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Hello. My name is Kenneth taylor. Today is May 5th 2022 I'm here with joe Williams. He is a native of beaumont texas and has had a long career in the property and casualty insurance industry as a broker and is now a consultant and he has also

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had a very long and passionate career with the jewish community of Houston texas. Both just in community involvement but also in community leadership, joe. How are we doing today? Doing great Kenneth. Alright, so joe, just to start off this interview, where is your family from? And

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about when did they come to Beaumont texas And what did their early days in the city look like? Sure, let me first say I'm very honored to be conducting this interview. I don't know that I have a history that's really worthy of this attention but but

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I'm happy to make a contribution to the archives. In any event, we're very happy to have you thank you. Um my grandparents immigrated from Russia in 1988 and they immigrated into new york and married in new york. These are the grandparents on my father's side. Um

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and I've held the original, their original marriage license in my hands, which shows that they were from Russia and supposedly says what the name of their, their parents was. Um I don't know exactly what brought them to Beaumont um through genealogy research. I've actually found my

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grandfather's real name which I didn't know before would not have been Williams from an eastern european jewish country, but it turned out it was Sheftel and I made that connection only after a 40 year search of of trying to find out what my grandfather father's real

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name was and I found that his family had immigrated to Worcester massachusetts, which I never knew. And then there's on the genealogy chart that one of my second cousins provided, there's a line going off to the side of says a half cousin that changed our half

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brother, that Changed his name to Williams and moved to beaumont Texas. So that's what happened to to my grandfather. And unknown to me, my great grandfather also immigrated and is buried in worcester Massachusetts. He died in 1988. So then the next time I find anything about

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My grandfather and grandmother, their first child was born here in Houston in 1896. And I found that through researching some city and county records, then they next show up in the 1900 census and that's when they are shown to be living in in Beaumont. And I

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don't know, Someone might say, well, why don't you know more about your actual family? And the answer is because my grandfather was evidently the black sheep of the family. I mean, what would cause somebody to leave totally leave their family in Worcester massachusetts and move south

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and never have any contact with your family again. To the extent I know and my father and his sisters never ask those questions back in those days. And my grandfather was an alcoholic and my grandmother had him leave the home when my father and his four

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sisters were very young. So I don't know what kind of relationship or contact they had with their father and that's why we don't know more information in our generation because my father and his sisters never really wanted to uh to talk about it very much. Um

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I don't know what their life was like early in Beaumont. Uh My grandfather was separate from my grandmother and I know my grandmother raised my father and his four sisters and I frankly don't know what what she did to earn a living, but I know that

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when the kids got old enough they got jobs to help support my grandmother. Okay. Uh so when were you born? And what did your childhood through high school look like in Beaumont at that time? I was born in january 11th, 1946 interestingly enough, directly across the

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street from the synagogue, Temple Emanuel where where I went uh for before I moved to Houston. And um we lived on a you know, you know, and I say a middle, lower middle class neighborhood. I went to a nursery school across the street. I went to

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an elementary school across the street. The other way I went to a brand new junior high school and then I went to to Beaumont high school. And you know, for the for the most part it was a good childhood. Um But at some point my mother

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became an alcoholic and there were a lot of unpleasantries regarding that. And my father died when I was 16 years old, but I was wondering about anti Semitism in Beaumont. Um And I had a couple of experiences. One was when I was in elementary school, some

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some guys were chasing me and as an adult, I didn't remember while they were chasing me, but I reconnected with with someone that was in the class with me. Then I reconnected very recently and that that person asked if the story he remembered was correct and

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he remembered me being chased and he remembered me telling him that I was being chased because I was a jew and he remembers thinking what was the, what's a jew? And I remember another instance in junior high school on the playground, somebody said something to me

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and I don't remember if I slugged them or if we just had words, but that was really it. But I've also asked some other friends that I grew up with in Beaumont that were jewish and virtually none of them experienced any anti Semitic behavior at all.

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Uh What I most enjoyed, I guess about my time in Beaumont is um I played football in junior high and high school and we had a world class football team in junior high and things were pretty bad when you look back on your, on your athletic

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career in your highlight was your ninth grade football team, but that's okay. And then I ran track at uh at Beaumont high school. So, you know, I'd say it was other than the unpleasant situation at home, it was a pretty normal childhood. That's good to hear.

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Uh what did the jewish community in Beaumont look like during that time? And what was your experience, whether you mentioned that there was a few anti Semitic uh you know, things that were going on, but was it like a big, very involved community? Was it a

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small community? What did it look like? There were two, two shoels, there was a reform temple that I was a member of that to this day, I think as one of the most beautiful sanctuaries I've ever seen in the world. There was also a conservative shul

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coal Israel and um I was on the morning 1946 I was the first year of the baby boomers. So jewish kids my age in Beaumont, it was the biggest class of jewish kids ever that years, you know, as far as going through school and in high

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school. And then after that, the the, the numbers trended down to virtually nothing today, but the it was, it was a thriving jewish community, we probably at the temple maybe had, I don't know, 100 members and maybe the conservative Shul had 50 members and everybody got

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along and, and uh it was um it was a good, thriving, vibrant jewish community the entire time of my upbringing in Beaumont and there were anti Semitism was not a significant issue at all. Um What were some highlight memories for you in the jewish community or

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just, you know, with jewish events in Beaumont at the time when you were that age? Well, there were three of us that were athletes at our temple, which you know, jews are not necessarily known, We have a stereotype of not being overly athletic, let's put it

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that way. But there were three of us in my class that were uh we bucked the norm, I played football and ran track. Another guy played football and another guy was a really good basketball player. So the men's club, the brotherhood actually had a a dinner

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honoring the three of us for participating in an athlete and they gave us each an autographed baseball from Sandy Koufax. And so I guess that was one of the highlights for me. Um The other one, I was proud to be a president of the Temple Youth

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group and an active in our statewide reform jewish um um um the texas Oklahoma Federation of Temple Youth, so it was a, it was a nurturing community. Unfortunately my my parents did not insist that I become a bar mitzvah and I had an opportunity to choose

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between studying tour and playing football and I chose to play football, which I regretted for most of my life Until I finally became a bar Mitzvah with my son when I was 50 years old and 54 years old and that day was absolutely one of the

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highlights of my life, another Jewish instance, I remember that's not a happy one, but um uh I decided Russia Shona was on a friday night, one friday night during football season and I decided I was gonna go go to the to a football game and participate

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instead of going to synagogue. Well I didn't even get in the game, so I was so upset, you know, what was I upset was I was upset for having made the decision to to suit out with the team and and and then I was upset because

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I made that decision, I didn't even get in the game and so I had, you know, I guess regret or embarrassment and I remember bawling my eyes out in the in the in the field house when we came off the field and we're going into, you

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know dressed to go home and I don't remember anybody noticing it or saying anything to me, but I vividly remember that that instance, uh so in regards to uh living in, you know, being jewish in Beaumont for people either reading this transcript or listening to this

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interview years from now. Uh one big thing about Beaumont at the time is that the head of the ku Klux Klan in texas at the time was literally across the river in the town of Vidor. Um So you said that many of the people you spoke

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with didn't really have instances of anti Semitism that they could really remember that were major growing up. Do you feel that jews in Beaumont, they're mostly accepted by the wider community in Beaumont at the time? During you know during Jim Crow? Yes, I really do. Because

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I have, I have uh pictures. My father was president of the temple and we had a very uh renowned rabbi, probably the foremost renowned rabbi in texas in the first half of the 20th century of Rabbi Samuel Ross singer and I have pictures on the front

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page of the Beaumont Enterprise and journal where at different points in his career, the governor of texas is attending an event and my father was presenting the rabbi with Some kind of gift for his 20 years of service or his 50 years of service. And uh

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I think that the ball might Jewish community did fine, but you mentioned the situation and invite her. Let me back up. Mhm. I graduated from high school in 1960 for and there was still segregation then three years later when my brother was a senior Schools were

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integrated in 1967 and someone recently related a story to me that I had not heard that, that right after the schools integrated, there was to be a football game between Beaumont high school and bitter in Vitor and the Beaumont high school football team had a couple

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of african american guys on the team and a decision was made to not let them go to the game and not play out of concern for protecting them because there was a billboard in the interest divider that said the sun don't, I don't remember the exact

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word, but a black person should not let the sun set on them invite or texas. And so the decision was made did not dress out those two guys so they wouldn't be subjected to any any, any problems. But that that was vital. That wasn't, that wasn't

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Beaumont. We we don't really have any issues in Beaumont. Yeah. Uh, so you know, it's kind of building on that. Um, what did, was there was Jim Crow, the civil rights movement during the time I was there very much talk about that in the jewish community

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in Beaumont. I mean, were there in individuals or organizations that were involved in progressing the civil rights movement or was there a feeling to kind of just, you know, keep your heads down because we don't want any trouble or you know, or it's not our fight?

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Was there anything like that in the jewish community that you can remember at the time? I'm actually embarrassed to say, I don't recall or being any kind of effort to change anything. I mean we had, we had colored only drinking fountains at the grocery store. The

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two doctors that I went to our beloved men who I don't think had a had a a racist bone in their body, head of a waiting room for whites and waiting a separate waiting room for colored people and Kenneth. I'm embarrassed to say that for the

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most part we we just accepted accepted that. Why wasn't I standing up on a chair and hollering in support of civil rights and I can't really answer that question. The only thing I can remember that I thought of doing was when I was president of the

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temple youth group, I told the rabbi I wanted to have a joint meeting with a black youth group from the church. And for whatever reason that never happened. So that's still big though. I mean that's that's still big though, that you know that you wanted that

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in the first place. Yeah. But for whatever reason it didn't happen and it's it's an embarrassing time to look back on I think for a lot of white people. Um Yeah, you do have a story about a coworker uh what was it, a coworker or was

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it Yeah. After work trying, you know, trying to go out. Was it in Beaumont wasn't? Yeah. Yeah. And uh you know that that's a little painful memory to that. It was, it was the guy that was basically the janitor at the insurance agency where I worked

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and he was just a few years older than I was. So I mean we were close in the years and somehow it came up, you know, let's go out and have a beer together. So we went out and you know, bought I guess a six pack

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of beer at the grocery store something. Now I'm thinking that was 21 at that time. I don't know, it was 21. I maybe maybe I was 21 at a time. But if I wasn't he was but I was still drinking. I mean we used to drive,

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I'm digressing here, but a big deal for us on Friday night after a football government would drive the 30 miles uh east on interstate 10 across the Louisiana border where the drinking age was 18 and there were some major honky tonks and we spent a lot

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of time over there and and how we all survived with nobody being killed driving back to Beaumont Layton on the weekend night. I'll never know. But but he he digresses. So this guy and I, we said we're gonna go have these beers together and we get

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the beer. And then I say there was nowhere for us to go. I don't remember, I don't remember if he offered to take me to a to a black bar and maybe this is before we bought the beer. We were talking about where we could go.

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I don't know if he offered to take me to a black bar and I didn't want to do that and I'm I'm pretty confident I did not offer to take him to a to a white bar. So I guess that's how we ended up, you know,

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buying a six pack and and just drinking them in the car. And I'm I'm not proud of that either. But you know, it was the times there was it was really little you can do about it. So, but I mean just from the stories you told

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me, I mean you did a lot more than what a lot of other people did at the time. So you should be proud of that. I don't know about that, I don't know about that. But with that. So following that you went to Lamar University in

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Beaumont. Why did you choose to go to Lamar University? Well uh frankly I didn't have any other alternative. My dad had died when I was 16 years old and he had a very small insurance agency and kind of like a cobbler that has no shoes. He

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had very little life insurance. So my mother sold the insurance agency and when I was 16 years old and my daddy died, I decided I need to go get a job and my first job and I'm leading up to two. I'm now I'm not, I'm three

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years away from Lamar and this story, but it's an interesting jewish story. So my first job was working at baker's shoe stores when I'm 16 years old after after school and on the weekend and I worked there I guess a year or two. And then there

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was a weekend that we were having a texas Oklahoma Federation of Temple Youth, a conclave statewide get together, we had twice a year and that was very important to me uh toffee was and so I went to the store manager and told him that I couldn't

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work that weekend, that there was this jewish, you know, regional conclave that I was going to. And he was very, very nice man. But he said joe you know what that weekend is, don't you? He says that's easter weekend, that's the biggest, that saturday is probably

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the biggest day of the year for us and selling shoes. And if you can't be here to work then I'm sorry, but you can't continue to have a job here. So I lost my first job over a jewish issue of wanting to go to a texas

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Oklahoma Federation of temporary Youth field. So then I started working part time in the local men's uh traditional clothing store. And and that that that was actually a lot of fun. So I had before my dad died I had I thought I would become an attorney

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and I was gonna go to the University of texas and law school and become an attorney and then dad died and that just wasn't possible. So therefore I had to stay at home and help support my mom. And then I went to Lamar University and, and

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my freshman year, the man that had purchased my father's insurance agency offered me a job part time in the insurance agency. So I'd go to college in the morning And then I would go into the insurance agency in the afternoon and I was probably working 30

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hours a week. And so doing that, I graduated in 3.5 years working and going to school. So when future generations started talking about having trouble graduating in four or five years without working, including my own Children who are graduated in four years, by the way, I

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was never very sympathetic to that. Um, but then this Lamar, I get, I guess you could say there was anti Semitism Because at that time Jews, this is 1960 for Jews were not able or allowed to pledge non jewish fraternities and I wasn't the coolest guy

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in high school, but I played football and I ran track. So you know, I wasn't a total geek, but I was never invited to even one rush party by any fraternity at Lamar. So me and a few other guys founded a chapter of Z. B. T.

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And it only lasted for a few years after we we graduated, but we had to found a jewish fraternity to have a, you know, fraternity membership on the Lamar campus. But yet three years later when my brother went to Lamar, he was able to pledge one

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of the non jewish fraternity. So I think the things had changed nationwide between 1964 and 1967. And Lamar gave me a wonderful education for just pennies on the dollar. We we didn't have hardly any money at home but I don't ever remember there being an issue

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of whether I was gonna have enough money to pay the you know tuition and buy my books. I think it was maybe $10 a semester hour or something like that. I definitely envy that. Yeah. So so you brought up CBT um was there any other Jewish

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life on campus at the time or was it's basically just you know, y'all did what you did? There wasn't really any school sanctioned things. Yeah I mean we didn't know what a Hillel was, so there was certainly no Hillel and there was no other, there was

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no other jewish life on campus other than our you know little piece at Z. B. T. Chapter that we founded and for for fun a couple of times a year go to Austin and visit my friends that had pledged fraternities up there and most of them

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were became 56 which later became Z. B. T. But no jewish life on campus. Uh following that when? And how did you meet your spouse? Actually met my wife at a hotel bar, I went in there with another guy and she had a date with another

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guy that I knew. And so we went up, went over and chatted a little bit and I thought you know this girl's kind of cute. So after I got home I called the next day I called the guy that she had a date with and asked

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him if it was okay, if I could have his permission to ask him this cute girl out. He said sure. And so I called her and we went to a movie I think in, I couldn't remember what it was but we just had our 50th anniversary

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and are are grown, are three grown Children suggested we take all of them to new Orleans to celebrate our 50th anniversary, which was a wonderful time. But we went out to dinner saturday night, one of our kids said, okay dad tell us uh what did you

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do on your first date with mom? I had no clue, no clue. And everybody just broke out howling because my wife immediately remembered what we had done on our first day. So that's how I met my wife. And was that in Beaumont or that was in

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Beaumont in Beaumont. Very nice. Uh so following that when and why did you move to Houston? And what did those early days in the city look like for you? Well, I actually moved to Houston. I had, I had graduated from Lamar and was working full time

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at the insurance agency in Beaumont and a friend of mine got this hair brained idea in 1969 to form a company that was going to have something to do with lasers and take it public. And the new issue stock market was very hot in 1969. So

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I quit my job with the insurance agent, moved to Beaumont, scraped together 20 or $30,000 every dollar I could beg borrow or steal invested in this company, which promptly went bankrupt in less than a year because it had no uh no redeeming value. And um then

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I was went back in the insurance business uh here in Houston and Houston was was was was it was a wonderful, it was a wonderful uh community. Then I remembered that we lived in an apartment uh kind of in the western part of town and I

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was, took me 20 minutes to drive to our insurance agency, 20 minutes to drive and I'm thinking this is for the birds. This 20 minute commute is horrible, horrible. So we ended up buying a home inside Houston that Was very near the insurance agency. But I

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look back on days and saying a 20 minute commute was horrible from that from that same place today. The commute is probably 45 minutes. Yeah. Uh All right. So you move into Houston. Um you get the job there. Uh So what what did your early days

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getting involved with the jewish community look like in Houston? Which initial synagogue did you go to? How active were you when you first moved into the city? You know, when we first, when we first came here, Obviously immediately I wasn't active in anything but the, the

00:31:25.130 - 00:31:53.510

insurance agency I joined. Uh, the owners were two jewish men and and they became or were even at that time giants of the Houston jewish community. One man's name was Avraam Wisenberg. Avshalom. He died I think in the 1970s and the other individuals Irving postman tear,

00:31:53.520 - 00:32:16.320

who is now 91 years old and still working in my partner in an insurance consulting firm. But because of joining that agency with two men that were hugely involved in the Houston jewish community. Uh, they must have first gotten involved in the United jewish campaign, which

00:32:16.320 - 00:32:43.600

is the first thing I remember is a, is uh, you know, soliciting for the, for the jewish people. And um, then we join the congregation? Emmanuel. Both my partners became President of Congregation Beth E. Shuren, which is the largest conservative, now the largest conservative congregation in

00:32:43.600 - 00:33:10.500

the country. They both became president of the jewish Federation and they both received a prestigious uh, community award from the jewish Community center, which I'm going to receive next week. So these two men hugely influenced my getting involved in in Houston jewish community and I don't,

00:33:10.510 - 00:33:28.930

I have no idea what my life would have been like number one if I hadn't joined their insurance agency and and have all this wonderful jewish Yiddish kite called around me, mm very nice. Uh so what were the most enriching and formative, jewish experiences that caused

00:33:28.930 - 00:33:53.920

you to become so active in the Houston jewish community, such as becoming president of both congregation Emanuel and the jewish Federation of Greater Houston. Well, I think it was being exposed to Rome and Irving and seeing what, what what what they did. Um it's my kind

00:33:53.920 - 00:34:14.750

of progression of involvement was from working in the United jewish campaign as a worker and then a captain, a manager and a division head and each one of these to me was an exciting promotion today. We have a hard time finding enough people to do the

00:34:14.750 - 00:34:37.210

work at all from a life standpoint. But that led me to to being um asked to be in the first leadership development program that Houston Federation was putting together and and the person that asked me was a lady named Susan Suzanne Jacobson who is still there

00:34:37.210 - 00:35:03.360

today and I owe her a great debt of gratitude for for helping me along that path because from being in the Houston Federations Young Leadership Program that led me to being asked to be on the National United jewish campaign. Young leadership Cabinet which was made up

00:35:03.360 - 00:35:27.230

of a bunch of rabid rabid Guys who were expected to pledge 10% of the gross income to the United Jewish campaign, which I did. And then then I was asked to be a member of the Wexner Heritage Foundation program, which is a program sponsored by Leslie

00:35:27.230 - 00:35:57.880

Wexner that funds two years of very, very advanced, high level adult jewish education too, for people that have the potential and aspire to leadership rose in their community. So they will be able to make more jewish li informed decisions. And his expectation, Les Wexner Expectation was

00:35:57.880 - 00:36:19.840

if he was gonna spend this $25,000 or so on, each student he expected you to, the payoff was to be involved in your community and take leadership roles. So uh what I've always said is after Wexner, I felt obligated whenever the community tapped me on the

00:36:19.840 - 00:36:43.910

shoulder and say, sonny, it's your turn that I couldn't turn the community down so then that, you know, that led to being president of Congregation Emmanuel and campaign chairman of the United jewish campaign and president of jewish federation, I felt I was obligated. I mean, wonderfully

00:36:43.910 - 00:37:08.620

obligated though, because it's all those things have been extremely enriching experiences and I think you may have asked me about some highlights, um I guess when I was a Federation president, um some of the highlights are uh there's a program now that's very, very widely accepted

00:37:08.620 - 00:37:29.700

all over the country called PJ Library. And um it provides age appropriate books and other media to Children from the ages of like one year to eight or nine years old. And we didn't know anything about that program in Houston in its formative years, but but

00:37:29.710 - 00:37:47.870

I was at a convention and met the guy that was sponsoring it. And so I came back to Houston said we've got to do this. So I brought the PJ Library to Houston when I was President of Federation, we brought the Wexner Heritage program back again.

00:37:48.420 - 00:38:15.600

Um and when I was either president, chairman of the campaign or or president of the Federation, we first started something called collaborative fundraising. So in addition to asking people to donate money to the normal united jewish campaign, we had a menu of separate organizations and projects

00:38:15.610 - 00:38:36.480

that people might have an interest in investing in. It was kind of like a menu and um we did that, that was in the early When we said early 2000s and it's now it got dropped after the recession started in 2008 and 2000, but now it's

00:38:36.490 - 00:39:00.900

very much back as a part of the annual fundraising um from the, from the Federation. And when I was at Emmanuel, I guess one of the highlights was that my wife and I were both uh the co chairs of the first mitzvah day project held at

00:39:00.900 - 00:39:19.250

any synagogue in Houston and we had to plan this thing from scratch and had over 1000 people involved. And it was, it was very rewarding. That's a very nice, what are a few other major jewish community projects that you're really proud of that you were involved

00:39:19.250 - 00:39:39.820

in both just in Houston. But as well as south texas in general, well, you know, one maybe isn't that isn't that big, but I'm very proud of it. And that was in my search for relatives. I found that there was a relative buried in a jewish

00:39:39.820 - 00:40:02.820

cemetery in the little town of columbus texas, which is uh 60 miles west of Houston. And my wife and I went over there and we had a hard time finding it and it was it was a small plot, I mean, you know, half an acre quarter

00:40:02.820 - 00:40:25.110

of an acre with maybe six or seven grades, but it was totally overgrown. I mean there were there were trees and vines and gigantic bushes there and I said you know we need to get this cemetery cleaned up. So I have another good friend from Beaumont

00:40:25.110 - 00:40:46.690

guy named Gary Schwartz, whose son herschel was getting ready to become an Eagle Scout. And herschel took on cleaning up this cemetery as his Eagle Scout project. And we went over there one weekend with a bunch of workers, the mayor of columbus helped us, they donated,

00:40:46.970 - 00:41:08.930

You know, huge uh dump trucks and we filled up 15 dump trucks with 30 and 40 or 50 years of growth. It had grown in this cemetery. And so we got that cemetery cleaned up, we got a state historical marker and I believe the cemetery is

00:41:08.930 - 00:41:37.860

now being maintained by people who are in the jail in columbus for for different reasons, that's our community service project. And uh, what else, what else? Oh, I was, I was also founder and first president of the Houston jewish genealogical society because I was, You know,

00:41:37.870 - 00:41:55.330

I had this quest for 40 years trying to find out my name and I used to go around town giving lectures and uh on on how people could study their, their genealogy. And this was long before the time of the internet. So it was a much

00:41:55.330 - 00:42:19.250

more cumbersome process. But uh I was happy about that. Oh, another highlight of when I was president of Federation. This was during Hurricane Katrina and I'll never forget. We were having a Federation board meeting at lunch on the day, I guess the day after Katrina hit.

00:42:19.260 - 00:42:42.110

And I remember I stood up and started the meeting and said, well it's good, it looks like new Orleans has dodged a bullet. That was before the levees broke. And then you know, the levees broke and did huge damage and the Federation of new Orleans basically

00:42:42.110 - 00:43:06.430

moved to Houston and conducted their business out of our Federation building for about a year. And I don't take any credit for doing that. Our our ceo at the time lee once made that happen. But um, But as a result of me being president of the

00:43:06.440 - 00:43:27.300

Federation at that time, we got invited to the White House Hanukkah Party that year when when George Bush was was president and I think this is I guess 2008 maybe. And we uh uh my wife and I were there and and then we all got in

00:43:27.300 - 00:43:49.630

a receiving line to have our picture taken with George and his wife. And when I tell him I'm from texas, he gives me a big high five. So that was, that was a neat experience, definitely very nice. Uh so kind of moving into the ending part

00:43:49.640 - 00:44:07.720

of this interview. Um my next question is based on your experience, both growing up jewish in texas, but also being very involved in the in the texas jewish community, where do you see the wider texas community and about you know, 10 years time, both in small

00:44:07.720 - 00:44:28.730

communities like Beaumont and large communities like Houston. Well, let's talk about the unpleasant piece of that question. First to get that out of the way as is going on throughout the country and certainly throughout the jewish south as people are moving more to the large cities,

00:44:28.730 - 00:44:53.270

the smaller communities, the pool of jewish people is just drying up. The Beaumont community has shrunk dramatically. There may be 11 kid in religious school now where when I was if you took all the religious school, I mean there must have been 50 or 60 I

00:44:53.270 - 00:45:15.890

was at that time, but the jewish communities are just shriveling up in the, it said that a lot of the small southern jewish communities are going to end up with with buildings and money but no jews and I don't unfortunately, I don't see anything to change

00:45:15.890 - 00:45:35.620

that. On the other hand, uh in the in the cities the jewish community is tremendously thriving here here in Houston and I know the same things through true in Dallas and Austin and san maybe san Antonio. But we keep having more synagogues form just like the

00:45:35.620 - 00:46:04.150

joke. You know if you have two jews and three synagogues. Well we've had a political of synagogues form many jewish organizations. Um jewish day schools. We we've some dear friends of mine, joe capital and joe Cornfeld founded a Houston jewish community high school and that school

00:46:04.150 - 00:46:27.790

is, is bursting at the seams and it's terrible to think about it, but they don't have room to to admit admit every jewish kid that would like to join and that's it's a shame. But so jewish education is hugely vibrant pre school day school high school

00:46:27.800 - 00:46:48.890

and you know other things with the pandemic. I mean the synagogues have have probably have taken a hit financially but I think I think they'll come back and I think the future of jewish life in the major cities of of uh of texas and here in

00:46:48.890 - 00:47:11.960

Houston in south texas is uh is it's got a wonderfully vibrant future. Very nice. So my final question uh for people listening to this interview and people who will be reading this transcript in the future, perhaps going through your family collection at the Houston, jewish history

00:47:11.960 - 00:47:27.700

archive at Rice? What is the main lesson that you would like people to take away from both hearing your personal story, but also just uh you know, your involvement with the south texas, jewish community. What's the main, your moral, what's the main thing you would like

00:47:27.700 - 00:47:55.260

them to take away, you know, from your story and your experiences in particular? Just not just that the jewish people bring something to the world that has never existed without the jewish people. I mean obviously the covenant for monotheism, but it's also the moral fiber we

00:47:55.260 - 00:48:26.540

have in the way we should conduct ourselves. There's a lot we have to teach the world and I also think that my life has been incredibly and immeasurably enriched by being deeply involved in the principles in the study about everything involves involving Judaism. I don't know

00:48:26.540 - 00:48:47.000

what my life would be like if if, if I wasn't jewish for example, it's, it's, we really, we have a wonderful, wonderful people and we have a lot to bring to the world. Well, thank you Well with that joe, thank you so much for sitting down

00:48:47.000 - 00:48:52.690

a meeting with me. Thank you ken it's been my honor, mhm