Contents
1. Transcript
1.1. SESSION ONE JANUARY 27, 2009
- SEIGEL
- Okay its January 27, 2009 and its Carolyn Seigel, I am here interviewing
Maxine Minovitz, good morning.
- MINOVITZ
- Hi.
- SEIGEL
- We are going to start out talking a little bit about just your
background in terms of growing up, may be first just tell me what were
the names of your parents?
- MINOVITZ
- What?
- SEIGEL
- Your parent’s names.
- MINOVITZ
- Goldie and Zam Davis.
- SEIGEL
- And how did they get to Pasadena?
- MINOVITZ
- They didn’t, I was raised in Glendale.
- SEIGEL
- Okay so they came to Glendale, how did they come to Glendale?
- MINOVITZ
- Because I have asthma.
- SEIGEL
- Oh so where were you before that?
- MINOVITZ
- Boyle Heights.
- SEIGEL
- Okay so how did they get to Boyle Heights? Did your grandparents came to
California?
- MINOVITZ
- They died in Boyle Heights, my grandfather was in the Breed Street Schul
and he blew the chauffer.
- SEIGEL
- Do you know how when your grandparents immigrated to California?
- MINOVITZ
- No not really, Harold parents came around 1915, my parents were born
here, I believe my father claimed he was but he was not, he was born in
Russia, he came here as a small child but he always claimed he went in
the services that his papers were lost in Philadelphia.
- SEIGEL
- So he claimed to be a native Californian.
- MINOVITZ
- My folks met in San Francisco but they were originally from Philadelphia
I think, I don’t know, not too sure.
- SEIGEL
- Okay so you don’t, because one thing we are curious about is why certain
Jews came to lets say Boyle Heights, why they went there? A lot of
people came from back east, Midwest, and what motivated them to come to
California? So do you have any idea in the case of your…
- MINOVITZ
- When my mother came to California, she had her grandmother here, she
lost her mother, and her father was already gone so she took her younger
brother on the train and came to her grandmother, who was living here.
- SEIGEL
- In Boyle Heights?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah in that area.
- SEIGEL
- Did you have Jewish education while growing up?
- MINOVITZ
- Just somewhat.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah can you describe what you did or what you remember?
- MINOVITZ
- Ah we joined the temple for a little while, it was a little temple in
Glendale.
- SEIGEL
- Is it the same temple that is in Glendale now?
- MINOVITZ
- No that’s a nice beautiful one. They were building it when I got
married. Yeah we went occasionally, we always went to the high holidays
to my grandparents, my father’s parents, my father wasn’t religious at
all and actually I always say whatever I have learned, I have learned
from Harold because he came from religious parents and culture, all that
kind of stuff. I think my mom kept Kosher until the war broke out and
she didn’t drive and it was hard for her to get you know Kosher meat she
gave it up but my folks didn’t give me that much of a Jewish background.
- SEIGEL
- I mean did you go to a Sunday school or some time later?
- MINOVITZ
- I think may be once or twice but I didn’t have that much, while I joined
the BBGs at a very early age and all my friends in school, well in
Glendale you weren’t accepted as a Jew, blacks were not allowed after 5
o'clock and the Jews were not allowed to join the girl scouts or
anything like that when I was growing up in Glendale.
- SEIGEL
- I even heard that you weren’t allowed to own a home if you were a Jewish
in Glendale.
- MINOVITZ
- They were able to buy a house, they had a nice house.
- SEIGEL
- But there were others, so you went, did you go to a public school?
- MINOVITZ
- I went to public school, we walked.
- SEIGEL
- And did you feel then…the Jewish kids sort of lunched together?
- MINOVITZ
- Not that many, in Glendale very few high schools, Glendale High which I
happened to go to, we always lunched together and I recently met
somebody who graduated the same year I did and I of course I did not
know her and she said why wouldn’t it wasn’t that big of a school, why
wouldn’t I have known you? I said because you never accepted us. We were
not allowed in any clubs, you know we weren’t part of the school, we had
our own little group.
- SEIGEL
- And did she remember that way?
- MINOVITZ
- She was shocked; she didn’t even know what is going on.
- SEIGEL
- So what kind of activities did you do at BBG as it sounds like that was
a big party year social life.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah well that’s how we met Harold eventually.
- SEIGEL
- Oh really?
- MINOVITZ
- We had social groups and oh I guess we did some impromptu, we went to
the hospitals and during the holidays made things for other tables.
- SEIGEL
- Did you have like dances?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh we went to dances in LA yeah.
- SEIGEL
- So is that how you met? How did you meet Harold then?
- MINOVITZ
- He actually came to Glendale with some friends, just hung out by our
meetings and actually that was the first time Pasadena had a social, it
was November 1st, 1948 I guess, and there is this swimming pool right,
next to the temple, and we hung out around, well the swimming pool was
closed, anyway I met him that night and he called and…
- SEIGEL
- How old were you?
- MINOVITZ
- He was still in the service.
- SEIGEL
- And how old were you?
- MINOVITZ
- I was 18 and then I turned 19 within a few months and then I got married
when I was 20.
- SEIGEL
- Were you going to college?
- MINOVITZ
- I went to LACC for two years.
- SEIGEL
- So what you were doing at that time? What were you studying?
- MINOVITZ
- Nursery school education.
- SEIGEL
- So when you had these social events, were they mostly at temples or were
they at people’s houses or?
- MINOVITZ
- Both
- SEIGEL
- Oh yeah, what were more fun, do you remember…did it make a difference?
And who organized them?
- MINOVITZ
- We had an advisor.
- SEIGEL
- And do you remember if you like paid dues or was it all?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah we did. I remember yea, we did pay dues.
- SEIGEL
- And did you get involved with any sort of Zionism or any kind of
activism around Israel at that time?
- MINOVITZ
- No.
- SEIGEL
- Okay I have some just general history because we are talking about the
war and stuff. Do you have any remembrances specific to Pearl Harbor?
- MINOVITZ
- Very strong yeah.
- SEIGEL
- And what do you remember?
- MINOVITZ
- I was with my parents at a friend’s house, because I didn’t even know
where Pearl Harbor was, I have never been to Hawaii or never have
thought of going just you know, Shirley Temple had been there, and yeah
the war was really dramatic and we neighborhood girls had a booth and we
sold war stamps, I think they were 25 cents a stamp and bonds were 18$.
- SEIGEL
- Was the booth it was on the street?
- MINOVITZ
- It was on the street on Brand Boulevard.
- SEIGEL
- Oh really at Brand Boulevard you had a booth to sell war stamps.
- MINOVITZ
- The Brand Boulevard is not what it was then.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah what was it like?
- MINOVITZ
- Well we had one departmental store called Webbs, that was it. We didn’t
even have Sears. God it was a little dinky town, they had little street
cart, we took the bus to the street cart and the red line went downtown
LA and I had a sister that is 14 months older and I and my mom, my
sister and I would clean the house on Saturday morning and get on the
bus the street cart and go downtown LA to go to Bullocks to the tea room
and to a movie, it was a big event so Saturday afternoon.
- SEIGEL
- Well you mentioned Saturday mornings, do you know did your father would
go to Schula?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh God forbid, he would never go to the temple.
- SEIGEL
- So if he didn’t go to Schula, your mom wouldn’t go to Schula.
- MINOVITZ
- Well when I had my oldest son, I had two boys when I got married, he
forbid me to have a brisk and Harold’s parents were horrified and he
thought it was barbaric.
- SEIGEL
- So did you have it do in the hospital?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I had it done while they were still, in those days we stayed five
days. No he actually forbid me and being a daughter, I didn’t; but my
in- laws were horrified and he thought it was barbaric. That was his
generation.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah right maybe they felt that they were making a stand against
tradition.
- MINOVITZ
- No he just thought that a moyal 8:22 wouldn’t be as well, the doctor in
the hospital. I don’t know if he ever had any bad feelings of growing
up, anything happened to any body.
- SEIGEL
- Well probably your sons are okay.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah they are fine.
- SEIGEL
- I think nowadays we think that some moyals have more practice doing it
particularly if they actually are urologist sometimes.
- MINOVITZ
- Actually interestingly my second son had two brisks so.
- SEIGEL
- They make up for?
- MINOVITZ
- No he just felt like it.
- SEIGEL
- Oh for his own sons.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah and he felt like it was interesting.
- SEIGEL
- So let me see, in terms of temple activities, so were you involved with
temple activities at the temple in Glendale because you didn’t belong to
the Pasadena temple, you belonged to…
- MINOVITZ
- I was active in…
- SEIGEL
- What was the name of the temple in Glendale, do you know?
- MINOVITZ
- I think we just called it Glendale Temple in those days, as far as I
know, they didn’t have a name. It was in a little teeny house and then
they were building this very big one, that they have now and they
started and the rabbi came over to the house and it was interesting and
he said, don’t plan the wedding there. They’ll never finish it, they’ll
never have, I mean it was going to take them years and it did. They
couldn’t raise the money and stuff. So he said don’t count on it. But
Pasadena only had that little temple that is on the side, they didn’t
have any problem in either.
- SEIGEL
- And Schula on the left kind of and so did you get married at Pasadena?
- MINOVITZ
- I got married in Lakshman Hall.
- SEIGEL
- And did you join Pasadena as a young couple or how did you?
- MINOVITZ
- Actually I think its first five years, Harold’s parents brought paid
something for us.
- SEIGEL
- Oh did they belong there already?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh they were very active. His parents were very religious. They went
every Friday night and everything and when Mark got up to Kindergarten,
I guess we decided you know to buy our membership so when he started
kindergarten at 5.
- SEIGEL
- Were you there when Rabbi Vorspan was there?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah he married us.
- SEIGEL
- Oh really?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah he was a neat guy.
- SEIGEL
- What can you tell us about? We don’t have that many people who can tell
us that much about rabbi Vorspan.
- MINOVITZ
- He was tall and good looking and had two young boys at the time and his
wife wasn’t active like some of the rabbi’s wives are. The kids were
little, very good looking, very educated and he was very into religion
with different churches.
- SEIGEL
- Like inner faith things?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah and they actually offered him money thinking that we couldn’t
afford him and that is why he went to University of Judaism and, no he
actually just wanted to improve his career and everything when he went
there but they actually offered us money if that was one of the reasons
he was leaving because they all liked him the inner faith.
- SEIGEL
- So people within the community at other churches and things offered to
help out financially.
- MINOVITZ
- If it that was the reason he was leaving so that wasn’t the reason he
was leaving.
- SEIGEL
- And was he a pioneer in the concept changing it used to be like the
temple had a Hebrew name? Or was it like that changed the Pasadena
Jewish Community.
- MINOVITZ
- I really don’t know anything about it.
- SEIGEL
- They don’t know was it a whole about anything when they voted on it or
changed the name or you know its okay. Do you remember any other ways in
which Rabbi Vorspan might have changed that community?
- MINOVITZ
- He was actually, he was here for five years but we were only married two
years when he left.
- SEIGEL
- And probably he was already there when you joined the temple.
- MINOVITZ
- He had this thing for young married that went to that was really nice so
didn’t anybody every tell you about the history of Frank Ackerman?
- SEIGEL
- We have bits and pieces right?
- MINOVITZ
- That was really an interesting time in our temple.
- SEIGEL
- And that was when the group wanted to split off?
- MINOVITZ
- Well Frank wanted, in fact we opened the temple in Sierra Madre a little
tiny temple.
- SEIGEL
- What do you remember of it?
- MINOVITZ
- Well, he was president of the temple and he was like an old dictator and
he did it his way or not at all and finally the temple said we have had
it and it was very very interesting. Rabbi Galpert who everybody adored
was an alcoholic and caused some problems.
- SEIGEL
- Which no one really will tell us what those are actually.
- MINOVITZ
- What?
- SEIGEL
- Well off recording exactly we don’t want to do that.
- MINOVITZ
- No he really, who idolized him as one group like the Fingerhut.
- SEIGEL
- Shirley?
- MINOVITZ
- Well Shirley actually is an old timer. She goes back to, she was at my
wedding. The Burmans were parents were old timers and friends of my
in-laws but Fingerhuts, the Kays, we still think of them as you know
they have been here almost 50 years as new comers, they came in and
actually took over the temple and they are clique.
- SEIGEL
- Who was running the temple before that clique came in?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t think it was so cliquish before that.
- SEIGEL
- It was just who ever was there or..
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah we went to Friday night quite often.
- SEIGEL
- Was it as social? We have heard a lot about the pool and barbeques by
the pool and all that stuff.
- MINOVITZ
- We had that, that was fun.
- SEIGEL
- And was that something that the new group brought in or was it already
there?
- MINOVITZ
- It was there when they came because that’s where I met Ruth Kay.
- SEIGEL
- Can you think of other things that this new group came in and how they
changed the temple?
- MINOVITZ
- They just took over. I like them, they are nice people.
- SEIGEL
- Right but they were new comers.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I don’t feel comfortable. I think we were pushed out and they came
in, we feel sort of pushed out.
- SEIGEL
- That’s too bad.
- MINOVITZ
- I mean Harold was so active you know for so many years.
- SEIGEL
- So was he kind of sad about that? Did he ever feel a little?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah, well they feel like they always say never in their speeches, they
feel as this is their home but they took it away from so many people.
- SEIGEL
- Who were the people, who do you think took over?
- MINOVITZ
- They all left, people were getting older.
- SEIGEL
- Right they were always looking for a new group, knell come in but there
is not as many of them.
- MINOVITZ
- But Harold, he was doing special Jews, he didn’t wait to get nominated,
he was going to do that no matter what and if anybody left the temple,
he was actually hurt like a personal thing and when Cantor Julian went
to Arcadia, he wouldn’t talk to anybody who went with him. He took it as
a personal insult.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah like a family rip.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah it was really kind of funny.
- SEIGEL
- Did a lot of people go to Cantor Julian?
- MINOVITZ
- There was a few that were active in you know.
- SEIGEL
- And why did cantor Julian leave and why did those people go away?
- MINOVITZ
- Why did he leave? I think he really wanted to not only be the cantor
here, he wanted to be a manager and they didn’t want him to manage. He
got a good deal over there.
- SEIGEL
- I want to ask you about the Minovitz store. I want to ask you about
because it sounds like, its kind of unique to have a store.
- MINOVITZ
- They came from Canada, they opened up a little mama and papa grocery
store and they had it for years, they raised three kids.
- SEIGEL
- Where was it?
- MINOVITZ
- Walnut and Freer Oaks, on the corner and there was a hotel, the dumpiest
hotel. When I met Harold, he was still on service. His mother was sick
and so they had to change, the boys didn’t want to work in the grocery
store and the father wouldn’t leave it so they turned it into a liquor
store.
- SEIGEL
- The father turned it into a liquor store?
- MINOVITZ
- Well the boys did.
- SEIGEL
- The boys did?
- MINOVITZ
- Harold worked when he got at night, he was allowed to live off campus
because he was stationed up at the, this is court house now, one of the
big hotels that overlook the Aroya. That’s where the army was stationed there.
- SEIGEL
- Like where the Ritz Carlton is? The green, not the green. It used to be
a hotel, but it is anymore, its right on the, like right at the Colorado
street bridge, you come across.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah the old bridge.
- SEIGEL
- That is the Castle Green isn’t that?
- MINOVITZ
- I think they used it for court houses.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah you may be right, it might be as a court house.
- MINOVITZ
- They made it into a hospital in the war.
- SEVERAL
- Was that the Raymond?
- MINOVITZ
- No it was higher up, way up in the hills up there. I don’t know why he
has never showed it to me. But I think it’s a courthouse or something
but is not the green street.
- SEIGEL
- And that was the military was using that.
- MINOVITZ
- They turned it into a hospital Harold was stationed there. So he came in
the night.
- SEIGEL
- And helped work in the liquor store.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah he and his brother, I was always the first shift, they lost the
shirt but their father was patient with them and so we had a liquor
store there. When I first met him, they used to have two barrels they
kept from the grocery store, one was Herring and one was pickles and
they would put their hands into this barrels and his hands smelled for
years.
- SEIGEL
- Well its that sort because this is probably was just the only kosher
butcher in the area?
- MINOVITZ
- His father would go twice a week, like Tuesday and Thursday down to
Boyle Heights, the bakery and Sean Penn’s grandfather owned it.
- SEIGEL
- The bakery?
- MINOVITZ
- The bakery. This Detroit Bakery and they have took this bread and they
filled it up the backseat of this car, no paper underneath it, just
loafs of bread.
- SEIGEL
- Yea right just throw them there.
- MINOVITZ
- And where people sat there with their feet, I am thinking back of how
clean we are today, they just threw the bread back and I used to go with
them for the ride. Sean Penn’s father was working there at the time when
he was writing and trying to get into acting and I was a young bride,
very pregnant and I have talked to him a several times so this is
interesting and one of Sean Penn’s movies, the one when he is slightly
retarded and has a little girl, he says in the movie, my grandfather had
a bakery and that was true. He says this in the movie and I tell
everybody listen for that because its true. So it was the Detroit
Bakery. Now the funniest thing about it is that Bank of America that was
on the other corner, my son owns it now for a El Pollo Loco.
- SEIGEL
- Oh that same like there is an El Pollo Loco on Colorado.
- MINOVITZ
- No this is in Boyle Heights. Its horrible. I went there once and never
went back.
- SEIGEL
- I want to see if you know a little bit about, is Harold father’s story
that was a kosher butcher right and he opened a store. Do you know about
when they started to open a store in Pasadena, when that might have
been?
- MINOVITZ
- It had to be in early 20s.
- SEIGEL
- Was it always kosher right from the get go?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah she was very kosher. She had different dish towels, different
dishes, she was very very kosher.
- SEIGEL
- And was it mostly like a butcher.
- MINOVITZ
- He cut meat.
- SEIGEL
- He cut meat so people and did he have a pretty group of Jews in the area
that were common and purchased that he was..
- MINOVITZ
- I mean they made a living, you know.
- SEIGEL
- And before 1946.
- SEVERAL
- That’s when it became a liquor store.
- SEIGEL
- Okay so before it became a liquor store, what kind of stuff, that we
heard they sell bread, they sliced meat.
- MINOVITZ
- Hunks of butter that they weighed and cut off and hunks of sweet butter.
- SEIGEL
- And pickles in barrels obviously, herring in barrels. Did they have
customers that were not Jewish?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I think they liked the bread yeah, they came in with the bread.
- SEIGEL
- Was it like rye bread or was it just bread?
- MINOVITZ
- Bread and holly. They had both.
- SEIGEL
- But the baker wasn’t Jewish, was the baker at Boyle Heights?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah it was kosher in those days. Detroit Bakery, yeah that was
kosher bread.
- SEIGEL
- And the customers, were they mostly women would come in and buy meat, or
stuff, do you have any recollection of?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I know when I actually got into the store, it was already a liquor
store so I really don’t think I ever went in.
- SEIGEL
- Okay. Do you ever remembering seeing like do they have a sign outside in
Hebrew or would you have known to drive by it?
- MINOVITZ
- But I think he stayed open on Saturday.
- SEIGEL
- So he kept kosher food but he wasn’t religious in his operations.
- MINOVITZ
- He was, that’s what I think, I am pretty sure they needed the money.
- SEIGEL
- So they stayed open.
- MINOVITZ
- So I think he stayed open or went to temple and then opened up at noon
or something.
- SEIGEL
- Do you know if that was a place where Jews would meet?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah all the gossip.
- SEIGEL
- So the gossip kind of went through the store?
- MINOVITZ
- There were a lot of Jewish merchants of Ferrous.
- SEIGEL
- Could you tell me more about that?
- MINOVITZ
- There was electrician, you had such a fabulous memory.
- SEIGEL
- Its okay, so also the temple, there was a small temple at that time or
that was before that on Walnut?
- MINOVITZ
- There was a little temple but that was gone when I got married in 1949.
- SEIGEL
- I am just wondering is when they put that store there, they have put it
there because it was walking distance to the temple like if there was,
that makes sense in terms of the timing.
- MINOVITZ
- It could have been, why they picked that corner.
- SEIGEL
- And why that area had a lot of Jewish merchants.
- MINOVITZ
- Fair Oaks had a lot of merchants.
- SEIGEL
- And did Jewish people tend to want to go to Jewish owned stores?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I think they were close. Close knit group.
- SEIGEL
- So the reason it changed to liquor store is that, Harold and his brother
would have thought they were more comfortable with that or they thought
it was a better business?
- MINOVITZ
- They thought they would make more money.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah and then you said the first year was a little rough though.
- MINOVITZ
- Oh God they didn’t know what they were doing.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah so how did they figure it out?
- MINOVITZ
- Just hit and miss.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah, did they eventually become success for him?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah they eventually owned three stores and they bought two others.
- SEIGEL
- What happened to the people who ate kosher after they closed the kosher?
- MINOVITZ
- There was another one in Colorado but he was semi-kosher.
- SEIGEL
- You had another kosher store?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEIGEL
- Like a deli.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEIGEL
- And when did you have idea because that’s obviously not there anymore.
- MINOVITZ
- No they didn’t do well, but it wasn’t kosher, it just had deli foods.
- SEIGEL
- So you could buy some of like deli like pastrami or something.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEIGEL
- And once it was a liquor store, it was still selling the bread? The
kosher bread?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah.
- SEIGEL
- Oh really like everybody loved the bread.
- MINOVITZ
- Everybody wanted the bread, their bread was great, still good.
- SEIGEL
- Maybe get you a bottle of liquor and you can get a bread too.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEIGEL
- And do you know anything about Deli Meat, is that a brand?
- SEVERAL
- Yeah there was a reference or a notice and a, there was a publication at
PJTC called the, I don’t know the temple news or something and there was
a notice in there from 1962, 1963 stating that Deli Meat was no longer
going to regularly sell kosher meat and it said that they have been
doing it for seven years I think and it said that people who still
wanted to kosher, could place an order with Deli Meat and another I
guess the wholesaler and they will arrange to have the kosher brought to
them in meat where you could still buy it, you know with a special order
but they were not going to be regularly selling it.
- MINOVITZ
- I think he had meat delivered to him, I think in bulk because I know he
sliced it and make lamb chops and stuff like that.
- SEIGEL
- So it was definitely both butchering and deli.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah. And how he learned the trade I don’t know.
- SEIGEL
- And Harold, he worked in the store when it was you know the meat store.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah he had a help yeah.
- SEIGEL
- And then when he and his brother were running the liquor store, did they
have anybody working in the store with them? Did they have job?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember any of them?
- MINOVITZ
- They were all black.
- SEIGEL
- Okay and what about the customers, were the customers were, when it
became a liquor store, did they keep, was it still mostly Jewish
customers or what kind of customers?
- MINOVITZ
- Times were changing.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah and the neighborhood was changing. So do you have any, I guess
trying to say remember did it become mostly, did the neighborhood become
mostly black and there were black customers?
- MINOVITZ
- Yes.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember about when that was, time wise?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEIGEL
- Was that the 60s?
- MINOVITZ
- We got married and moved to Arcadia and of course on freeways it took
about 45 minutes to get to work.
- SEIGEL
- Oh really? Do you know anything about when the built the new temple?
Were you involved in all of that when they built that?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah I was really young, I was pregnant with Laurie and I had two
boys. In those days you didn’t know the sex of the baby, and rabbi
Galpert is up there and he says, and I don’t know, you know I wasn’t
friendly with him personally, he says don’t pray for the sex of the
child, pray for the health and the wisdom of the child, pray for
guidance to you raise this child, I wanted a girl, I wanted to pray for
a girl, I had two boys and I never forgot that sermon.
- SEIGEL
- And you got a girl.
- MINOVITZ
- I got my girl.
- SEIGEL
- So you worked out that’s for sure.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I got girl, then I got two more after that.
- SEIGEL
- Well I am just trying to think about the time here because I know you
sound like when you joined the temple, they already had a pool.
- MINOVITZ
- No they didn’t. They did that years later.
- SEIGEL
- Because I thought that when you were in BBG, you might have gone to some
event and you said there was a pool there.
- MINOVITZ
- What was that called Wagner’s next door where the Convalescent Hospital
is today, there was a swimming pool there and you pay to get in.
- SEIGEL
- It was like you pay to go through.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah but it was closed at night.
- SEIGEL
- So it wasn’t a temple property?
- MINOVITZ
- No and I don’t know why the temple didn’t buy some of that property, it
was for sale and they put the Convalescent Home in and then years later,
they put that dialysis thing there, that’s recent.
- SEIGEL
- So they could all that property was open at one point.
- MINOVITZ
- Right and the pool, I don’t know why they didn’t, it was a public pool
and you paid to get in, there is only one around here so everybody went
but you had to pay in and it wasn’t owned by Jewish people or anything.
- SEIGEL
- But it didn’t discriminate that anyone could go there.
- MINOVITZ
- Oh this was years later, that was okay then.
- SEIGEL
- How did your kids feel growing up? Did they feel comfortable in school?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t think they had any problems that I know of, not like I did
growing up but I don’t think Harold had as much problems in Pasadena.
- SEIGEL
- But Glendale was worse?
- MINOVITZ
- At the Roosevelt it was free swimming on Tuesday during the summer but you couldn’t swim,
blacks can only swim on, I forgot when, they only could swim one or two
days, they days they were going to drain the pool and he had a very
close friend who was named, Freelander, what was his first name? At that
time he was dark complexion and he was not allowed to swim with them,
and he said oh but he is Jewish, its okay, so he said drop your pants
and show if you are circumcised. And they finally let him in but blacks
were not allowed to swim with the whites.
- SEIGEL
- My dad’s story is that he went down to Mexico and they didn’t want to
let him back into California because they thought he was Mexican, he had
dark complexion. So do you remember any controversy around building that
main sanctuary and the pool and silver building you know, do you
remember what was going on in the temple at all?
- MINOVITZ
- No.
- SEIGEL
- So you weren’t involved.
- MINOVITZ
- I had little teeny kids, Harold might have been involved but I wasn’t.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember if there were orthodox services going on at the temple
at that time, did they use the temple?
- MINOVITZ
- It was always that.
- SEIGEL
- Oh so it was always an orthodox service as well as?
- MINOVITZ
- Even my father would go to. When I had the boys he didn’t do it for it
because he was angry but when Laurie was born, he named her at the
temple on the Saturday morning and that was just a few men.
- SEIGEL
- Was it just like the minion that would run the service themselves?
- MINOVITZ
- Yes.
- SEIGEL
- They didn’t have, did the rabbi come to the orthodox service?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t know if he came or not.
- SEIGEL
- Just like the men showed up and did their own thing.
- MINOVITZ
- Because then a couple of months later, I named her in the little
sanctuary on the Friday night and made a big deal, you know I served
food, At that time I thought I was doing a lot.
- SEIGEL
- Oh so you were doing a lot. And were you involved with sisterhood at
all?
- MINOVITZ
- I was very active until, actually I stopped being active when Jackie
Sensor was working and she became president and so everything went at
night and I didn’t want to go out at night, even then when I was young.
- SEIGEL
- Right they moved the main site, but a lot of women started working at
that time.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah a lot of women started working at that time and we were always at
home women and then that new phase went in and women would start to go
to work and so I just sort of lost interest and didn’t do that much
during the day but I was active.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember Shakespeare club, does that ring a bell?
- MINOVITZ
- Vaguely but I didn’t have anything to do with it.
- SEIGEL
- Okay do you remember anything about how they got torahs? Like through
donation or fundraising for torahs? Do you have any memories around
that?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh I remember somebody brought one from Europe and it was a big deal. I
don’t remember too much about it.
- SEIGEL
- Do you know the person who did it or?
- MINOVITZ
- Cooperman I think, wasn’t that the Coopermans?
- SEIGEL
- Did Coopermans bring in the torah?
- MINOVITZ
- I think they brought it, I can be wrong.
- SEIGEL
- Was it kind of holocaust surviving torah, was it that kind when you say
brought from Europe?
- MINOVITZ
- Somehow it was smuggled into Mexico and then brought in that way.
- SEIGEL
- Nadine and Marlene Goodstein’s bat mitzvahs. They were the first two
girls to have a bat mitzvah at the temple.
- MINOVITZ
- I remember their wedding.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember anything about their bat mitzvah.
- MINOVITZ
- No but they sure were a pain in the neck they used to come into the
store and tease us while I was keeping Harold company at night, yeah
little brats.
- SEIGEL
- Oh really?
- MINOVITZ
- Long braids, longest down to their waist.
- SEIGEL
- Oh then your daughter came along probably bat mitzvah was a standard
practice?
- MINOVITZ
- My first two girls had it on the Friday night, Harold would not let them
being on the beama because he was old fashioned buy the time Dana got who was quite a bit
younger, she had a Saturday.
- SEIGEL
- Oh really so how did you feel about that? Did you get involved?
- MINOVITZ
- You know that Harold said Sunday school is a must, there is no question.
You go to public school, you go to Sunday school, there is no question.
The kids said I got to go to the beach, all my friends are going. He
said there is no discussion. I mean Harold ran this household, there is
no discussion.
- SEIGEL
- No discussion? Wow.
- MINOVITZ
- No. He said there would be no Friday night, I don’t believe the women on
the beama, I think it was something like Marsha Albert who said to him,
you don’t understand, or Marilyn who had three girls. You don’t
understand, we have girls, we don’t have boys.
- SEIGEL
- Right and they wanted to..
- MINOVITZ
- And we want our daughters to do this and he was so against it, he fought
them but then by the time Dana came, everybody was doing it so he said
okay.
- SEIGEL
- What about when Marsha was adult woman to read torah, how did he react
to that?
- MINOVITZ
- He probably didn’t like it but you know, he didn’t say anything. I mean
everybody likes Marsha so he probably the same thing but I think down
deep, he said uh huh.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember like may be the first time you went to a female bat
mitzvah, like even on the Friday night, was it like, because it seems
like it would have been a big change. Do you remember going to anybody
else’s?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I was kinda jealous because my kids couldn’t have, Laurie was you
know older but I never said anything. You don’t question Harold.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah wow.
- MINOVITZ
- Dana had to go to a psychiatrist when she was in college. She had some
problems and she said something about her father, we didn’t make waves.
I thought it was so interesting. My father did it his way and she said,
didnt you question him? And she said we don’t make waves. We never
question Harold. I mean he was a wonderful father, he was an ACA adviser
and all out guy but the temple had to be his way and not, and there was
no discussion, it was just we go to Sunday school every Sunday, and
there is no such thing, the beach is afterwards, skiing is afterwards,
even when the kids were older.
- SEIGEL
- Did he have the store open on Saturday, liquor store was open on
Saturday?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah you know, I didn’t keep kosher, I didn’t know anything about it and
it bothered him for a first couple of years, no help me I’ll do it for
you. When we bought a house in a desert and I said okay, we can have
this kosher because we are coming in from the scratch and my neighbor
next door is kosher so she will help me, he says not only, that its
okay.
- SEIGEL
- Did he eat differently in other words like some people even though they
don’t keep a kosher home, they will never eat pork. Was he like that,
was he someone who….?
- MINOVITZ
- He finally tasted bacon, my mother always had it in the house and he
didn’t know it and he tasted and liked it but when Mark went away to
school, he happened to have a room with Jim Schaffer kept kosher and my
oldest son really liked, we stopped using bacon because he didn’t want
us to and you know you are a college kid and Mark keeps semi kosher. He
doesn’t have any pork or anything in the house, he doesn’t eat it and
shrimp or things like that. So Mark has observed it somewhat.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah its an experience where being exposed to other kids influences.
- MINOVITZ
- Until his last two to three years, all my kids belonged to a temple and
now only Sherry belongs now and that hurts, Harold would be horrified.
- SEIGEL
- Why did they leave, do you think?
- MINOVITZ
- I think it was money with Mark, money two households, just divorced and
his second wife couldn’t care less but Kerry left and its really kind of
sad. He belonged in the valley for 25 or 30 years and the rabbi
committed suicide. It’s a temple on White Oak, and he blamed the
congregation and Marissa had just gotten bat mitzvahed and they were
real close. The rabbi did the preschool the kids went and he came in
every Friday, they had a service and they were real close to the rabbi
and the rabbi did something, three small children, the wife was
forgiving him but the congregation was firing him and he committed
suicide. Now what he did, I don’t know. Whether he had a male friend or
female friend, but the congregation would not have him but the wife was
for the children’s sake, Kerry went to a couple of meetings and he
yelled at these people saying he is our rabbi, we stand behind him and
he was angry at the community and they walked out on that temple and
never went back.
- SEIGEL
- It was not the congregation’s fault though.
- MINOVITZ
- And then of course you know Marissa, the third kid was already bar
mitzvahed and they never went to joined another temple.
- SEIGEL
- Its just so sad. I want to ask you, you mentioned about how rabbi
Galpert had his fan base you know, the people who really liked him, tell
me do you remember him making like political comments in his sermons at
all? Talking about anything?
- MINOVITZ
- No his sermons were great, they were great.
- SEIGEL
- What kind of things that he generally talked about besides praying for
healthy child?
- MINOVITZ
- No, they were great sermons and when he was sober, he was very very
good, when he was not so sober, it was kind of embarrassing.
- SEIGEL
- So you could actually tell?
- MINOVITZ
- When he did the Weese’s wedding, Bill Weese’s son, he was really high
here. I think she must have converted, rabbi Galpert would bend a little
if he liked the person and then if he didn’t think too highly of him, he
wouldn’t bend at all, that he was really drunk at that wedding and it
was really kind of embarrassing for all the Jewish people that were
there.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah a lot of people actually spoke to him and sort of let him know that
you know put him on probation or any kind of stuff happened?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t know. I think Josh Pace was president at that time when Roger’s
mother died, Roger Brown, and the temple city ______ all evening long and Harold called Josh and said you get that rabbi
there I don’t care what time it is at night, he should’ve been here by
now.
- SEIGEL
- Oh and he was not there.
- MINOVITZ
- And I think Josh present and said you get the rabbi there or else you
are gonna lose the Browns, at that time they had quite a bit of money
but yeah they did big supporters to the temple and there was no excuse
for him not to have been there that whole evening and make it housecall.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah because I heard he didn’t really make housecalls.
- MINOVITZ
- No he didn’t do a lot of things.
- SEIGEL
- Go to hospitals and things like that.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah. He did go where he liked.
- SEIGEL
- Oh if he liked the people, he went, not everybody.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember, at one time the Flame was like a sisterhood publication
and then it became a congregation publication?
- MINOVITZ
- Ruth Layman used to run that Flame so it could have been sisterhood.
- SEIGEL
- Because we are trying to figure out when that happened, when it might
have switched from being sisterhood to congregation?
- MINOVITZ
- Probably when she died, she gave it up. Anybody ever talked about Ruth
Layman?
- SEVERAL
- Yeah people have mentioned her and you know going through publications
of the temple, her name keeps coming up.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah she really wrote the Flame, did a good job but did it
single-handedly.
- SEIGEL
- All by herself?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I think so.
- SEIGEL
- Now its much bigger production.
- MINOVITZ
- She married to a doctor who left her for another woman and she was
devastated but she did work at the temple.
- SEIGEL
- And what about the gift shop, the Sancter shop?
- MINOVITZ
- When I first got involved with the sisterhood, there were two women,
they lived in San Marino and I think then Shirley Cone and Marlene took
over and Marlene is still with it.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah its true. Do you remember when that was, they took over or when
they opened? Or any approximate years?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh it was open when my kids were, because I got the invitations from her
and I went to somebody’s house in San Marino. There was the Wednesday
Nighters, you have heard about them?
- SEVERAL
- Yeah I have heard about it but…
- MINOVITZ
- Okay the Wednesday, Oh my in-laws wanted to be invited. Aunt Dorothy
Uncle Luke Fabish. Lou and Dorothy Fabish. Okay they had few bucks and
that was Sara Minovitz’s sister and they were in the Wednesday Nighters
and I am trying to think of who else.
- SEIGEL
- What was a Wednesday Nighters?
- MINOVITZ
- Well that was the elite club of the temple, the wealthy ones, the ones
that had few bucks and these two women lived in San Marino, and I wish I
can remember their names, and you would’ve loved Harold, he would’ve
remembered everything.
- SEIGEL
- Its okay.
- MINOVITZ
- Anyway, the Wednesday Nighters, the two women, they were running the
gift shop, I don’t think it was called the Sanctor shop, it was just a
gift shop and they did invitations and they give you a discount and they
helped you through your.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah and this Wednesday night thing was a social event that two ladies
would trade?
- MINOVITZ
- No it was just a social coupler thing and I don’t know who was involved
in it.
- SEIGEL
- And they got each other’s home and entertain or something like that?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I don’t think they used the temple.
- SEIGEL
- Because we have heard about some entertainment that went on the temple,
for some people always events happened at the temple and for some
people, there were events you know outside in their homes.
- MINOVITZ
- The Wednesday Nighters were really very sophisticated group and it was
older group because Harold’s folks wanted to badly to be invited. They
never made the grade.
- SEVERAL
- Who was in the Wednesday Nighters?
- MINOVITZ
- I know the Fabishes, I got a picture, I just came across the other
night, I got in the mail from my brother in law, the Sobers, the
Melvins.
- SEIGEL
- Its like all the men, where the women? Its just like the movers and
shakers guys.
- MINOVITZ
- This is Phil Sober, Dev Eleven’s father, she is not in the temple, and
here’s Danny Leibel.
- SEIGEL
- Oh like Ryan Leibel, right, L.E.I.B.E.L., mother, what’s the father name
I don’t remember.
- MINOVITZ
- Todd and Elaine.
- SEIGEL
- His father.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah Todd’s father, this is Kievman, oh you know he was real active in
everything, Goldman, Arthur Goldman. Goodman? Goodman.
- SEIGEL
- I think we interviewed his daughter.
- MINOVITZ
- No he’s gone. He and his wife were bloodgended, he beat up and killed,
it was really devastating and was really frightening.
- SEIGEL
- It happened here in Pasadena?
- MINOVITZ
- It happened in Pasadena, they lived in Altadena. This is Melvin. He was
real active and everything.
- SEVERAL
- Where was this picture taken?
- MINOVITZ
- My handwriting, I came across this, I was mailing to my brother in law
to see if he remembered anything.
- SEIGEL
- It looks like next the social hall room may be?
- MINOVITZ
- Wolman?
- SEIGEL
- May be the paneling is high and the entrance way room.
- MINOVITZ
- This is Lou Fabrish, he has been gone.
- SEIGEL
- It’s nicer paneling. May be they dropped the ceiling at some point.
- MINOVITZ
- Look at the sideburns.
- SEIGEL
- That would be a shame. Ahh Who is that in front?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t remember his name. Somebody took the things off.
- SEIGEL
- I am just trying to stay steady.
- MINOVITZ
- When I have the kids here, I take the couch and bring it over here and
you know I bring another table in. Those are my kids.
- SEIGEL
- You know I would love to go through fun pictures, we can go through
afterwards, definitely I will do that. I just want to ask some specific
questions, one is do you, in 1969, the temple was doing braille
transcribing, does that ring a bell?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh who did that, that was Webber, Monica Webber was running that.
- SEIGEL
- And do you remember anything more than that like how many people were
involved? How people got taught to do, I guess she taught a class may be
and they learned how?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t know why she was into it.
- SEIGEL
- And you were head of sisterhood in 1971 or you want to know who the head
of sisterhood was in 1971?
- SEVERAL
- I don’t know, that may be Danley.
- SEIGEL
- Okay alright, somewhere out there. Were you involved in organizing a new
year’s dance in 1969? Do you remember anything like that?
- MINOVITZ
- I could have been. I don’t know.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember when the temple started having dances or any temple
dances that standout in your memory?
- MINOVITZ
- I know they were boring.
- SEIGEL
- They were boring?
- MINOVITZ
- Well Harold would always run the liquor department, always be a
bartender. So I was always left by myself.
- SEIGEL
- Oh so here is your working kind of so was it really a social evening?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah it was social for him, standing and pouring the liquor and talking
to everybody and having a great time and I was like walk around small
talkative you know all the time, I was always bored.
- SEIGEL
- Were you corresponding secretary of the board in 1969?
- MINOVITZ
- I know I was vice president and Marlene Seigel was president and our
kids were both about 5 or 6 years old at the time.
- SEIGEL
- Did the kids get together a lot? Like your kids, her kids, other kids?
- MINOVITZ
- They were growing up yeah. Shirley and Sherry are about a week apart and
Jeff across the street is about two weeks, we ran a wonderful carpool to
the temple, Lisa Hoffman, Shirley’s daughter is one day older than
Sherry, the Phillip’s daughter, her birthday was 11th so she was two
weeks younger and so it was five of us right around here and all the
same age within two or three weeks so yeah the kids got together a lot.
Yeah she had a good time. Now when Dana came along, six years later,
when she had Sunday school class there were only three or four kids in a
class and it was awful but Sherry had 30, Laurie went through
confirmation.
- SEIGEL
- It wasn’t that the temple wasn’t smaller then and just some classes had
more kids.
- MINOVITZ
- The boys didn’t go through confirmation, they had had it after.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember Irving Burg?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah. What about him?
- SEIGEL
- I don’t know, what do you remember about him?
- SEVERAL
- Actually I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago and I..
- MINOVITZ
- Irvin Burg, is he still living? How old is he 90?
- SEVERAL
- 92.
- MINOVITZ
- Okay.
- SEVERAL
- He mentions that he started the Yom Kippur appeal in which they were
raising money for what became The Louis B Silver Building and he told
the rabbi this would be wonderful opportunity to fundraise and Yom
Kippur, temple would have the most people there.
- SEIGEL
- They never did it before that?
- SEVERAL
- According to him, they did.
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t know, I wouldn’t have paid any attention to. I do know they went
at the high holidays, Harold was religious, he would stay in the back of
the beama and write down what everybody gave and he would say to them
that’s not enough. For the honor, you have given, that’s not enough. He
took it upon himself and I don’t know how he got away with it, say you
want that honor, you pay this and this, at least this much if not more.
- SEIGEL
- So he wouldn’t negotiate with them as they came up for their.
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah you didn’t see him, but he left about 8:30 in the morning to go
to temple and if I wasn’t there by 10 o’clock and if I walked in, I got
the dirtiest look with the kids from the beama, he let us all know,
everybody knew I was late and the look Harold would give me, how dare
you be late.
- SEIGEL
- I have heard that people who would give an honor would whisper like to
the Gabi how much they were giving and then he would say in Hebrew so
that’s his honor has donated so much money, like that was actually said
out loud.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah and Mickey Seigel was the one who sat behind me and would tell me
what they said.
- SEIGEL
- Oh really so you got to know how much they were giving and then he would
negotiate with them it sounds like a little.
- MINOVITZ
- No Mickey Seigel would tell me and then says Harold is not going to
approve of that and sure enough a few minutes later, they announced the
guy gave more. He would start to walk off and Harold would say uh huh.
- SEIGEL
- And was that all done in Hebrew the amount that they gave you think?
- MINOVITZ
- Harold would know.
- SEIGEL
- So if you didn’t have an honor, how did you donate at the high holidays
I wonder? Was it did everyone get an honor of some sort?
- MINOVITZ
- No no.
- SEIGEL
- But that’s how they raise the money was really through the honors.
- MINOVITZ
- No and then they had the appeals. Somebody, not the president, sometimes
the president of the temple would get up but usually it was somebody
else, speaker Marilynn did it one year, she was a beautiful one, and
sometimes they were very moving and sometimes they were pretty corny
but…
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember when the temple at one point had an executive director?
- MINOVITZ
- Anita Louise. She was great.
- SEIGEL
- And what were her jobs, like what kinds of things?
- MINOVITZ
- Running the temple.
- SEIGEL
- Really? So she managed kind of the job that Bruce does now plus running
programs and all that stuff.
- MINOVITZ
- Whatever she did I don’t know but she was great.
- SEIGEL
- Do you know why she left?
- MINOVITZ
- We didn’t have the money. She actually went into something to do with
prisons, Harold opened an school downtown in LA and she got in touch
with him and took him around to all the women prisons to get them, if
they could be rehabilitated, so they can get out of the prison early and
go to school and he and his brother opened after they sold liquor stores
for three to four years, couldn’t find themselves, didn’t know Harold
was about 40 at that time and we just had Dana, which was late in life
to have this 5th kid and Harold was disgruntled at the stores that had
been robbed enough.
- SEIGEL
- Was it just it got dangerous?
- MINOVITZ
- My brother in law, who is, Harold and Donald are a year and two days
apart and Donald was more aggressive than Harold so they balanced each
other out. But Donald walked out one day and said I am not coming back.
The employees aren’t even sharing with us, taking so dam much, the
watches were gone anyway, it was a rough business in those days so he
walked out and then they tried to find something. What they finally
after playing around, they opened a school downtown LA, broadway Los
Angeles business college and it did really well, it was like four year
school and anyway, Anita Louise took Harold around and introduced him to
all the women prisons, who were involved somehow after that she left and
they were able to get out of the prison and they had kids, they got in
prisons from the employees that worked at the prison got the girls
pregnant and it was terrible. So they had a nursery school upstairs and
they went to school and the government paid for it.
- SEIGEL
- That’s a good business.
- MINOVITZ
- It’s a good program and Anita Louise, she helped him, quite a bit. They
had a lunch and they had a restaurant, really a fabulous restaurant,
between, it was often New York, it was called Eaton Canyon, it was
right, one of the heavy rains knocked the whole thing out so we had a
luncheon for her at this restaurant when she was leaving Altadena and
Bernice said maybe I am pregnant and I think I am and she said oh my God
I’ll kill myself.
- SEIGEL
- Is it New York or what I am just curious like Allen?
- MINOVITZ
- No no, the Altadena drive you know where the temple is, and it was
between Sierra Madre but no right near the temple, It was walking
distance.
- SEIGEL
- I can imagine where it would have been.
- MINOVITZ
- Right in the hills in there, fabulous restaurant. Never rebuilt it, now
there are swim places but it was in the hills and it was made out of
wood and it was very antique looking, fabulous food. Everybody at the
temple that had small children would walk down to the corner, they had a
restaurant, the temple went on for so longer than high holidays so we go
down there and have lunch, all the guys would be in temple, all the
girls and the kids were down there.
- SEIGEL
- Was it okay on Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah?
- MINOVITZ
- Probably both.
- SEIGEL
- Let me get through a few last things, we’re almost done, do you remember
if there was any special fees that people wanted to use the pool that
they had to pay more in their membership or did outside?
- MINOVITZ
- I think you joined the pool.
- SEIGEL
- The pool was a separate join.
- MINOVITZ
- They joined the pool. Do you remember the pool? It was very very
flexible.
- SEIGEL
- So you couldn’t really pay, they might work with you on that?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t remember, you paid for but then nobody out to check tickets and
what’s name, he is a friend of Mark’s, he was lifeguard for years, going
to college, Mark, Mark would know but he and his brother were the
lifeguards.
- SEIGEL
- So they had like they had real lifeguards and everything and it was
supervised?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah they always had a lifeguard there when it was open.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember the desegregation of Pasadena schools when that
happened?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah we all fought that.
- SEIGEL
- And you had your kids in school at that time?
- MINOVITZ
- I had, Sherry and Dana. Sherry was bussed to Washington and Dana was
young so when she finished at Don Vinita, we put her at High Point.
- SEIGEL
- Oh my kids were in there.
- MINOVITZ
- Sherry would not go to private school.
- SEIGEL
- Wow she was already in high school at that point.
- MINOVITZ
- No she finished her 6th grade at Washington and went to Washington
Junior High, but she would not go to private school. We fought it
because we had a token black couple that was put in deliberately two
doors up, their kids were same age as mine and they were at Fields,
okay, next door, who is still there, it was a chief of police. His kid
went to Fields, so hell, why there is another kid go to school so we
fought it, and Sherry she wanted to go with her friends and that’s
nothing we can do about. She was strong, anyways, Dana was flexible and
we put her in private school and we said we’ll will show you, the deal
we couldn’t have cared less so she went to High Point right on the
corner in my neighbor cross street and the Vanderberks were on the other
side, we were in the carpool and then she went to Flintridge.
- SEIGEL
- And do you remember in the temple was it the people within the people
organized, was the Jewish community organized in terms of having to
taking a stand or fighting the desegregation or being for it or do you
remember anything? But you told you individually fought it.
- MINOVITZ
- We wanted neighborhood schools.
- SEIGEL
- So you and your neighborhood.
- MINOVITZ
- We don’t want a bus hours out..
- SEIGEL
- So its more like you organized with your friends and your.
- MINOVITZ
- So when I picked the kids up, Harold would still have the store and we
would stopping by, get cookies and stuff from Harold and ice cream and
stuff like that on my way home, but the days of Hebrew school, they only
had about half hour to pick the kids up and get them something to eat
and get into Hebrew school until 6 o'clock at night, it really was a
rough time for us so.
- SEIGEL
- Do you know anything about rabbi Mandick who was the education director?
Does that ring a bell?
- MINOVITZ
- No.
- SEIGEL
- Well that concludes my formal part so normally what happens now, Michael
is going to ask if he has some questions that he feels he needs to know
more and then before I go, I want you to show me your wedding picture
and you Katuba I think over there is that right?
- MINOVITZ
- That was our 50th; our kids did that for us.
- SEIGEL
- Oh really it’s very nice. I would like to go and look at that.
- SEVERAL
- Listen, you were born in Boyle Heights?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah probably.
- SEIGEL
- Do you remember what hospital you were born in?
- MINOVITZ
- California Hospital.
- SEVERAL
- How old were you when your family?
- MINOVITZ
- I was 8 when we moved to Glendale.
- SEVERAL
- Okay from Boyle Heights.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEVERAL
- And what year was that? Was it before?
- MINOVITZ
- Let’s see I’m 80 years old, so 8 years, can you figure it out?
- SEIGEL
- No I am not good in that.
- SEVERAL
- Let’s see so it would be 1976.
- MINOVITZ
- Round about that yeah.
- SEVERAL
- Where you met Harold, was at a social event in Pasadena?
- MINOVITZ
- I guess it was really BBYO and the BBYM by then because we were.
- SEIGEL
- And that was at that pool that was etched to the temple?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh no actually the temple had an affair and they had the ____ then and
they bought a keg of beer and they didn’t know how to open it, we get
the beer out so, the pool I don’t know I just took a walk. We made a
deal, we five girls drove over and nobody would leave one girl alone, of
course they all found guys and I was left alone so I took a walk to the
pool and I guess he saw me and he walked over to the pool to talk to me,
such a cute guy, so any way that’s how, I remember standing by the pool,
it was a locked and stand there talking to him.
- SEVERAL
- So the pool wasn’t used as part of the social?
- MINOVITZ
- No it had nothing to do with us, it was just there, I don’t think the
temple used it as a social thing ever.
- SEIGEL
- So were you in the old social hall the one that’s next to Wolman, is
that what they call it, next to Nell chapel, we have the social hall.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah that’s where we partied.
- SEIGEL
- Is that where they had the party?
- MINOVITZ
- No we had the big parking lot then, yeah we didn’t have the big
building.
- SEIGEL
- Oh so it was bigger parking lot, so it went all the way over where the
building is now?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah so you walk over the pool would be
- SEIGEL
- Where in that part was lawn at one time, at one time part of that
parking lot was grass.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah the center.
- SEIGEL
- Oh the center was grass and they had like a parking lot all around the
grass.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEVERAL
- When rabbi Vorspan was rabbi, did he bring you any speakers?
- MINOVITZ
- You know I was only married a couple of years but everybody loved him,
everybody really liked him, very liked, of course he went to the
University of Judaism and did very well there so.
- SEIGEL
- So the temple was his launch pad in a way.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah one of his kids is a rabbi, United about 10 years ago.
- SEVERAL
- The barrels of Herring, where they on the street or where they in the
store?
- MINOVITZ
- As you go in the door, the two barrels were on the either side of the
door.
- SEIGEL
- If you were a customer, did you go and then grab or own pickle or did
they grab it for them?
- MINOVITZ
- No I didn’t want to smell. He put his hand in and got up his own elbow.
- SEIGEL
- And then you put it in like a little paper sack I guess you didn’t have
probably have plastic then.
- MINOVITZ
- They wrapped it in paper. I remember like the butcher paper on the big
roll he tore it off.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah, I wish they had the pickle barrel still.
- SEVERAL
- So when you were married to Harold the store was a liquor store but it
still sold kosher bread at that time and?
- MINOVITZ
- I think he still had the butter too.
- SEVERAL
- Where did they get the butter do you recall?
- MINOVITZ
- It was delivered but it wasn’t packaged, I remember it being in.
- SEIGEL
- In a big slab?
- MINOVITZ
- And you cut off a thing and put it on, I got the scale in the garage, I
got the old cash register which I’ve run over it twice with the car, I
mean I am alone now, and with one car in the garage and it’s a double
garage and I run over this cash register, you figure it out, I got a
flat tire but I got the scale, I am not allowed to sell it but nobody
will take it.
- SEIGEL
- Oh kids want you to keep it because it’s sentimental.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah my brother in law who is still living says you can’t get rid of it,
and I say, why don’t you take it?
- SEVERAL
- So how long did they sell the kosher breads? Did he continue selling the
kosher breads all the way until he finally got rid of the stores?
- MINOVITZ
- No I think when my father in law finally decide not to work so much, I
don’t know it was gradual, we wanted the bread even for ourselves and
even so you know special customers stuff like that, if you ordered it
you got the bread.
- SEIGEL
- Did your father in law continued to work in the store when it was a
liquor store, like he helped?
- MINOVITZ
- He came in at lunchtime and gave the guys break, when I first married
Harold, the store was open till 2 in the morning so one would work the
day shift, one work at night, so my father in law was great, he would
come in and let the kids go out for lunch and we moved to Altadena after
about five years and then they opened a store on Lake and Harold ran the
Lake store and Donald did the Fair Oaks one.
- SEIGEL
- Where was this store?
- MINOVITZ
- My father in law would go to both stores.
- SEIGEL
- Where was the store on Lake?
- MINOVITZ
- Just below Orange Grove.
- SEIGEL
- Okay and where did you live in Altadena?
- MINOVITZ
- We lived on Catherine Road.
- SEIGEL
- Oh I know where that is.
- MINOVITZ
- Little dead end street, cute little house.
- SEIGEL
- And what made you move over here?
- MINOVITZ
- We moved here because, well we moved here, Harold thought this was much
more Jewish neighborhood, more Jewish people. Well the Kays moved, the
Alberts, and the Paces moved, well Seipert died but Seipert was up the
street.
- SEVERAL
- Phillips lived.
- MINOVITZ
- Phillips Brown lived…
- SEIGEL
- So everyone was in this area and then a lot of them moved down the hill.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah Gloria Seigel, Marlene Seigel, I mean a lot of Jewish families
lived in this hill and that’s what he wanted, he wanted his kids to be
associated with more Jewish kids and so we moved here gave up my cute
little house and then of course I kept having kids.
- SEIGEL
- Some people told us that they didn’t feel like in the 60s as Jews
welcomed at the Altadena Town and Country Club and some people said?
- MINOVITZ
- Definitely not.
- SEIGEL
- How did you know that though, like how would you know?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t know, it was certainly like an unwritten law, a couple of places
Harold, he was a great golfer, and there was a couple of places he
couldn’t play golf. He met somebody at the Lakes and invited him over to
Altadena and he said I can’t get on there, he said I am half Jewish;
I’ll get you on so he played it. I said why did you want to? He said I
just wanted to see how the other…..
- SEIGEL
- How the other world is, right.
- MINOVITZ
- But I think today its okay, Altadena is definitely no.
- SEIGEL
- Some places, there’s still a few places. The world is Valley Hunt is
still not open, but how do we know that?
- SEVERAL
- When Frank Ackerman left, did you go with him to Altadena?
- MINOVITZ
- No way.
- SEIGEL
- Arcadia? He said Altadena.
- MINOVITZ
- He went to Seamadrae, a little temple there. We were angry at him; he
was trying to split the Temple.
- SEVERAL
- But you said that Harold had a total of three stores.
- MINOVITZ
- Liquor stores yes.
- SEVERAL
- You have identified one on Lake, where was the third?
- MINOVITZ
- It was on Orange Grove, on Raymond, corner Raymond and Orange Grove and
he sold it, that was the first one to sell and he sold it to a black guy
and it got written up because it was the first black person to have
property, a business, in Pasadena, a nice kid. The first thing he went
out to do, when he took over his store was buy himself a black Cadillac,
parked it in front and you know you want to help these kids that are
going to start out, you know he was government funded and we’re trying
to help, what the hell do you need a black Cadillac for?
- SEIGEL
- What year was that? Do you remember was it in the 60s?
- MINOVITZ
- Well Dana was about 3 years old, she is 41, so she was born in ‘67 so.
- SEIGEL
- It would be 1970, so that was the first black owned business in Pasadena
in 1970?
- MINOVITZ
- In that kind of a business anyway, in liquor, don’t get listen liquor
license you had to be so far from a school, you had to be so far from a
church and you know they had a lot of rules for liquor in those days;
you got to be closed at Election Day.
- SEIGEL
- Did they pick their locations having to do with areas that they knew
that they were more African-American people living in those areas?
- MINOVITZ
- No no I think they picked the store that was empty.
- SEIGEL
- That was emptied and they felt had a lot of traffic maybe on the street
or something?
- MINOVITZ
- The one on Orange Grove was a liquor store they just bought somebody out
who wanted to sell, and there was a liquor store across the street, he
owned the building, Armenians family, that we actually became very
friendly with but we fought like cats and dogs with them for a while
because he was our landlord.
- SEIGEL
- And then they owned a competing store?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah across the street but then they needed something or we needed
something then you know if you bought by bulk, you got a discount, he
came in on the deal with the other stores to buy in bulk and ______
Langhorne had a store, they were up in Altadena though but they ran it
themselves
- SEIGEL
- And had a liquor store?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah the two of them ran it.
- SEIGEL
- Oh I didn’t know that.
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t think they had much help.
- SEIGEL
- It sounded like a one with _______ in the 60s, let’s say, a pretty good
percentage of the men had small businesses of some sort or did sales or
something.
- MINOVITZ
- Dress shops and alcohol…..
- SEIGEL
- Is that accurate you think? My impression that most of the men, you know
there weren’t so many men who lets say were doctors and lawyers?
- MINOVITZ
- No they were a lot of you know, we did have our doctors, we had Dr.
Furman.
- SEIGEL
- He was like Caltech professors.
- MINOVITZ
- A lot of Caltech, we always had a lot of Caltech so. Not Caltech, we had
JPL. Caltech had their own little temple, they came one year, they had
their own little group inside their school.
- SEIGEL
- They had their own little place they worshipped?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t know how they did it because one year they came and a couple of
young kids, professors and they had tennis shoes on. Here we were
dressed to kill we hand our high holidays on, we all went out and got
new outfits in those days and our jewelry were jingling on and you know
and they were in tennis shoes and I comment on it and he said when you
go to temple you are supposed to be comfortable because you’re going to
stay all day _______ and he talked me out of the whole thing. I said
well how come we haven’t seen you before? He said we do our own, we
don’t need, that’s for some reason they needed that year they came for
some reason so Caltech did their own.
- SEIGEL
- That explains why there weren’t that many Caltech members probably
because they had their own some sort of own their own worship, like
their own chapel that they used.
- MINOVITZ
- Whether they didn’t or did it at home or whatever, but that was the
first year they came and we might have some now but JPL we had a lot.
JPL well that was a different story, Herb Phillips worked there, a lot
of people worked there. Mickey Alpert worked there. Yeah a lot of
people.
- SEVERAL
- Yeah right. When you were married, did the liquor store on Farrows, was
that still a center for the Jewish community, I mean did you still have?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah people would stop in, that’s where you got your gossip.
- SEVERAL
- It still was, even though it was no longer.
- MINOVITZ
- Once my father in law was really out of it, then that group it was the
older group.
- SEIGEL
- It was his group.
- MINOVITZ
- His group that centered in, the guys come in that worked around their
dress shops in Colorado, come up and buy a bread for the weekend and
stuff like that and talked to my father in law, he knew when to be
there.
- SEIGEL
- So it was like men gossip.
- MINOVITZ
- It was men more than the women.
- SEVERAL
- Interesting. So after World War II, do you know when your father in law
about what year your father in law stopped coming in? Was it..
- SEIGEL
- How old he was, maybe could figure it out.
- SEVERAL
- Was it like mid 1950s or was it you know, was Eisenhower still
president?
- MINOVITZ
- No it was even after my mother in law died, he had nothing else to do.
- SEIGEL
- Something must have made him stop coming in though.
- MINOVITZ
- Couldn’t drive anymore probably.
- SEVERAL
- So after World War II, there was still a lot of Jewish owned business on
Farrows then.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEVERAL
- Furniture stores?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah the Brown furniture store, and there was another one, across the
street, I think it was Star something, they were Jewish.
- SEVERAL
- Were they also members of the temple?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah. The Glendale was a tight Jewish group, I mean here was your
only social life in those early years was the temple. You didn’t have
any other outside life.
- SEVERAL
- Now you said Glendale, actually I was thinking of Pasadena.
- MINOVITZ
- Did I say Glendale? I meant Pasadena. Glendale…. Yah my folks were
active in _______ when I was growing up. My mother was active in Temple.
My father of course wasn’t but..
- SEVERAL
- Yeah actually that raised a question, I was wondering how you got
involved to the BBGs when your dad was so?
- MINOVITZ
- He was the member of ______,
- SEVERAL
- Oh he was.
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah you weren’t allowed to date, my sister and I couldn’t date a guy
that wasn’t Jewish.
- SEIGEL
- He just didn’t go to services regularly it sounds like.
- MINOVITZ
- He didn’t go to services period.
- SEIGEL
- Okay so I am trying to get that out there. He didn’t go on high holidays
but he belonged?
- MINOVITZ
- No but my mother and his parents were living so my mother who didn’t
drive would take us on the street car and the bus and then took us about
an hour and we’d go but he would show up dinner and take us home but he
would have no part of it and the ________ the women on top and the men
on below, so we sneaked down, give my grandpa a kiss and let him know we
were there and he would be very embarrassed, your now allowed here and
then we would go back upstairs. She didn’t carry a purse. You don’t
carry anything into _____ but she had a paper bag but that would was
okay, I don’t know what she had in the bag.
- SEIGEL
- I always wondered about that, why are you not supposed to carry, because
you are not suppose to have money, so you do not look like you have
money on you?
- MINOVITZ
- Who knows what she was doing.
- SEIGEL
- They have these little traditions.
- MINOVITZ
- My dad has five sisters and my mother, and they all cooked the dinner
and us kids played, we went to temple for few minutes, we’d visit
grandma and she had us sit and she told us what we were doing, what
prayer we were saying and why and explain it to us.
- SEIGEL
- Why do you think, it sounds like your father sort of pulled away from
Judaism in a way, was he brought up very religious? Was he brought up
orthodox?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEIGEL
- So he sounds like he decided at some point that he didn’t want to have
anything to do with that.
- MINOVITZ
- That was all. As I said he wouldn’t let me have a Brisque
- SEIGEL
- Right I was always curious about this.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah he was against a lot of things in the Jewish religion but we
weren’t allowed to marry or date a guy that wasn’t Jewish and yet he was
living when Laurie got married, she was the first one to marry someone
that wasn’t Jewish, she married Bill, long blond hair, I lost her two
years ago.
- SEIGEL
- Hmm, Sorry.
- MINOVITZ
- But anyway they accepted him and that’s interesting because they
wouldn’t accept choice in doing that and but Laurie did all the
holidays.
- SEIGEL
- She sounds like she was the one she kept active and belonged to the
temple?
- MINOVITZ
- They know their Jewish now, the boys but anyway.
- SEVERAL
- Did Harold or you participate in any Jewish organizations that were not
affiliated with the temple?
- MINOVITZ
- AZA yeah he really ran these.
- SEVERAL
- Oh he did.
- MINOVITZ
- Oh he was good football player, little guy, but played football every
Saturday.
- SEIGEL
- He must be a good athlete.
- MINOVITZ
- Back into his tape, he was talking about Les Furman, how he wanted to be
the president of the AZA and he wasn’t one of the guys and I thought
that was so interesting how he tried to say you know he was, so he had
to go to the football games whether he played or not.
- SEIGEL
- Oh to be one of the guys.
- MINOVITZ
- He wanted to be president, Les.
- SEVERAL
- But as an adult were you involved in any Jewish organization, lets say
Hadasa or..
- MINOVITZ
- I did when I got married yeah. In fact I am a life member to Hadasa and
to Brandis.
- SEIGEL
- We don’t have Hadasa active at the temple.
- MINOVITZ
- But there is something going on, Hadasa is having a big luncheon in
February.
- SEIGEL
- Because since we have been members and it’s probably like 15 years now.
I have never heard mention of Hadasa.
- MINOVITZ
- In fact I think ____ and Hadasa sort of do things together.
- SEIGEL
- And I heard the people raised money for City of Hope through certain
groups.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I belong to Partners of Hope.
- SEIGEL
- Was that kind of a Jewish organization?
- MINOVITZ
- It is all Jewish I think.
- SEIGEL
- Okay and what does it mean, Partners of Hope, what was it like?
- MINOVITZ
- I joined after I lost Laurie because she was in the City of Hope a lot
and I want to give back, but it was mostly from Temple City temple.
- SEIGEL
- It is a Jewish organization.
- MINOVITZ
- But it’s all Jews and City of Hope you know originally was for Jewish
doctors who couldn’t get a job.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah that’s what I guess I am trying to understand now that.
- MINOVITZ
- So now it is mostly Asian but.
- SEIGEL
- It was set up as an institution where they could practice?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah there were four doctors that couldn’t get a job and the finally
opened up a tent in Dority and they took in, you know at the time, just
you know tuberculosis, TB patients and then now it’s cancer. And some
heart there, you know we have heart specialist.
- SEVERAL
- What is this organization that’s primarily based in temple city?
- MINOVITZ
- Well they meet, their meetings are at Temple City for some reason and
most of the members are from Temple City.
- SEVERAL
- And what do they do, they fundraise?
- MINOVITZ
- It’s a fundraising for City of Hope. Yeah definitely fundraising.
- SEVERAL
- Are there any other members of the Pasadena Jewish Temple?
- MINOVITZ
- Well Phil Weis belongs, Maurie Nagan they joined, whether he wanted to
or not. Let me see who else, Julie Feldsing is a member but they are not
members of the temple anymore but their kids, so furious, they went to
Temples City because their dues are so much less.
- SEIGEL
- Yeah I understand that.
- MINOVITZ
- You know I cant’ quick the temple that’s another thing, Harold got angry
about. He was so funny and these little old ladies, you know their
husband would die, and they would quit the temple, they couldn’t afford
it and he said they can well afford it, there is no excuse for that and
he would go to them personally and tell them I know how much you have,
well how did he know and you can afford and I will get you a special
dues but you are not quitting the temple.
- SEIGEL
- I think they should have reduced dues if you are on your own.
- MINOVITZ
- Well any way, I am kind of angry at temple right now, then the boys said
are you going to quit? I said I can’t quit, your father wouldn’t have
it.
- SEIGEL
- You know that is one of his things.
- MINOVITZ
- I cant quit the temple. It is really funny and I really appreciate they
didn’t give my seats away because they usually do. I got two seats
there, actually Harold bought them for his father and when he died a few
months later, in the soft seats, he took over. So I am angry at them
because I have offered them quite a bit of money, at least I think it is
a lot of money today. If they move around the plaques, Harold and Laurie
are way down here and I want them up there and we’ve been members of the
temple now say we would’ve been married 60 years last week and I said to
Bruce, move us and I’ll pay you, make it worth your while. He said can’t
they are reserved, I don’t even know those people and I said we were
members for Harold, grew up in this temple.
- SEIGEL
- It was like wall members.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah I go in there, I like them every time I go in there I like the two
of them. There are people that nobody even knows who they are anymore
you know they have been gone for so long and families moved away so why
they have to have up there, I don’t want them down the bottom and he was
so active.
- SEIGEL
- What other questions do you have?
- SEVERAL
- Well lets see just a couple, where were the orthodox services held, I
mean if regular service was held?
- MINOVITZ
- Prior, an hour earlier.
- SEVERAL
- Okay.
- MINOVITZ
- If they had it.
- SEVERAL
- Okay so it was held in the same.
- MINOVITZ
- Well you had the little sanctuary so probably had it an hour earlier.
- SEVERAL
- Now there has been some services for high holidays services that were
held in I don’t know, in the civic auditorium.
- MINOVITZ
- We did that one year, I remember that.
- SEVERAL
- They did?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah.
- SEVERAL
- Did you remember what year it was?
- MINOVITZ
- No but I remember feeling very cold there.
- SEIGEL
- Did they do it because the temple was under construction at that time?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t know, but no we used the church when we were under construction
and they put a sheet over Jesus on the second day it came down to about
here and the rabbi turned to us and said, welcome to our service, you
belong here just as well as we do, but it was really kind of cute, we
always had to go two days until the kids went to college.
- SEIGEL
- So the kids missed the school.
- MINOVITZ
- But I mean when they were in college, Mark was at UCLA, he had to be
home for the holiday I mean there was, the second day he said I cant, I
got, it’s too hard and then I said I am getting tired of this.
- SEIGEL
- Did they have it in the civic center because it was too small and the
small?
- MINOVITZ
- It was awful there, we were just lost.
- SEIGEL
- It was too big in the civic center probably but they didn’t have space
for it is that why they moved it?
- MINOVITZ
- I don’t know, we might have been building or remodeling or something at
that time.
- SEVERAL
- For your daughter’s Jewish education, they went to Sunday school?
- MINOVITZ
- And they went to confirmation all three of them.
- SEVERAL
- Did they go to Hebrew school?
- MINOVITZ
- No.
- SEVERAL
- They did not?
- MINOVITZ
- You mean the temple.
- SEIGEL
- Like Tuesday, Thursday.
- SEVERAL
- The Tuesday, Thursday school.
- MINOVITZ
- Oh yeah Hebrew school because they were bar mitzvah.
- SEIGEL
- Right and I remember you talking about the car pooling, they carpooled.
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah they went to Hebrew school and were bar mitzvah and so were the
boys but they went on to conformation but we didn’t go to the private
school at the temple, the only one that could have would have been Dana
probably the others they didn’t have a temple then, they didn’t even
have a nursery school then.
- SEVERAL
- So they went to the religious school but when they had their bar mitzvah
at the temple, they did not have a Saturday?
- MINOVITZ
- The girls didn’t, the boys did of course. But the little one did. Little
ones and the middle. Yeah there are 17 years different from Mark and
Dana. She was our surprise.
- SEVERAL
- I think that is, I do have one other question. Do you recall about when
Dina Louise was the executive director?
- MINOVITZ
- What about Dina?
- SEIGEL
- Like what year?
- MINOVITZ
- Oh I don’t know.
- SEIGEL
- We are talking this.
- MINOVITZ
- She was great though, organizing things.
- SEIGEL
- Okay do you remember about how old you were, he will do the math.
- MINOVITZ
- I was expecting Dana so.
- SEIGEL
- Anywhere in your early 40s right?
- MINOVITZ
- I was 38.
- SEIGEL
- Okay. Now you have to do the math.
- MINOVITZ
- I’d just turned 39, she came on 18th, my birthday is 10th, I just turned
39 when I had her so.
- SEIGEL
- That’s good. Sometimes I can’t remember a year but I can remember these
eras.
- SEVERAL
- It was 60s or so. So and that was about the time Harold sold the liquor
store s?
- MINOVITZ
- Couple of years later.
- SEIGEL
- So she was probably director before the liquor stores were sold?
- MINOVITZ
- Yeah Dana was about 3 years old.
- SEIGEL
- Because that was the early 70’s they were sold.
- SEVERAL
- Okay. I think that’s it.
- SEIGEL
- Thank you so much.
- MINOVITZ
- I am so glad you caught me, I was just leaving.