>>DEBORAH ROSEN: My grandfather's name was  Isadore Fineberg.

His family was from the Pale of  Settlement.

Izzy like so many Jews, left Bialistock because  it was a very oppressive place  to live and very insecure.

You never knew when there  would be another pogrom and you'd be run out.

>>JERRY RUBIN: My father's name was Louis Jacob  Rubin, and he was born in Russia.

My mother was born  in 1916 in Poland.

>>SUSIE NOVICK: Aaron Goodman was a pioneer.

He  was the first to come from the old country, from  Lithuania.

>>TRIPPER GOODMAN: Ernst Kohlberg ended up  taking a boat from Germany and went to New York and  then went to Chicago and came to El Paso by train and  then Stagecoach.

>>CLIFF EISENBERG: The Eisenberg family emigrated  from Austria and they couldn't get into the United  States, so they had to settle in Mexico.

>>FELICIA RUBIN: My father's name was Naftali  Frankel.

He was born in Tarnov Poland December 26,  1921.

>>SANDOR SCHAECHNER: My father's name was Zandor  Schaechner.

My mother was Sarah.

And they both born in  Budapest, Hungary.

>>HAL MARCUS: My grandmother was nursing  two kids on the boat, and I  believe they came through France and to Ellis Island.

And then from there they directly came to El Paso.

>>RANDY WECHTER: My dad's dad, Isidore Wechter,  came from Vinitzia, Russia.

It was terrible times over there.

They came through Ellis Island and took the train  down to Galveston.

>>MIMI GLADSTEIN: I was conceived in Poland.

Born in  Nicaragua and raised in Texas, honey.

>>DEBORAH ROSEN: A lot of people would ask me about  growing up in El Paso, and they couldn't even believe  there were Jews in El Paso.

>>PETER SVARZBEIN: This is not just a small town out in  the middle of nowhere.

This is a place where people have  crossed not just east and west, but north and south for  centuries.

>>RICHARD PARKER: This is a bridge between  continents, cultures, time, languages.

>>JERRY RUBIN: The congregation had four or 500  families and hundreds and hundreds of kids.

It was a  very close knit community.

My parents never  complained that they had to move out of big Chicago to  come to El Paso.

>>RABBI ISRAEL GREENBERG: I had no idea  about El Paso before.

So they told me in Texas, and that's  on the border.

>>RICHARD PARKER: At the time, the Congress had  passed the Chinese Exclusion Act and put strict quotas,  particularly on Jews immigrating to the United  States.

And so alternate paths had to be found.

>>SUSIE NOVICK: There were a number of Jews who  went from Poland, from Lithuania, from Eastern  Europe, would sail to Veracruz and then make  their way up to the border.

>>CLIFF EISNEBERG: They first settled in Tampico,  where my dad was born in 1927 and then later moved to  Guadalajara, where my aunt was born.

And finally they  managed to make it to El Paso.

>>RICHARD PARKER: By my calculation, more  immigrants have come through El Paso than ever  went through Ellis Island in New York in its entire  history.

>>MIMI GLADSTEIN: Now, my father had the equivalent  of a high school education in Poland.

In high school, you  spoke Polish.

You also spoke German, Russian and  Ukraine.

Being Jewish, he had Yiddish and Hebrew,  immigrated to Nicaragua, learned Spanish.

So English  was his eighth language.

A high school graduate.

>>RABBI BEN ZEIDMAN: El Paso wasn't known as the  safest and gentlest city to find oneself in.

It was an  interesting time and it took guts to find yourself in this  city, in this region, trying to succeed and trying to thrive.

>>BERNIE SARGENT: Wyatt Earp came through here.

And  they offered him the job.

The  city marshal, he turned it down because "this place is  too dangerous."

That's after the OK Corral.

So the history  of the Old West gunfights is very strong in El Paso.

>>RICHARD PARKER: There was a real struggle to  define law and order in a place that for now 20 years or  more hadn't really known it.

It had been left to its own  devices and the reconstitution of a city  government in 1881 was the turning point.

And that was  really led by Schutz, the mayor, a German immigrant  Jew who becomes the first municipal leader of El Paso.

>>RABBI BEN ZEIDMAN: We see Jewish mayors,  Jewish aldermen.

More and more Jews come to find  themselves in this city into the 1880s, where they realize  that the Jewish community needs the cemetery, that not  all of the people in our city are succeeding and thriving  and that a charity organization is needed.

>>JOHN MOYE: My great grandfather, Edward, was  one of the founding members of the temple.

My father was  on the board for a number of years.

My mom was a  kindergarten Sunday school teacher at Temple Mount  Sinai for over 20 years.

So they were always involved  and they had us involved as well.

>>RABBI BEN ZEIDMAN: Olga Kohlberg.

An incredibly  important woman to the story of Temple Mount Sinai,  helped to found the first free kindergartens and the public  school in El Paso, but also in all of Texas.

Rabbi Martin  Zielonka does become incredibly involved,  especially through the B'Nai Brith.

He did a lot to help  bring Jewish immigrants through Mexico into the  United States.

He had little note cards with biographical  information that he would keep to ensure that they  wouldn't lose track of some of these people who were  trying to get into the United States.

>>SUSIE NOVICK: The National Council of Jewish  Women involved women to help the community.

The  Council had a committee for the foreign born.

There was a  woman named Fanny  Lebowski who was able to help Jews and other  immigrants come to El Paso.

And she was known  throughout the country as Mrs. Lebowski will help you  get your relative because we were here on the port.

>>FELICIA RUBIN: They took out my father from his  apartment at 22, and they put him in a train.

They were  like sardines.

They got to concentration camp,  Auschwitz-Birkenau.

They had asked my grandfather  who would you like me to kill first, his older daughter  or his younger daughter?

And he had to make that  choice, which was horrible.

And he said, kill the younger  one because the older one can take care of herself.

What a horrible thing.

>>TIBOR SCHAECHNER: My late wife, who was also in  Hungary, married 42 years.

Her name was Agnes.

She  was taken to Auschwitz and she got liberated.

And then  they found out that they have cousins in El Paso, the  Schwartz family.

And I came here for an interview and  became an executive and became a buyer and worked  there 36 years.

>>SUSIE NOVICK: In 1902 Adolph Schwartz and  Maurice Schwartz and two other people incorporated  the Popular Dry goods company, which existed in El  Paso for over 90 years, and was a place where other  relatives who came from the old country, from Hungary,  from Slovakia.

Whenever anybody came, they got a job  at The Popular.

>>EDIE BRANNON: So, it was natural for Jewish  families to start their own  businesses support themselves.

Some of them  grew great big, some of them were small, and that's the  same thing that happened with The Popular >>STUART SCHWARTZ: Beautiful store beautiful  accessories; was a favorite of all El Pasoans, as well as so  many Mexicans that were a very important part of the  clientele.

>>RANDY WECHTER: My dad's dad, Isidore, he came  and he had a cousin that helped him get established  with a horse and buggy and was taught how to go door to  door, collecting goods, buying merchandise and  then reselling it.

And that's how he started.

And they  stayed in Galveston for several years until my dad  was born in 1927.

Right after he was born, they moved to  El Paso.

The whole family moved because they had  heard that there was good opportunities there.

>>BERNIE SARGEANT: The businesses is in El Paso,  downtown were typically on El Paso Street, Stanton Street,  and also on Franklin.

And that was where the first  major bridge going into Mexico took place, including  the first International street car, it was the only kind in in  the world.

>>RANDY WECHTER: And  you had a lot of Mexican people coming over the  border, buying and doing business with all the  merchants.

So it was a good place to start a business.

And  the downtown was really bustling back in the day.

>>LEE SCHWARTZ: I walked downtown from  Temple, which was on the corner of Oregon and  Montana, and went to the second floor to see my  grandfather, Maurice.

He'd give me and all my friends  who were with me enough money, quarters, to go to the  movies that we wouldn't have to use our allowance.

>>STUART SCHWARTZ: It was so enjoyable to go down  there and ride the elevators and the escalators to go into  the boys department in the men's department and shop  for clothing.

I remember working at the warehouse  where I would unpack boxes and decide how they were  going to be distributed to the individual stores >>EDIE BRANNON: When the peso devalued.

It was  horrible.

I mean, they just lost all that buying power.

Many companies stopped taking the peso immediately  and we never did.

And that kind of exemplified how we  felt and how we honored our Mexican customers.

>>LEE SCHWARTZ: The Mexican Revolution was at  the back door, and the Del Norte, which is now called  the Camino Real, people used to go on the roof of that hotel  and watch the Revolution.

>>BERNIE SARGENT: So, it was El Paso Laundry, for  instance, which is a block and a half from the river.

They would go on top of the  laundry building and watch from there.

And some of the  buildings downtown have pockmarks in them from the  errant rounds that came across the border.

>>LEE SCHWARTZ: When Pancho Villa was in the area,  they needed supplies for their troops and they went  up with guns and said to my grandfather "bring your  bookkeeper and come with us.

We need to do some  shopping.

We'll pay you later."

Well, some time later,  weeks, months, whatever, here come the same guys  again, and they go to the executive office and say,  bring your bookkeeper and  come with us.

And they took him down to South El Paso,  where there was a sidecar on the railroad track, and they  opened it up and it was full of contraband, silver bullion.

>>STUART SCHWARTZ: The silver was counted and  the debt was wiped clean.

And the rumor has it that the  reason that Columbus New Mexico was attacked by  Pancho Villa instead of El Paso was because he found  that trading in El Paso with the merchants, to be quite  fair, which was not the case in Columbus, New Mexico.

>>JOHN MOYE: My great- grandfather, Edward, he was  the one that first moved to El Paso in 1886 to start Zork,  Krakauer and Moye, which was a wholesale hardware  company in El Paso and in Chihuahua, Mexico.

And El  Paso was just a boomtown at that time.

It was larger than  San Antonio, Austin, Phoenix, I mean, much  larger.

The Phoenix was just a nothing place.

They sold  everything from needles to engines, and so they did  everything.

They sold a lot of  arms and they sold them to the people fighting in the  Mexican Revolution.

My dad worked there for 50 years,  and so they had a big showroom where they set up  the toys.

And so I'd spend Saturday morning just  playing on all the bikes and playing with the toys.

And so  it was a great deal.

I really had a good time.

In high  school I worked for the company, so I just grew up  loving hardware.

It was just something I've always liked  and now I'm a developer, I think I probably got that, you  know, originally from from the hardware company.

>>DEBORAH SCHWARTZ: So is he joined Max, his  brother, in Galveston, and then moved to El Paso.

He  had heard that there were a lot of opportunities to start  new businesses.

And he started with the scrap  business, the junk and scrap business when he first got  there.

>>SUSIE NOVICK: Milton Fineberg was the only son of  Isidore and Sarah, and he wanted to do bigger things at  El Paso, Iron and metal.

And he and his father during the  Depression bought a pipe supply business here in El  Paso.

And under Milton's leadership at El Paso, Pipe  and Supply grew into one of the biggest distributorships of  pipe in Texas, actually.

>>DEBORAH ROSEN: Well, my father to me was always  like larger than life.

He was a people person and he loved  operating businesses.

He was so excited about almost  everything that he was doing and helping to build, but  particularly border steel.

Border steel was a rolling  mill that was right on the border of New Mexico and  Texas.

It was the first rolling  mill in the southwest.

A successful life is not just  about your business success.

It's about balancing all these  things.

And at the heart of it is, you know, your values.

Like what do you value?

How do you spend your  time?

How do you spend your money?

You know,  what are you doing for your community?

>>GAYLE FRIEDMAN: My grandparents moved into a  storefront on Oregon Street, and that became Kahn's  Sweet Shop.

Temple Mount Sinai was at the end of the  block and after Sunday school we would all go up  there and get cookies and sweets.

>>ROMEE HERBERT: So every weekend it was the  first thing people did was go to Khan's bakery to get their  challah.

They had raisin and cinnamon and chocolate  chip, and then they had all the Jewish cookies.

>>GAYLE FRIEDMAN: They had a little bagel machine in  the front and you could watch them make the bagels.

And they were...it was really wonderful, wonderful rye  bread and pumpernickel.

In the fifties, they became a  franchise of Sunbeam, and then they built a big plant.

>>ROME HERBERT: My grandfather owns a Jewish  bakery.

I'm Jewish.

That's what it means.

There's a  warmth to it and there's a loving aspect to it, because  every time I would meet people, they would say, Oh, I  was walking by Kahn's bakery and I it was five in  the morning and I smelled the amazing aroma of the  bread baking.

And to this day, that smell takes me back  to those years.

>>RANDY WECHTER: That was the Great Depression.

And it was it was very tough on my father and tough for  him to see his family going through tough times,  struggling, not always having a chicken on Friday night.

They struggled to make ends meet.

When he was a kid, he  used to sell newspapers and he would ride his bike to Fort  Bliss and he wouldn't come home until he sold all his  papers.

>>SHIRLEEN ASKENAZI: My grandmother's name was  Latifa Najib, and she was born in 1902 in Aleppo,  Syria, one day Halfon Marcus talked to her parents and said  he had seen her ankles and it was like, "Oh my goodness,  he saw her ankles."

Well, they probably should meet.

They did get married in 1920.

After that, they moved to the  United States.

The ship landed in New York, but  they weren't allowed to get off.

And then they went to  Galveston and they had to stay there in quarantine for  ten days.

They were kosher and there was no meat on the  ship.

So they pretty much existed on fruits and  vegetables.

>>HAL MARCUS: My father's store was called the  Big Eight Food Fair.

There were eight grocers, and I  think most of them were Middle Eastern.

My dad  would be on the phone.

And he'd, say "yes, Mrs. Schwartz,  you want a pound of ground meat.

I'll get you the eggs.

I'll get you the best tomatoes.

Oh, you're going to Ruidoso  for the weekend.

I'll come in, I'll put them in refrigerator,  I'll feed the dog and I'll put it  on your account.

This was the type of store we had >>RANDY WECHTER: When my father quit  working, selling cars.

He did the sewing machine business,  and then he started in the construction business.

He  really taught himself how to build.

He became a  contractor himself.

He would sub out a job and get all the  subcontractors and be the general contractor himself.

He was successful in life but I don't think he realized it.

It  was small steps.

He was very frugal and modest.

He was an  honorable man.

His word was everything.

And he took  it a step further.

It was his name.

It was Wecther  "you're proud to be a Wechter."

>>CARLOS SPECTOR: My father was, I believe,  eighteen when he was drafted.

After World War  Two he comes back home.

He so happened to see the  Treasure of the Sierra Madre with Humphrey Bogart and  him and his friends who  were watching were enthralled with the  possibilities of gold in them there hills.

And so they made  a plan to come out and as they're coming through in  Fabian, Texas, they have an accident and the car turns  over, guys stops them and they say, "we need a doctor"  --- "well, we know a very good doctor in Guadalupe."

And they set up camp there, and that's where he met my  mother.

He set his eyes upon her and she stood out.

She  was light skinned, green eyes, red hair.

And my father  was a classic dark Russian Jew They always thought he  was a Mexican in the relationship.

And when he  gets back to Brooklyn, he writes to her and tells her  "I'm going to marry you.

And that was his introduction to  the Southwest and to a different life.

>>PETER SVARZBEIN: My father was born in Argentina.

When it came time for him to start a family and start his  medical practice, he wanted to go somewhere with him  being bilingual would be a blessing and not a hindrance.

When he came to El Paso, it was like home.

There was  like four or five different Latino doctors that were  there.

They went straight to Juarez.

They had this  amazing four course meal, stayed another week; they  wouldn't let him stay at a hotel.

For him it was the best  of both worlds.

He could have the economic life of the  United States here with the cultural life and vitality of  Latino America.

My dad actually called my mom from  the airport and he's like, "I'm in El Paso, Texas" she's like,  "what are you doing?"

"I'm going to start my practice  here and I want to start a family with you and I want  to marry you and I want to come down here."

And he  goes "can you pick me up at La Guardia?"

And my mom  says, "If I pick you up at La Guardia we're going straight  to the Diamond district because I'm I get a ring out of  you this time."

And six months later, they drove  down to El Paso.

>>LILY ARTENSTEIN: My father's name was Umberto  de Picciotto.

He was born in Haleb, which you call it  Aleppo now, because his grandfather was a consul of  Italy and Austria in Harleb.

He came from a family of  consuls and ambassadors.

My father settled down in Juarez  and I said I would like to come and study in Mexico  City with Diego Rivera.

But it happened that Diego  Rivera died.

So I stayed in Juarez.

I met Mauricio  Artenstein.

He was making business with my father.

We  fell in love and then he introduced me to people that  they spoke all Spanish.

I knew not a word of Spanish,  and I sort of forced myself to learn Spanish.

In six months.

>>MALKE SIDRANSKI: The main business in Juarez was  curio shops because a lot of tourists used to come to  Ciudad Juarez.

>>LILY ARTENSTEIN: So I went with Mauricio to the  store.

I was a good salesgirl and many of the soldiers  came to my store and I spoke to them and I told them that  I was a soldier and it fascinated them.

>>MALKE SIDRANSKI: My husband was very friendly  with my Mauricio Artenstein.

Mauricio got  married the same time I got married.

I left Mexico City.

I  was by myself.

And she left Israel and she was by herself.

And we were also neighbors with the stores.

We were like  sisters.

>>LILY ARTENSTEIN: We used to dance and go to  Fiesta, which is a beautiful nightclub in Juarez.

>>CLIFF EISENBERG: When I grew up, Juarez and El Paso  were almost like one.

You  could go back and forth.

You didn't need passports.

We all  went to Juarez.

And in high school, those school kids,  they went to Juarez because that's where you could drink.

>>LEE SCHWARTZ: We went to school with kids who  lived in Juarez and who walked across or drove  across.

They took the bus  across.

There was a free trade zone and people just came  and went.

They lived on one side, worked on the other.

>>TRIPPER GOODMAN: I love Mexico, I love Juarez.

We grew up going to the bullfights as a family, before  we would go have mangos on the stick a nd then go to the  bullfights.

Downtown El Paso, my dad, my mom and  the four kids.

>>GAYLE FRIEDMAN: On Saturday night, we'd go to  restaurants there because El Paso was in a dry state and  you could not get any kind of liquor and El Paso >>EDIE BRANON: And it was close and easy to get to,  and the food was good.

And the people were nice, kind of  like our store.

>>CLIFF EISEBERG: My parents oftentimes went to  Juarez Avenue to have dinner at Cafe Central , and  there was a club there where they were bringing  entertainment, like Nat King Cole, and people like that  played there >>HAL MARCUS: We would go to the market two times a  week for years.

And that's where I learned my sense of  color.

That's where I learned sights and smells, and that's  where I learned about humanity, you know, from  the chilies and the tomatoes and the cantaloupes and the  mangoes and when my grandma found a good  cantaloupe, she would almost start crying.

She'd say  "come, you got to taste this!

You got to taste this!"

>>LILY ARTENSTEIN: So, we came to the B'Nai Zion  synagogue here.

Every time in Yom Kippur we always  spend the whole day in the synagogue.

I sometimes went  to rest in Malke's house.

Because I never lived in El  Paso, I always lived in Juarez.

We had to cross the border to  have children in El Paso.

So when I had Iris, when I felt  that my days are close and I start to have contractions, I  had Mauricio drive me to El Paso, to the Providence  Memorial Hospital.

Vivian was much easier.

I was in my  ninth month dancing the Horah.

My mother came  specially from Israel to be with me and she said,  "You're dancing" and I said, "yes, I can dance" and the  next day I had Vivian.

Rebecca Artenstein,  Mauricio's mother, came back to El Paso.

She was a no  nonsense Jewish woman, and I respected her a lot because  she was what they called it at that time, a good ballabusta.

Even though she was sick.

She came from the hospital.

She went back, she would cook.

I learned to cook from  her chollent and other things.

>>MALE SIDRANSKY: She was a very good host.

She  used to cook and we all used to go and eat there.

And then  she got sick.

Lily used to go and take care of her and help her.

>>LILY ARTENSTEIN: I slept on the floor next to her  because I was afraid that if she need something at  night, nobody will hear because the room was  separate.

And then she passed away.

>>FELICIA RUBIN: My grandfather on my mom's  side had bought a hotel in Ixtapan de la Sal.

Ixtapan de  la Sal is about an hour and half, two hours from Mexico  City.

It's a little town you know, but it was very pretty  there, clean air.

Grandmother and mother  cooked all the meals.

It was kosher and people came and  enjoyed it very much.

My mom used to make gefilte  fish out of fresh fish.

She would go to the market buy  carpas, robalo and and huauchinango, mixed it  together.

She made a delicious plum tart, apple tart  and with a butter dough --- it's out of this   world.

Chiles rellenos, oh my God!

My  mom used to buy those poblanos, fill them with  cheese and fry them, those have to be fried.

And then  she would make a tomato sauce out of fresh tomatoes.

And I do that, too.

I make lentil soup.

Very good.

I  make split pea soup.

I have to say, they're good!

>>HAL MARCUS: The color, the shape, the forms, the  symmetry, my sense of composition.

All those things  formed in my mind.

Basic shapes that I work every day.

And plus the love and the joy of the commerce.

From 1980  to 1988, I worked on one painting and I worked on it.

I  worked on it .

I worked on it.

I made calendars.

I made  cards, I made posters.

I sold them door to door.

And that's  how I became known as an artist.

And the painting now  is hanging at the Children's Hospital on Alameda street.

>>FELICIA RUBIN: My mom used to say to me "You want  to learn how to cook?

sit there and watch me cook and  you'll learn."

That's what I did.

I made my brisket for  the service for the dinner.

Then I tried it : out of this  world!

Excellent!

Seriously delicious!

And the recipe has  ginger, mustard.

Teriyaki sauce, olive oil, red onion,  craisins.

And of course, jam,  apricot jam.

Wow!

This is fabulous!

It smells delicious!

And everybody's going to love it!

>>RABBI ISRAEL GREENBERG: Chabad  Lubavitch movement is back from 250 years ago, 1800.

The movement is all about the teachings of the  Chassidists, meaning, the soul of Judaism; the meaning,  the purpose of Judaism.

Man stands between God and the  world, and the purpose is to bring God into the world and  bring the world closer to God.

In 1986 we came to El  Paso.

It was a very small group of people that wanted  Chabad, but they helped us out from the beginning to  build Chabad here in El Paso.

Our policy is an open door to  every Jew that comes in.

That wants to know about  Judaism, learn about Judaism, understand Judaism,  celebrate Judaism, the place is available >>RABBI STEPHEN LEON: In the middle of the 19th  century in, of all places, in Germany, the Reform  movement started.

And the Reform movement started as  a reaction to the fact that there were many Jews who  felt uncomfortable with the only choice of worship they  had, which was all in Hebrew; men and women  sitting separately, very stringent way of observance.

And so the Reform movement started, but it  became, in the eyes of some people, too liberal.

Literally,  a few years after the reform movement started, the  Conservative movement started to try to be, let's say, a meeting of the two minds, trying to be in between.

>>DEBORAH ROSEN: My family was very involved  with B'Nai Zion from its founding, and I used to go to  Hebrew school, you know, twice a week.

It was like a  nice community.

I just felt connected.

>>RANDY WECHTER: My dad's dad had been going to  B'Nai Zion since the 1930s.

It was a way of life for us.

We  went there since we were very young.

It was a group of  Jews that we were a family.

I mean, the temple people  kind of did their thing in the synagogue.

People did their  thing, that we were one umbrella of a Jewish  community in El Paso.

Whenever there was a need  or a crisis, this community would get together.

>>DEBORAH ROSEN: The Hebrew school years were  very pivotal in shaping and obviously in our memories  and connection to one another.

>>JERRY RUBIN: The synagogue was the center of  Jewish life and the old  synagogue, the Jewish Community center right  there in the building.

Almost everybody that belonged to  the synagogue were immigrants who came from  Mexico, from Poland, from Israel, from Russia, and they  all socialized together and they all enjoyed good times.

>>FELICIA RUBIN: I put my whole heart in the  synagogue.

Seriously.

To me,  it's like my second home.

Seriously, since I came here  in 1966, I continue going to my synagogue and I love it.

And being president, truly, I really like it because I do.

>>JERRY RUBIN: Rabbi Roth came here about 1923.

They  paid him $1,000 a year.

He couldn't make a living, so he  went to Texas College of Mines and he was the  Chairman of the Philosophy Department and Chairman of  the Psychology Department.

Everybody in town loved  him.

With 300 seats.

we could not accommodate  everybody to the high holydays.

>>FELICIA RUBIN: The synagogue was so full that  they had to rent the Civic Center for people to go to  pray.

I'm not kidding.

It was unbelievable.

>>JERRY RUBIN: Everybody wanted the new synagogue,  but there was nobody that wanted to take charge.

I was  the eighth chairman of the building committee.

I went  to Sidney Eisenstadt; I went out to L.A. and I told him "I  want you to build the synagogue" which he did.

People would write checks for $250,000, $200,000,  $50,000.

So we built the  synagogue for the $5 million.

Today, it probably cost $20  million to build the synagogue.

>>CLIFF EISENBERG: My mother was sisterhood  president.

My dad was men's club president and president  of our synagogue, as was I. I think we were the first father  son president of our synagogue.

My grandfather  Friedman was the most religious person in our  family.

So when we had a Seder, he had to do the  whole Seder front to end.

It was a long night.

>>ROMEE HERBERT: On my dad's side.

It was a lot  more reform.

They celebrated the big holidays.

They were bar mitzvahed and confirmed by Rabbi  Zelenka, but they did not really do anything   other than that.

>>EDIE BRANNON: My father wasn't religious at all.

I remember challenging him one time and said "well, how  can you be president of the temple if you're not so  religious?

And he'd say, "because other people need  us."

The temple was a place for services and for prayer,  but it was also a place for doing good things, doing  good work.

>>DEBORAH ROSEN: My mother was just very devoted  to family life and we had a lot of Jewish holidays and  just a lot of occasions with aunts and uncles and  extended family that just really made an impression on  me.

That became something important.

Family life and  education.

>>GAYLE FRIEDMAN: At Texas Western, we decided  to start a Jewish sorority.

We were not accepted in the  other sororities and we had a full fledged sorority for  several years.

>>JOHN MOYE: My non- Jewish friends, by the time  the year ended, they had gone to 20 or 30 Bar and Bat  Mitzvahs and they could all, you know, recite the prayers,  which was kind of funny >>MIMI GLADSTEIN: When my daughter was getting  ready to be Bat Mitzvah, they didn't call the women to an  Aliyah at the Torah.

So I led another revolution and I  went to the Rabbi and complained, and the Rabbi  said, "I can't decide this will have to go to the board."

So  we went to the board and the board said, "no, we can't  make this decision.

We'll take it to the congregation."

And so we had a meeting of the whole congregation.

We  had a vote, and the women now get called to the Torah,  just like the men.

>>RABBI BEN ZEIDMAN: I believe it was Rabbi Floyd  Fierman, who wrote about the concept of feeling "La  Familia" in El Paso.

That we are all family and that cuts  across religious lines and it cuts across ethnic lines as  well.

There was and has always been, this sense that  we're in it together.

>>MIMI GLADSTEIN: I was a teacher at B'Nai Zion from  the time I was 14 years old.

I was teaching Sunday school.

Cruz Burciaga was the custodian and he lived in an  apartment in the basement.

And Tony Burciaga, his son,  who I edited a book on that won all these awards, was  going to Cathedral High School while he was living in  the basement of the synagogue.

He wonders  about what the Virgin Mary, you know, picture of the  Virgin on the wall in their basement apartment, what  she thought when she heard the shofar.

>>RABBI STEPHEN LEON: There's no rabbi in Juarez;  this idea of meeting at a place where the border is  accessible without having to worry about immigration,  policemen and things like that, we decided to come  together.

It was a great idea and to sound the shofar as  one community, two countries, one community of  Jewish people, to show our unity and that we together,  maybe if we sound the show for loud enough, maybe we  can break down those walls instead of building them.

Someone from the search committee called me on the  phone and said to me "we are looking for a rabbi in El Paso,  Texas.

Would you at all be interested in coming out  here?"

I spoke to my wife.

We had never heard of we  heard of --- well we had heard El Paso, Texas, thanks  to Marty Robbins.

But other than that, I knew nothing  about it.

>>JERRY RUBIN: So, I called Rabbi Leon.

What was the  first thing he asked me?

"Where's El Paso, Texas?"

And so we talked for a couple of hours and he said, "okay,  I'll think about it.

You'll call  me back" And I said, just come on down.

And by the  end of the weekend, they offered me the position.

And  then I formally began my relationship as the spiritual  leader of Congregation B'nai Zion on August 1st, 1986.

>>RABBI BEN ZEIDMAN: As students turn 13, they  celebrate Bar and Bar Mitzvah.

That is the time in  which they stand up in front of the community.

They read  from the Torah.

They teach a relevant lesson from that  weekly Torah portion to show their community and  their family that this is something that they take  seriously and that they take on as a part their ongoing  Jewish commitment.

To experience and to understand  what Torah is and what it means has been going on  since 1890 in this city and still today as a part of the  Floyd S. Fierman, Temple Mount Sinai Religious  School, the Torah lives through us and it lives  through each and every one of our students as well.

Torah  in the Glass was created thanks to local artist Hal  Marcus.

It is a beautiful depiction of the ongoing  story of the Jewish people,  the idea of using art to depict our story encourages all of us  to reflect on how we might tell our story and how we  might reflect on Jewish history and Jewish tradition  and on Jewish experience here and now.

>>HAL MARCUS: The idea is to have the children imagine  what the world might have been like the first day... or  the Torah, or the parting of the Red Sea.

"There you go.

You got it .

Yes, that's right.

Do you think that the  rainbow colors... the rainbow looks like that?

You  think that' good?

So what about here?"

If you want to  get to know the creator, you have to create.

And so for the  kids to create is very, very important.

>>RABBI MOSHE DRUIN:  This is a scroll written in Germany before the war.

This one is a scroll written in Russia again, before the war  was brought over to the States before the Second  World War.

But this Torah here is approximately 250  years old.

But it actually survived the Holocaust.

And  it's a miraculous story in itself where there were over  1400 Torah scrolls collected under the supervision of  Nazis, supposedly for the idea of creating a museum for the  lost race.

And the scrolls went lost and  it was only in the late fifties, a Jew from England who was  traveling across the Iron Curtain found them and then  they gave them out on permanent loan around the  world.

So that's one of the Torahs that we have here,  and it has a unique, very unique type of script by  itself.

I've been here to this community a number of  times where you see their eyes open.

You see the  emotion that they express when they hear, when they  participate.

And it's not the odd one person as a group of  people.

Their passion for their yiddishkeit, their  passion for their Judaism is extremely sincere and very  "heartsidich" And it's very special that you feel the  warmth and they're caring about it versus just simply  the act of doing.

And that's definitely unique to El Paso.

>>PETER SVARZBIEN: I think I was very fortunate to  have a Jewish education.

I went to preschool at the JCC  here in El Paso, went to the El Paso Hebrew Day School,  was confirmed.

I was an avid USYer.

I think one of the  biggest reasons why I have such pride in my Jewish  identity and my Jewish faith is probably because of USY  and our youth group that we have through the B'Nai Zion.

>>SHIRLEEN ASKENAZI: I was in the first Bat mitzvah  class of Congregation B'Nai Zion.

There were seven girls  and we all had our Bat Mitzvah together.

And I was  also in BBG.

BBG and AZA were very important at that  time.

We went to  conventions, we would go on buses and we would meet  different Jewish people from all over the Southwest.

>>CLIFF EISENBERG: I'm not a real observant person,  but it's the community aspect of it and what you can do to  help others.

That appealed to me more than the religious  aspects of that.

>>CARLOS SPECTOR: Education and passion for  social justice is something I think that was nurtured as a  result of being around a table  with Holocaust survivors and then talking as gently as they  could about their experiences, but also the fact  that I grew up with the racism against Mexicans,  people who are having trouble crossing, even though  they were only going back to their old homes in El Paso  and Fabin.

I went to law school to be an immigration  lawyer, and that's what I'll do till I die.

My sense is to  live a Jewish life with Jewish values, which is justice,  justice for all to make Tikkun Olam.

>>RABBI BEN ZEIDMAN: There's a saying amongst the  old Jewish families here that I still hear to this day, which  is "El Paso, has been really good to us, and so we need to  be good to El Paso."

I think that that story is really  important to understanding El Paso Judaism and El Paso  Jewry.

>>CLIFF EISENBERG: I love this community.

Everything  that I've done is to try to pay  back because it's been so good to my family and to me.

>>STUART SCHWARTZ: There is so much more to El  Paso because of our multiculturalism that creates  an atmosphere that is welcoming, that is inviting,  encouraging and supportive.

I wouldn't want to live  anywhere else.

>>PETER SVARZBEIN: We understand that the border is  a blessing.

We understand that the border is something  that enriches both people, enriches both places.

That is  a story that each of us have to carry here, and it's a story  that needs to be understood more.

>>LEE SCHWARTZ: Tikkun Olam or the idea of saving  the world.

You save one soul,  you save the world; giving back to the community.

I  know that I was indoctrinated in the cradle  from both sides of the family to go out in the world and do  good, that you give back to the community.

And that's  one of the reasons why I was happy to come home.

>>SUSIE NOVICK: My forefather's and mothers  came from Lithuania, from Slovakia, from Germany, and  they came to this one spot in El Paso and I just think it's so interesting that they thought of being here on the banks of  the Rio Grande.

A place to start their families, to become  part of an incredible community and to live their  lives and to do good works for their community.

>>FELICIA RUBIN: Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu  Melech ha-olam, asher kid'shanu b-mitzvotav, v-  tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat.