tell us a little bit about that,
please.

WALDMAN: Well, before that I want to talk about the Rumor Clinic. One of
the other programs that I did personally for many, many years in the high
school and college level and before civic groups was called the Rumor
Clinic. It was something that was developed by ADL through Harvard
University which depicted the spread of rumor. We showed a picture to one
person and sent others out of the room. Then they told the story one by one
and how it developed between the first person and the last person. Of
course, there was always a racial theme in the pictures that we showed. It
brought out the prejudices of people, because they always changed the story
sufficiently to make the criminal, so to speak, the black person rather
than the white, who was actually doing the thing. What I found disturbing
was that for many years -- and I had probably done this for at least 20
years -- for many years the high school students would never make the
changes. They would change in many ways, but they would never make the
change of the stealing to the black or the carrying of the knife to the
black. They made other changes. The adult groups always made that change.
But the young people did not. But, after that, they began to make the
changes and this was reflected in our society itself.

There has been, as you know, a division now in the community of people who
have worked together in the past who have now become adversaries. The
issues are not always the same, but we have tried to overcome this in a
number of ways and the Community Relations Council, who helped to form the
Black Jewish Coalition and the Hispanic Jewish Coalition, both of which I
belong to. We meet separately, I mean the Black Jewish meets in one
meeting, the Hispanic Jewish in another. There seems to be some problems
between those two communities and if you've been involved as long as I have
we know they're In competition for the jobs and the housing and this, of
course, makes it a little difficult. We hope to overcome some of this and
with the people that are involved -- and we have not involved enough of
these communities -- but we certainly work on things that deal with interests 
and goals of both of our communities. of course, I feel that discrimination is 
not a Jewish problem or a black problem or Hispanic, it is an American problem.

Discrimination is cut from the same cloth and we've got to deal with it
from an Issue of don't discriminate, period, whether it is against anybody.
I think, unfortunately, there are many members of the Jewish community who
discriminate against non-Jews or blacks or anybody that Isn't Jewish. one
of the problems I find with a number of the people in the Jewish community
whom I respect, the leadership and all, have what I would call
tunnel-vision. If you look at anything other than Israel, if you support
anything other than Israel then perhaps this Is not your role as a Jew. of
course, I do not feel that way. I think we have to be responsible for
Israel, of course, but we have to be responsible for what is happening
throughout the world in terms of discrimination against peoples. That is a
problem that is an ongoing one and, unfortunately, will not allow me to
rest, not that I want to, but this is one of the things that I think we
must deal with. I feel that it was important and is important to continue
the work, even just to stand still, just to stay where we are instead of
slipping backwards.

One of the important things that happened in the 60's was the birth of a
new and ugly phenomenon on the American scene - the so-called
anti-Communist groups, many of whom were anti-Semitic as well. ADL, in its
publications, exposed the right wing and I feel were very responsible in 
defusing their influence.

I want to tell you about just one incident that happened that I was
personally involved in. The Arizona Republic had hired a Harry Everingham.
He had been a syndicated columnist for many years and is still in the
Arizona scene. We knew that on his national board he had some very radical
anti-Semites. We had gone to the Arizona Republic and told them and shown
them literature which gave the boards of We the People, I think was the
organization. They did nothing. The Journal, at that time, came into
existence, a very short-lived existence, but they were willing to print the
fact of what was going on on the boards of We the People which Harry
Everingham was the leader of. He had come to this community at that time to
have a mini-convention and that was why we wanted to expose him at that
time. When the Journal exposed this particular thing the Arizona Republic
had to let Harry Everingham go, because he had lied to them. So that was an
accomplishment. I went along with two other people, the head of the National 
Conference of Christians and Jews at the time and a member of the community, we 
went to this so-called convention. There were a number of people on the heads of 
banks that sat on the platform so this was not a small group of people that 
espoused these particular things. They called themselves anti-Communists, but 
what they were were anti-everything that we respected from the Constitution on 
down. At that particular time he had just been let go from the Arizona Republic 
and he was particularly venomous in his talk and then he said, "I hear that the 
ADL representative is sitting in this audience" and all I had was a terrible 
feeling that I am going to stand up, because when he tells me to I will stand up 
and they will simply attack me, because these people were on a crusade. He did 
not ask for that piece of information. In the material that they gave out it was 
a lot of anti-Semitic material, so we showed that to the people who were sitting 
on the platform, the bankers, and we said,"'Is this the kind of thing you 
espouse?". That was the experience with that. But, the ADL was very responsible 
for exposing the
ultra-right and their book, Danger on the Right, was at that time published.
Let me say one more thing about education, because as we're talking so many
things come by that you sort of forget. We had always felt that the young
people were the ones who would carry the torch, they would not take on the
prejudices of their parents, that they would be the ones that would be
fighting against discrimination as time went on. We decided to plumb the
whole area and find out how they really felt about these things. So. we put
out a questionnaire and I was involved in the Arizona area. I went to
Central High and they very willingly allowed this to be given. The
questionnaire dealt with discrimination questions - how would you feel
about Jews, blacks, Hispanics being with you, and questions that dealt with
the Holocaust and Hitler. They did not have to sign their name
and they were told, don't worry about this, you don't have to sign your
name and, therefore, your answers should be as honest as you can give them.
When we got the results of this what happened here was throughout the
country. Over fifty percent thought Hitler had done a good job. Over fifty
percent would not want to have anything to do with blacks. They would
accept Jews in the workplace, but please don't ask to be invited into my
home kind of thing. It was a real revelation and a shock to those of us in
the area of discrimination to learn that our young people not only took on
some of the prejudices of their parents, they added some of their own. It
was then we began to prepare a real kind of school program that would
involve all of these areas. We felt that the need, perhaps, is greater in
this area than in any other area. So we continued to do that and there have
been so many times that I went to schools and talked and presented
programs, as did many other women. of course, I felt that this has made a
difference, although the changes that are happening in the community today,
which is happening all over - not just Arizona, that are very divisive, and
we certainly see it.

I think the Martin Luther King holiday, in which I was very much involved
from the very beginning -- to give Just a small history of the Martin
Luther King Involvement: I was involved from the day that I knew of Martin
Luther King. We marched for him many years ago. On the commemoration of his
assassination, I do believe, I offered our black employees to have the day off 
to march. Surprisingly, they did not accept, but I accepted for them. There were 
very few of us from the Jewish community. I had gone to CRC, on which I had been 
a member almost since my arrival in Phoenix - I helped to establish a CRC in 
Wilmington, Delaware, so I knew that this was a very Important part of the 
Jewish community. At that particular time they did not vote to participate as an 
organization in the march for Martin Luther King. This is prior to the holiday 
kind of business that we became involved in later. I say now that they are very 
much a part of this and very active in the Martin Luther King holiday 
commitment. We've evolved as a Jewish community as well. I think that, In many 
cases, the Jewish community - certainly the earlier Jewish community itself they 
had enough to dedicate themselves to without taking on additional burdens. 
Perhaps that is the reason and perhaps -- you know, every community has its own 
agenda, which they must follow.

Of course, I am very happy that we have recognized that this is all of our
problem - that what happens to the black community and the Hispanic
community eventually happens to the Jewish community as well. So, we all
really must be involved in making this a better community, whether it is
working towards the passage of a Martin Luther King holiday, which is a
whole other arena, which deals with something, unhappily I can say or might
say, that when people go into the ballot box they vote their prejudices
that they don't always answer the question openly. At least
we've made it a shame to be prejudiced. Perhaps that's an accomplishment as
well, but this is an ongoing fight and, of course, we'll be in this and
what we can do now to further this and divorce it from the economy.
Although I do not divorce this completely from the economy - I think it's
foolish to. What's good for the economy is good for the people and we are
part of the people, so it's good for everybody. But, on moral grounds, the
Martin Luther King holiday becomes a vitally important thing that we
recognize the contributions - the tremendous contributions - that were made
by this man and to recognize it with a holiday that will let not only
Arizonans but the world know that we respect them as well as they do.

SCHAFFER: I think we've had a wonderful interview. I would like you to
please now - we will end it with this - talk about what you have done in
the way of recognizing outstanding leadership In the community on your
annual Brotherhood Day in February. I think that's a valuable contribution
and many wonderful people have been honored through you and through the
organization. So, talk a little bit about how that came about and talk
about some of the ones that were honored, please.

WALDMAN: One of the most rewarding programs was a B'nai B'rith women's
program that dealt with giving an award to someone in the community who has
made contributions in the area of human rights. In those years we used to
call it the Brotherhood and then we called it the Brotherhood and
Sisterhood. Now it's the Humanitarian Award. It's a yearly, annual event
and we have given the awards. This is not a fund-raiser. It is simply a
degree that we give, an honorary degree, to those who we felt had done so
much to further human rights in the community. There are so many because
we've been doing this for 25 years. There was Governor Bruce Babbitt,
Congressman Morris Udall, Congressman Dennis DeConcini. Our last award was
given to Eddie Basha. There, of course, were many through the years and all
very well deserving. I think the important part of this was not just giving an 
award, but that we invited the community to join us and we held hands for the 
period of time and let each other know that we appreciate being together and 
living, for a short moment, in a house of worship. Although it is not sponsored 
by that, we hold it at the temple.

SCHAFFER: Thank you for that, Fran. Now, I know that the community - at
least I hope the community - appreciates you. I do. I know that there have
been times in this community when you've been recognized for the wonderful
work that you've done. As a public record, so that it will be in this
community, in perpetuity, I would like you to tell us about some of the
awards that have been given to you, please. Thank you.

WALDMAN: Thank you, Shyrle. I always feel a little embarrassed at this
time, but I have been honored and I am very proud of the honors. I have
been given awards by B'nai B'rith Women, the Anti-Defamation League, the
Arizona Education Association, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, 
the Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation and the Lane Bryant 
Humanitarian National Award - I was in the top 10% of the country.

SCHAFFER: Fran, this has been a wonderful interview. I have enjoyed every
minute of it and I thank you, the community thanks you and I am delighted
that I had the opportunity of all the people that I wanted to interview,
you were way at the top and when they asked if I would I jumped at the
opportunity. So, thank you very, very much. This will go into the archives
of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society.

	[end of transcript]