Eve Overback Rosenfeld

Tarlow:  Well Eve, here we are. Do you want to tell me where and when you were born?
ROSENFELD:  I was born in Portland, Oregon (one of the few natives I know) on March 3, 1929 at Wilcox Memorial Hospital, which was the maternity hospital, part of Good Samaritan.

Tarlow: So you have lived here your whole life.
ROSENFELD: My entire life.

Tarlow: And where were you in the birth order in your family?
ROSENFELD: I was the last, really the last. My oldest brother, Murray, was 20 years older than I and my youngest sibling was thirteen, almost fourteen years older than I.

Tarlow: So you were the bonus?
ROSENFELD: I was the surprise.

Tarlow: I’ll bet it was a good surprise. Where did your family live when you were born?
ROSENFELD: We lived in Irvington. There were a fair number of Jewish people there. We used to think that’s where people who didn’t live on the west side all lived – in Irvington. When we talked about Irvington being the place on the east side where Jewish people lived that meant that maybe one person on your block or every two blocks was Jewish. It wasn’t a lot. And it certainly wasn’t a Jewish neighborhood. 

Tarlow: Where in Irvington were you?
ROSENFELD: On Northeast 11th, between Knott and Brazee. I went to Irvington School and there were other Jewish children, maybe one in your class.

Tarlow: Didn’t the Tanzers live there too?
ROSENFELD: The Tanzers lived there later. The boys were well into school when they moved to Irvington. They lived around the corner from us on the corner of 10th and Knott, but that was later.

Tarlow: So there were a number of Jewish kids at Irvington that you palled around with?
ROSENFELD: Yes, there were two or three in my class, out of a class of thirty.

Tarlow: How did you get to school?
ROSENFELD: We walked to school. We came home for lunch.

Tarlow: Oh my. Did you walk with friends or your brothers or sister?
ROSENFELD: When I first started school, Charlotte Schwartz and Velma Horenstein, who were in the seventh or eighth grade, walked me to school. Then I graduated to walking by myself or walking with a friend.

Tarlow: While you were in elementary school, what were some of the things that you enjoyed doing?
ROSENFELD: Oh, riding my bicycle, roller skating. Kids used to congregate because most of our mothers were at home. After school we would go home. Kids just played. I went to Hebrew School. I started when I was about seven. I went to what was known as the east side Hebrew School. I went twice a week. There were… the girls certainly, were all from the neighborhood. That occupied some of the afternoons, or we just played.

Tarlow: That is kind of different than how it is today. What brought your parents to Portland?
ROSENFELD: My mother came as a young child of eleven or twelve from New York with her parents because her father’s family, the Nudelman family, had pretty much all settled already in Portland. That was probably right at the beginning of the 1900s. My father came some years later. He must have been an older teenager. He had a sister and brothers who had preceded him.

Tarlow: The Overback family?
ROSENFELD: Yes… Well, no. The two brothers, of course, were Overbacks. His sister also had married a Nudelman and that is how the families knew each other.

Tarlow: So your families were pioneers to Portland, weren’t they?
ROSENFELD: Well, I don’t know about ‘pioneers.’ There were a lot of Jewish people, particularly a German Jewish population that preceded the 1900s. But that was relatively early for the Russian-Jewish, eastern European Jews.

Tarlow: Where did you go to religious school?
ROSENFELD: I went to Neveh Zedek Sunday School. And then, by the time I was about in fourth or fifth grade, the east side Hebrew School closed and we started attending the west side Hebrew School, which was then housed at Neighborhood House. That was four afternoons a week and Sunday mornings so that ended religious school at Neveh Zedek.

Tarlow: Your parents took you or you carpooled?
ROSENFELD: No! We all took the bus. There were three of us who lived in the neighborhood who went to the west side Hebrew School. That may have been a year later. We may have started with a bus that picked us up. But by the time we were twelve we were taking the bus (three buses) to Neighborhood House for Hebrew School.

Tarlow: Isn’t that amazing.
ROSENFELD: Yes, we hardly let our children walk two blocks to school by themselves now.

Tarlow: So who lived in your house with you when you were growing up?
ROSENFELD: Well, my brothers and sisters were so much older. My oldest brother married by the time I was two or two and a half and the rest of them were so grown up they were just about gone by the time I was growing up. By the time I was seven or eight even my youngest brother was in college.

Tarlow: So you were like an only child.
ROSENFELD: I was like an only child. I also had surrogate parents in my siblings.

Tarlow: Did your mom keep a Jewish home?
ROSENFELD: Oh very. We observed kashrut at home. My father didn’t keep it out. We celebrated holidays. My mother went to services many Saturday mornings. My mother’s family lived very close by. In fact we had family living on 10th. We lived on 11th. There were cousins on 12th and her brother’s family on 13th. That was kind of their social life. We observed holidays. I was one of the few children who was out of school on the second day of Sukkot. And the second day of Passover.

Tarlow: [laughs] You observed them all!
ROSENFELD: Well, my mother observed them all.

Tarlow: And your father was a little less observant.
ROSENFELD: Much less. He went along with it but he was…

Tarlow: Did your mom work outside the home at all?
ROSENFELD: Oh no.

Tarlow: And what did your dad do?
ROSENFELD: My father, in the very early years (this was almost the Depression years, that I was very young) had a store for working men. “Working men’s clothes” they used to call it. There were a lot of men who worked the railroads or worked in the forest. There was a group of people (some other Jewish people, too) who had stores near the train depot. He had a store. He lost it during the Depression. He had to close it. Then he subsequently went to work (I’m a little hazy on it because I was pretty young) for someone else.

Tarlow: In that line of work?
ROSENFELD: Yes.

Tarlow: And then after elementary school, and I assume that went through eighth grade?
ROSENFELD: It was first through eighth grade. And then I went to Grant High School. I don’t think, in retrospect (although I don’t think I was aware of it at the time) they were my happiest years. We had a lot of friends. We had Jewish friends. At Grant High School there were social clubs. They did not invite Jewish girls to join. The social clubs spilled over into the school clubs so that if you were in a social club you were pretty much guaranteed admission into a school club, by invitation. So we Jewish girls kind of had a group unto ourselves, we did. We were quite a large group. Our social life revolved around the Jewish Community Center. Tuesday night was Jewish Community Center night for teenagers. We used to go on Tuesday nights. And we did have Jewish high school clubs.

Tarlow: Did they meet at school?
ROSENFELD: Oh no no no. They were girls from Lincoln High School and some other high schools as well.

Tarlow: And who are some of those girls? Do any come to mind?
ROSENFELD: Oh sure. Toinette Rosenberg (Menashe), Bobbie Mittleman (Schnitzer), Jeanne Mittlemant (Newmark). Let’s see, who are some of the other ones who are still in Portland? Marilyn Krane (Hasson).

Tarlow: What are some of the things you did at the Center besides have your Jewish clubs?
ROSENFELD: Oh, we mostly stood in groups and looked at the boys. [laughs]

Tarlow: Did your mother know that’s what you were doing?
ROSENFELD: Of course. Everybody went.

Tarlow: By the time you came along she probably felt so relaxed with this one, right?
ROSENFELD: Who knows!

Tarlow: So there you were at the Jewish Community Center, did you do any athletics there?
ROSENFELD: No, girls weren’t into that very much. We played tennis.

Tarlow: Did you swim?
ROSENFELD: No, we would have gotten our hair wet! [laughs]

Tarlow: Did you learn to swim at the Center?
ROSENFELD: Yeah, sort of. [more laughter]

Tarlow: And after high school, what happened?
ROSENFELD: Well then I went to the University of Oregon and that was really a very good experience. That was four good years. Academically I learned so much, my whole world opened up. I was very involved in a lot of activities at school. There were honoraries. I was vice-president of the student body when I graduated. I made a lot of good friends.

Tarlow: Did you come home in the summer to Portland?
ROSENFELD: Oh yes. We all came home to Portland in the summer. Girls were supposed to do that sort of thing. They didn’t wander off by themselves. Nor could we afford to. I was working my way through college. I had to go home anyway in the summer to earn some money.

Tarlow: Where did you work?
ROSENFELD: I worked at a women’s store called Bedell’s. I sold advertising. I had a little advertising project. I sold advertising on dividers that went into an eight by eleven notebook, to divide your subjects. I sold advertising for those dividers.

Tarlow: And who bought that advertising?
ROSENFELD: Oh, stores. I always was happy when the summer ended, though, because I didn’t like selling.

Tarlow: Were you one of those girls on the college boards or the high school boards?
ROSENFELD: No.

Tarlow: One thing I didn’t ask you about was World War Two and how that affected your family. You were a young girl then. What about your family? Did they have knowledge about what was going on during the war in Europe? Did they talk about it?
ROSENFELD: I can remember… In those days, we had radio. I can remember very vividly sitting around the radio and I remember when the Germans invaded Warsaw and how frightened I was. I wasn’t very old. It was 1938. I remember the day that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It was a Sunday. I remember dreaming that the Japanese soldiers were outside our dining room window. Lots of young men we knew went into the service.

Tarlow: How did your family support the war effort?
ROSENFELD: I don’t really know. We saved paper. We didn’t throw paper away. And to this day I cannot throw away a paper bag. I fold them and put them away.

Tarlow: How about stamps?
ROSENFELD: Oh, we all bought Defense Stamps.  And War Bonds.  I can remember having soldiers. I don’t know how the connection worked, but we had Jewish soldiers for the holidays. I don’t remember lots of them but I do remember that that happened.

Tarlow: Was your mother volunteering at all while you were growing up? Was she active in the community?
ROSENFELD: She was active in the Sisterhood of the synagogue, which was Neveh Zedek.

Tarlow: And she had sisters and brothers here too?  They all sort of were a family?
ROSENFELD: Yes, an extended family. They were very, very close.

Tarlow: You didn’t have grandparents here did you?
ROSENFELD: My grandfather was the last grandparent. My grandmother had died the year before I was born and I was named after her. My grandfather died by the time I was six, so I really grew up without grandparents. My parents were almost grandparents, age-wise. They were 40 and 47 when I was born.  I have nieces and nephews that are almost my age. They tell the story about my mother (and I didn’t know this until not that many years ago) that people were really aghast that Mrs. Overbeck, with grown children, was pregnant.

Tarlow: So your religious school experience was short-lived, it sounded like.
ROSENFELD: Well short-lived at the synagogue. That was just those early years, but then I had Hebrew School five days a week!

Tarlow: And that was until you were how old?
ROSENFELD: Through the eighth grade.

Tarlow: And no Bat Mitzvah?
ROSENFELD: No, nobody had a bat mitzvah in those days. But we did have… There is a lot that I remember from Hebrew School besides fluency in reading.

Tarlow: So all of your Jewish education was a good background for you in your involvement as an adult in the Jewish community.  It was sort of an extension of your whole life, being involved in Jewish activities.
ROSENFELD: I don’t think they necessarily go together. There were people who I knew, they were mostly boys, who went to Hebrew school because they had to go to Hebrew school to be bar mitzvahed.  But people I knew who grew up later were more or less and many times less involved. I can think of some of the outstanding Jewish leaders I knew who came from very small towns where I’m sure there was very little formal Jewish education so I have never been convinced that there necessarily is any connection.

Tarlow: But you have had a very active life as an adult in the Jewish community. But let’s go back to college for a minute, which you loved. What did you study?
ROSENFELD: Well I was a sociology major because I went on to become a social worker.

Tarlow: And where did you do your social work work?
ROSENFELD: When I came home from graduate school, there were very few professional social work agencies with the exception of the Veteran’s Hospital and public schools. So I went to work for and we did have a very good Department of Public Welfare here. I specialized in children’s services.

Tarlow: Where did you go to graduate school?
ROSENFELD: At Columbia in New York.

Tarlow: Tell me about that.
ROSENFELD: Oh that was wonderful. That was a wonderful experience for someone who had live a very simple life. We had not traveled. And to go to New York City and live in New York City and go to Columbia was wonderful. It was a very different social milieu than what I had known at University of Oregon. Lots and lots of Jewish people. I used to chuckle to myself when they would read the role in classes and every name sounded Jewish to me. I’m sure they weren’t all Jewish but they sounded Jewish as compared to at the University of Oregon where there were so few.

Tarlow: How long were you in New York and what were some of the things that you did other than go to school there?
ROSENFELD: Well, because of the current show, Guys and Dolls, I can remember that we went to lots of plays and I saw Guys and Dolls on Broadway when it first came out and loved it. We went to theater. We took advantage of a lot of good things and I loved it. I went with a friend that I had met at the University of Oregon who was a nurse. She worked as a nurse in New York City while I was a student of sorts.

Tarlow: And you lived in an apartment together?
ROSENFELD: Yes.

Tarlow: And did you come home in the summer?
ROSENFELD: [can’t hear answer]

Tarlow: So how did your parents feel about their little angel going so far away from home?
ROSENFELD: Oh they were very accepting of that. They were pleased and proud that I had gotten a fellowship. We didn’t call home, you know. You only called home, I think, once all year and that was a very special occasion. You didn’t make a long distance call in those days unless someone had died.

Tarlow: But you wrote letters?
ROSENFELD: Yes, I wrote lots of letters.

Tarlow: And when did you meet Alan? Was that about the time or no? Did you meet him here in Portland? Tell me about that.
ROSENFELD: I met him for the very first time in my junior year of college. We met at a wedding. I didn’t see him again until I had come home and was working.

Tarlow: And you worked for the Welfare department?
ROSENFELD: Here in Portland. I met him at a party at Gerel Blauer’s house. And that was it.

Tarlow: OK, we’ll get back to him in a minute. Let’s go for the kids in the Welfare Department. What were some of the things that you were working on?
ROSENFELD: Oh, it was the children’s department. I worked primarily in foster care and some aid to dependent children cases. I think we call it aid to dependent families now. When I first read my case load I couldn’t believe that people found themselves in these situations. It was like a whole new world to me.

Tarlow: One that you had never experienced. How did you help these people? What was your role?
ROSENFELD: Many of the children were in foster home placements. Either they had to be placed because the courts were ordering that or they already were in foster homes and sometimes that didn’t work out – the children were unhappy, the foster parents were unhappy or whatever. It entailed moving the child, being in contact with the children’s parents. I was married when I was working and when I became very pregnant, I finally resigned and I can remember never feeling so free in my life as being free of that responsibility to those children, that caseload. Now I think things would be so much more complicated, so much more difficult with drugs and all the problems that people have now.

Tarlow: Did you find drug problems then?
ROSENFELD: Not at all. I’m sure there were drugs around but I don’t recall ever experiencing it. There was alcoholism. That was a problem.

Tarlow: Families broken up from the war?
ROSENFELD: No, I don’t recall that particularly. Just dysfunctional people.

Tarlow: How long did you work there?
ROSENFELD: Almost three years.

Tarlow: And you said you were married by the time you quit. So you met Alan at this party, was it love at first sight?
ROSENFELD: I don’t know if it was. I was dating other people as well.

Tarlow: So eventually you got married here in Portland.
ROSENFELD: It was within two years.

Tarlow: What year did you get married?
ROSENFELD: In 1953.

Tarlow: What was Alan doing then?
ROSENFELD: He was working as a chemical engineer for Crown-Zellerback in Camas, Washington. He lived there and came into Portland many weekends. He either stayed at his parents’ home or he came in and we would go out and I guess he would go home.

Tarlow: When you were working did you live at home with your parents?
ROSENFELD: Of course! All girls lived at home.

Tarlow: I’m so glad to know that, Eve [laughs].
ROSENFELD: I can remember saying to my mother about someone I had known who decided that she was going to live in an apartment with a girlfriend and my mother said, “Well, I’d understand that if their parents lived out of town, but it isn’t nice.”

Tarlow: Did you have a big wedding?
ROSENFELD: Not too big because my father-in-law had not been well. I don’t know, what is big? We were married at the Benson Hotel with the immediate family (that is uncles, aunts and cousins, so that wasn’t that small) and then a reception. Maybe we were 150. That wasn’t what was considered a “big wedding.”

Tarlow: Did a rabbi officiate?
ROSENFELD: Oh yes, the rabbi, the chopper. And in those days, people were mostly married in hotels.

Tarlow: Who was the rabbi?
ROSENFELD: Rabbi Philip Kleinman.

Tarlow: That was in 1953 and then you said by the time you quit work you were pregnant. So let’s talk about your children.
ROSENFELD: Oh yes. David was our first and he was a pleasure. He was just a good little kid. The girls came after, in rather quick succession. The first three were born within three years. Lynn was 20 months later and then Sally was 15 months later.

Tarlow: So you were busy.
ROSENFELD: Yes, those were busy years.

Tarlow: You didn’t work?
ROSENFELD: No.

Tarlow: Is that when you started your volunteering?
ROSENFELD: Yes, as a matter of fact. David was less than a year old when I went to the Jewish Federation and volunteered to do some work and I was told about an agency called Jewish Family and Child Service. There wasn’t a professional there. Actually, I think it was Lillian Wexler, I don’t remember if it was Lillian or her sister-in-law now. I was asked to join the board and that started it.

Tarlow: Wow, they grabbed you right away. What did you do there? Other than go to board meetings.
ROSENFELD: I wonder how much more we did then. We had some very good philosophical arguments and discussions about whether it was appropriate for a Jewish agency to do adoptions. I remember that was one of the serious discussions. There were very serious discussions about professionalizing the agency – bringing in a professionally trained administrator. We were very, very minimally funded and to make our case with Jewish Federation, which didn’t see any reason why we should be funded because we were a United Way Agency, was a lot of our activity in those early years. We finally gained recognition, but not easily.

Tarlow: Where were you living at this time? Did you live near your parents when you got married?
ROSENFELD: No. My parents were living in Northwest Portland and, because Alan was commuting to Camas, Washington, we lived on the east side. We lived in Northeast.

Tarlow: And where did the children go to school?
ROSENFELD: They went to a school which is no more called Joseph Meek. It was a K-5. A nice little school that was about two and half blocks from where we lived. They walked to school.

Tarlow: So you kind of went back to your roots.
ROSENFELD: Well it was a different part of Northeast.

Tarlow: Did they go to Grant?
ROSENFELD: No. They went to a school called Adams High School.

Tarlow: Oh, that is gone too, isn’t it?
ROSENFELD: Yes, it is gone, too.

Tarlow: So what about your life as a mom and wife and volunteering?
ROSENFELD: It was busy and it was good. Those were very good years. My parents were older and required a lot of attention and a lot of help. As many of us had to do for our parents, especially if they were older, as my parents were, the combination of doing what we had to do with the children’s activities (that took a lot of time)….

Tarlow: They went to Sunday School?
ROSENFELD: Yes, I think that by the time the children were in school, maybe not Janice, the youngest, I was teaching religious school at Beth Israel. We were active at Beth Israel from our early married years.

Tarlow: To this day.
ROSENFELD: Somewhat, yes.

Tarlow: Don’t say “somewhat.” You are very involved. I know that you have lots of different volunteer jobs. You have to tell us about them on this tape. You have been involved with schools and religious things and social service agencies. Amazing things. So let’s hear it from you, some of your favorites, maybe.
ROSENFELD: I can remember as PTA president, worrying about where the volunteers were going to come from. I don’t know if that was a favorite thing I ever did but it was a good experience because there were lots of contacts and you learned a lot about what was happening with the school and the children. One of my most interesting community activities was when I was on the advisory committee. The Portland School district had divided into three areas and each area had an adult advisory committee (actually there was also one student on the committee). We had interesting experiences and I really learned a lot about the schools in Portland, particularly in the area where we were living. I shared that at one point, those were two year appointments. We met with the school superintendent and many of the people in the administration. They were interesting times, in terms of schools, because that was the time we were considering desegregation and cross-town busing and all of that. 

Tarlow: There was a lot of tension.
ROSENFELD: Yes. That was a period of time when it was suggested that middle schools were a good place for children to be put in another building where they could have many more offerings. You would bring children from several different schools together to make population for a Middle School and that was usually 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. It would give them more opportunities. I thought there were many “plusses” to that but the school administration was labeled as this was a ploy to desegregate and to bring Blacks, especially in Northeast, away from their schools and integrate them. 

Jewish Family and Child Service was a most interesting experience because we saw the development of a really fine agency, once the agency was professionalized. It just grew and grew in terms of the kinds of services the agency could offer.

Tarlow: Who was the first director?
ROSENFELD: It was George Robbins. He came from Chicago, I believe.

Tarlow: Was his wife on the board of the National Council of Jewish Women?
ROSENFELD: No, never, because she came as an English teacher and she was at Cleveland High School all of her professional life in Portland.

Tarlow: I’m getting her mixed up with somebody else. So that was very gratifying and you could see the results.
ROSENFELD: Oh, a wonderful group of people on that board always.

Tarlow: How about your work experience?
ROSENFELD: That was a very nice experience. I was the director of the religious school for three years ending in 1975.

Tarlow: So you had some doozies of kids there.
ROSENFELD: It has been interesting to see how they have grown up. Many of them have become very nice adults!

Tarlow: In spite of it all, right?
ROSENFELD: Well, what I learned was that when I saw such nice kids was that I developed an enormous respect for the parents. That was hard work. I have come to the realization that outside of being the rabbi, being the director of the religious school is probably one of the most difficult jobs. I don’t know how much has changed but in those years, to find people who were willing to teach and to find, because as an administrator you had almost no control over what happens in that classroom. Some parents were more conscientious that others about getting their kids there. Some kids were more cooperative. On Saturday night I used to live in fear and dread of the phone ringing and someone saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sick and I won’t be there in the morning.”

Tarlow: Oh sure because then you would have to substitute. That happened more than once I’m sure.
ROSENFELD: Oh we had 350 children in the school so we had a lot of classes. It was bound to happen. Someone was going to get sick.

Tarlow: Did they have a pre-school back then?
ROSENFELD: No, that was one of my great joys. The preschool was started while I was working as an administrator at the synagogue. I had talked about the need for a preschool and the board wasn’t sure we needed a preschool and it was going to be an expense. It seemed like a service that a synagogue ought to be offering. One of the reasons I gave for us to consider it was that it also would encourage younger membership in the congregation. You didn’t have to be a member, but people would become acquainted with the synagogue and feel comfortable there and want to join. And the preschool did not pay for itself. It was a line item on the budget. And there were those who after the first year or two thought that maybe we didn’t need a preschool. Maybe it was just too expensive. But we prevailed and the preschool has become a very important part of the synagogue program. The other big accomplishment that I look back at with pleasure was the ramp. People didn’t think that we needed a ramp into the sanctuary. I kept saying, “We need a ramp!”

Tarlow: And then the government said, “You need a ramp.”
ROSENFELD: Well, no. If your building was in place, you didn’t. Finally, we got one and I didn’t realize how complicated it was to do. You don’t just put a ramp in. You have to slope the ground and it was much more complicated. But the idea was right. We did need a ramp. The library was the one sadness that I had. Although Sharon, your aunt was so good and so dedicated and used to feel bad about every missing book (of which there were many) but to see the development of the library, which came much later, has been a great pleasure.

Tarlow: How long did you work for Temple?
ROSENFELD: Well, three years as director of the religious school and then 10 years following that. So thirteen years total. Good years. I developed a lovely relationship with a lot of fine people.

Tarlow: Relationships you probably still have.
ROSENFELD: Yes, I used to be able to look at that… I knew every face of every member with the exception of Dr. Katsky in Rockaway Beach. When I finally met Dr. Katsky at the Robison we had some good laughs over that.

Tarlow: Did you volunteer at the Robison Home also or are you just a faithful visitor?
ROSENFELD: I was on the board of Cedar Sinai Park and I have done some volunteer things over the years. Most recently I assist with services. Occasionally I lead Friday night services at the Robison.

Tarlow: And you have some grandchildren, I know.
ROSENFELD: Six.

Tarlow: Shall we put their names on this tape?
ROSENFELD: Sure, with last names? Erin Rosenfeld. He is 22 and in graduate school at Arizona State in Social Work. And her sister Kelly Rosenfeld who is a sophomore at the University of Arizona. Then we get down to the younger ones: Lisa Frank who is a senior at Lincoln High School and her sister Amy Frank who is a sophomore at Lincoln High School. Then our two little boys, the ones that came later were males (it is fun to have both): Garret Langfeld, who lives in Alameda, California and Joshua Kowel, who lives in Dallas, Texas.

Tarlow: That’s the one I met at Temple with the dark hair and the big, brown eyes.
ROSENFELD: And the glasses.

Tarlow: I wrote down here, “As a volunteer in the community, World War Two, School issues, which we covered, Sisterhood, Hadassah, Council of Jewish Women.” Let’s go to Sisterhood for a minute because I know that you are involved with Sisterhood. You have probably done every job there was there.
ROSENFELD: Many years ago, after I had retired from the Temple, I was involved with Sisterhood as a vice president. Then for a number of years I wasn’t particularly active with any kind of board position. But I came back in recent years as a director and have been most impressed with the wonderful younger women who are smart and able and welcoming. They do very good things.

Tarlow: Talk a little about this. I want something on tape about the women at Beth Israel for the upcoming 150th anniversary.
ROSENFELD: Well, we are just beginning so it is hard to know what direction we will be going in but in conjunction with the 150th anniversary, we are going to do a program that will be done on a Friday night in place of a sermon about the contribution the women of Beth Israel have made to the synagogue and the community. It is kind of exciting because we are right at the beginning and we are trying to decide which of the many contributions they have made we will have time to highlight during that brief time we are given on a Friday night. There are many contributions people have made and it is hard to note which women. I think that would be very difficult, only in conjunction with a particular activity symbolizing the efforts of many other women who were also involved in the same kind of activity.

Tarlow: What about the National Council of Jewish Women? As a vice president you are now.
ROSENFELD: That has been especially nice because I haven’t been involved in Council for a lot of years until I was asked to be on the committee to help determine and recommend to the board how the funds from the sale of Neighborhood House would be dispersed. I had been on that committee that was involved with the actual sale. That was much less involved because the decision to sell had already been made. And it was the right decision. How to allocate the money was much more difficult. It took us almost two years to come to a recommendation. We felt very strongly; we were very conscientious about doing the right thing and hopefully keeping in the spirit of what the original founders of the Neighborhood House would be…

ROSENFELD: …. absolutely wonderful that have come out of our efforts. Our assistance with the shelter program. Our being aware of needs in the community, being involved in the Food Box programs that distributes food boxes to people who are at the poverty level or lower. The program probably would not have happened without the contribution of our $10,000 that was needed, along with the other funds that they had raised. I don’t know that the project would have gone forward without it. And to see how many council members have come forward to volunteer in various ways, with various amounts of time. We have made a very nice impact on the community and the community has certainly been aware of our efforts. We have made it a better place.

Tarlow: I think so and you have played a major role in making it a better place. In so many ways. You are being very modest but I know. I know you have a long history of involvement in the community. So my last question to you is, what does the future hold for you?
ROSENFELD: One never knows what the future holds. I would hope for a little more time flexibility to take some classes at Portland State. I plan to do that.

Tarlow: Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you want to add to this tape?
ROSENFELD: We have covered quite a lot. I think we have covered everything except that I feel very fortunate to have grown up in Portland, which is a nice community and I feel like I have had a very good life here. 

Tarlow: Well that is a wonderful thing to be able to say. You have had a good life and you have helped other people to have a good life. I thank you for this time.
ROSENFELD: My pleasure.