Jerry Sadis

SADIS: I’m Jerry Sadis. I was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1943, moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1972. I live at 400 Northwest Maywood Drive.

Weinstein: Thanks, Jerry. As Lewis Carrol said in Alice in Wonderland, we’re going to begin at the beginning. I would like to hear Jerry give us a few details of his early childhood. I would like the names of his parents, and we’ll go on from there. Just go ahead and tell us about your family, your parents for one thing.
SADIS: My father’s name was Jack Sadis. My mother’s name was Sarah; her maiden name was Castriano. 

Weinstein: With a “C.”
SADIS: With a “C.” They were married for about ten years before I came. I’ve got an older brother, Norman, who’s four years older than I am. Both my parents are deceased. My brother’s still alive. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Weinstein: How long were your parents married?
SADIS: They were married 53 years. My dad passed away when he was 80. My mother lived to be 94 and stayed a widow.

Weinstein: Where were your parents born?
SADIS: My mother was born in Seattle, Washington. My dad was born on the Isle of Rhodes. He immigrated to the United States when he was 12 years old, a frightening experience for him. They met through mutual friends and got married when they were 22 or 23.

Weinstein: What were the circumstances? Was it an arranged marriage? I’m just trying to get what the customs were at that time.
SADIS: Both my parents were of Sephardic heritage. There was a large Sephardic community in Seattle, a very close-knit community. I don’t know exactly how they got in touch with each other, but I’m sure it was because of the closeness of the community.

Weinstein: But they decided on their own to get married? It was not prearranged?
SADIS: It was not a prearranged marriage.

Weinstein: So it was a love story?
SADIS: Yes, indeed. 

Weinstein: That’s very nice.
SADIS: Yes.

Weinstein: Tell me more about your extended family. Was it a large family?
SADIS: It was a large family, and in typical immigrant tradition, one member brought another member brought another member. My Uncle Morris, who is the eldest …

Weinstein: Morris Sadis?
SADIS: Sadis also. He was the first one to come. Eventually they got my Dad, who came by himself. If you can imagine a 12 year old coming to the United States not knowing the language, and not being escorted by anybody. When we went to Ellis Island for the reconstruction I tried to put myself in my dad’s shoes when he was 12 years old. I could not imagine doing that.

Weinstein: That’s very emotional for you.
SADIS: Yes.

Weinstein: To think back on it, because you have the perspective of the time in between.
SADIS: Right.

Weinstein: So Morris Sadis was the first.
SADIS: Was the first. He was the patriarch of the family. When we were growing up, the holidays were always held at his place. He had a larger family than ours. He had five children, and so those five children then started having other children. By the time we got around to Passover, we would have not just the living room taken over and the dining room, but also downstairs.

Weinstein: Oh, my God!
SADIS: It became so much that my mother took it upon herself to say, “We love coming over here, but this has gotten well beyond anything that can be handled.” So we ended up starting our own tradition of having the holidays at our house. 

Weinstein: Morris was your uncle?
SADIS: Uncle, right.

Weinstein: The five cousins, would you tell me what their names are?
SADIS: I can’t. It’s been …

Weinstein: Are most of them still with us? 
SADIS: I think two or three of them are still with us.

Weinstein: Okay.
SADIS: My dad was the youngest of eight kids. The reason why I say that is because the closer relationships that we had were with my Uncle Sam and his kids. I called him Uncle Sam. He truly was my uncle, but he was my dad’s nephew. My dad was older. But my Uncle Sam married my mother’s sister, so he truly was my uncle.

Weinstein: And he was actually your cousin?
SADIS: And he was my cousin also!

Weinstein: Interesting. This must have been in the ’20s?
SADIS: ’20s, right.

Weinstein: They came directly to Seattle?
SADIS: My Uncle Sam was born in the United States. When my mother and my father got engaged, and my Aunt Tessie and my Uncle Sam were dating, they said, “We’ve got to get married.” So within a year they got married. 

Weinstein: I love these stories. Tessie was my mother’s neighbor.
SADIS: Really? Okay.

Weinstein: So your family on your Uncle Sam’s side was the family you were closest with?
SADIS: Right.

Weinstein: Give me an idea of the things you did that made you so close. Were you contemporaries?
SADIS: We’ve got to go back in history a bit, and this is a story that is also a tearjerker. When my mother was carrying me, we were living at my Uncle Sam’s house — because of the times, and not having the resources to be on our own. This was just right after the war; housing was at a real premium. My mother and my aunts were cooking with a pressure cooker. They were called to go have coffee next door, and so they looked at the pressure cooker, and they thought the pressure was all off. My mother was standing there opening it up, and it exploded, so while she was carrying me she got burned from her neck down to her stomach. She was in Harbor View Hospital for ten or 12 months being [cared for?]. These were severe burns. So I grew up in my aunt’s house, thinking my aunt was my mother all this time. When I was one, one and a half, my mother finally came home to live with us, and when my aunt would give me to my mother I’d start crying because I thought my aunt was my mother. 

Weinstein: So everyone was crying.
SADIS: Right. Needless to say we all got over it, but it was a very traumatic situation.

Weinstein: Did your mother deliver you at Harbor View?
SADIS: Yes. I was three weeks early. The shock of the pressure cooker caused her to give birth to me.

Weinstein: I can’t even imagine.
SADIS: Until the day she died, she had deep scars on her body because back then the first thing they did was to put butter on it to try and soothe the pain. When they weren’t getting any relief, they threw flour on it. The flour and the butter and the heat from the pressure cooker all caked on her. They had to remove all of that, and that was part of the scarring that went on.

Weinstein: I’m just clenching my teeth thinking of it. What a horror! And she lived until 94?
SADIS: Until 94. Correct. 

Weinstein: Wow. So you were a year and a half before you realized that …
SADIS: Before she even came home with us. 

Weinstein: That she was in reality your mother.
SADIS: Right. But we were still living at my Aunt Tessie’s and Uncle Sam’s home. That’s part of the reason the families were so close. And then we would vacation. I remember taking a trip that started in Seattle and went down to California, went over to Nevada, up to Coeur d’Alene, and back, as a caravan. There was my Uncle Sam and his family, and my family, and another family that we caravanned …

Weinstein: Do you remember the name of the other family?
SADIS: It would have been the Caraco’s. Albert Caraco.

Weinstein: Albert Caraco?
SADIS: Caraco [spells out]. The reason why I remember that so vividly is that this was in the ’50s, and there was no air conditioning in cars. We had to go from Los Angeles over to Nevada. It was a hot summer, so we ended up saying, “Okay, we’re going to go at night because it’s cooler.” We had the windows all rolled down. I remember taking off my baseball cap and holding it outside to get the air, and it flew out of my hand [laughs]! The other story is when we were in Lake Chelan, one of the stops coming back. My cousin Gerald, whose name also was Gerald Sadis — another story on that one — he had an earache so he couldn’t go swimming. They have a picture of him sitting on a log, and he’s just moping. He wanted to go swimming. Unfortunately, Gerald passed away at a very young age, 42, from cancer. We had the same name. He was two years older than I was, so were always being confused: “Are you Gerald Sadis? Are you Jerry Sadis?”

Weinstein: Tell me the spelling of your first name.
SADIS: Jerry is with a “J.” Gerald is with a “G.” 

Weinstein: Okay. I’m going to make a note for the transcriber. So Gerald became Jerry.
SADIS: And Jerry became Gerald. Another story is that we went to different high schools, but everybody was confusing us because of the Jewish [community?], so finally he said, “I’m Gerald and you’re Jerry.” I said, “Great.” Then when we were probably 14 or 15, he said, “I like the name Jerry better than Gerald” — which just confused the issue even more [laughter]!

Weinstein: What high school did you go to in Seattle?
SADIS: I went to Franklin High School.

Weinstein: I’m not going to do a lot of talking — this is not a conversation — but when you told me about how your father and the whole caravan decided since it was so hot in the daytime they would travel at night, this answers your question about how they managed to immigrate to this country on their own. They were resourceful, they were smart, they could figure things out, and they were survivors.
SADIS: Exactly. Yes. 

Weinstein: That’s my comment, and now we’ll get on with this. You were very close with your Uncle Sam’s children, and you lived with them. Do you have relationships with them now?
SADIS: Gerald’s older brother, Harold, is the same age as my brother Norm. They are very close with each other still.

Weinstein: In Seattle?
SADIS: In Seattle. And when we were down at the desert, they were down at the desert with us.

Weinstein: So are both of them good golfers?
SADIS: Harold is an excellent golfer. I think he was a seven or an eight handicap. And like I told you, Gerald passed away relatively young. My brother is not a very low handicapper, but he’s a very consistent golfer. 

Weinstein: That’s good. Getting back to the family, tell me what your dad did for a living.
SADIS: My dad started out as a florist. He was working, and a friend of his said, “You and Ralph Israel should go into partnership and start a fish business.” And because the whole supportive community up there was geared around fishing, it made sense. My dad and Ralph got together, and they became partners and started the West Hills Fish Market.

Weinstein: West Hills …
SADIS: West Hills Fish Market. It was in West Seattle, at the California junction. You know where Husky’s is, the ice cream place?

Weinstein: Yes.
SADIS: Our shop was three doors north of Husky. Husky’s is still there. Our shop has turned into a taco business. But I worked at the fish market from the time I was 11 until 21.

Weinstein: Really?
SADIS: Yes.

Weinstein: So you know the fish business?
SADIS: Yes, indeed!

Weinstein: So there were ups and downs. The climate and the …
SADIS: The availability right now, you can get it just about any time. But back then everything was fresh and what was frozen was crap. They’ve now improved the technique of freezing, so it’s got good quality to it. I worked every day, like I said, from when I was 11 until 21.

Weinstein: Did you get a sense of business?
SADIS: Customer service, business sense, the work ethic, it was all there. It was just the three of us; Ralph, my dad, and myself were the three that were always there. I was there so that they could get a day off. Every Tuesday my dad went off and every Wednesday Ralph, and then they alternated every other Saturday, so I had the opportunity to be with them. Back then the Catholics had fish on Fridays, so Friday was a big day. You didn’t have eight to five hours, and you didn’t have one hour for lunch; it was whatever it took to take care of the customer.

Weinstein: It’s interesting because having grown up in Seattle I know the geography. When they started the West Hills Fish Market, did they take over an existing? Or did they establish it? And the second part of the question is, I don’t recall many Jewish people living in West Seattle?
SADIS: There weren’t. It was primarily Swedish people, which was the predominant ethnic [group]. I don’t know if they bought an existing business or not, but they were partners and they had ups and downs, how partners do. The division of labor — my dad would get up in the morning, go to the shop, line up the case. Ralph had the responsibility of going down and getting the fish that they’d ordered and bringing it back. That meant that Ralph had to have a truck and my dad had a car, and one of the issues became, “Wait a minute. You’re getting the truck and I’m getting a car, we’ve got to have …” Because it was a 50-50 partnership, and so when they had problems they really had problems. They got at each other, but they always made up. It was an interesting experience to see the two of them working most of the time together. 

This is one story that you’ll I think find interesting. We had people bring us newspapers. We were opening up newspapers so that we could wrap the fish in them. One day, they were having their argument. My dad was on one side, I was opening up the paper, and Ralph was on the other side. Ralph said to me, “Jerry, tell your dad put some ice on the crab.” He said it standing right next to me. I’m dumbfounded. I don’t know what to do. The next thing, I hear my dad say, “You tell my partner, that if he wants ice on the crab to do it himself!” 

Weinstein: It’s like The Sunshine Boys! 
SADIS: Exactly.

Weinstein: Two wonderful guys that just …
SADIS: When they had their times, they really had it.

Weinstein: That is one of the funniest stories. That’s like out of a movie. 
SADIS: Yes, I wish it had been recorded.

Weinstein: So did they remain in business until they retired? 
SADIS: They remained in business. Another story there. They remained in business well past — my dad was 71, 72, and Ralph was 73 or 74. My dad gets a notice from Ralph, “I want to buy you out.” I’m out of the business; I’ve graduated from college. So I get this phone call, “Jerry, we want you to sit and talk with us because we’re having a problem.”

Weinstein: For a change.
SADIS: I looked at both of them, and my dad said, “I don’t want you to buy me out; I want to buy you out.” I said, “You guys are 70 plus years old. What are you talking about? The best thing to do is to sell the business, and both of you guys retire.” They said, “What will we do?” I said, “Either you keep on operating together as partners or you split up and sell the business, but no one is going to be able to …” They ended up selling the business, and both retired. Then my dad got sick, and for all the problems and everything else, Ralph was right at his bedside all the time. In fact, one of the cute little anecdotes is — my dad was in bed, and Ralph was sitting there and feeding him, and he said, “Jackie, come on. Eat. Eat, Jackie.” It was something that would just tear your heart out.

Weinstein: It’s a nice ending. The sad ending is that your dad was sick, but it’s a nice …
SADIS: And they ended up at the end both being reconciled.

Weinstein: Oh, my goodness. Tell me, did the family, were they observant Jews? Did they take part in synagogue, or rituals?
SADIS: My parents were observant, but not overly religious. They were observant as far as keeping kosher up until about the mid ’60s. The way that came about was that the fish market we had was in a stall with a meat market. My mother could never figure out why my dad would still go to the kosher meat market because he had the meat right there, and he said, “No, it’s tradition.” We went for a Sunday ride — back then families would go for rides — and we went with friends, the Castons [sp?]. They had a next-door neighbor who owned the Acme Packing Company down in Kent, Washington. He wanted to go to the plant and take a look at it, so that was our ride. We got out at the place and we walked into it. Everything was gleaming, clean as can be and everything else, and the kosher meat markets in Seattle weren’t known for their cleanliness. My mother finally said, “This is crazy. This is as clean as you can be. Why are we continuing on that? We’ll continue to have the same kosher cuts, but we just won’t have it from a kosher butcher shop.”

Weinstein: It’s probably why she lived to be 94.
SADIS:  But we observed all the major holidays. Simchat Torah and all the minor holidays were not on our list, but we …

Weinstein: What about Shabbat?
SADIS: We were observant on occasions, but it wasn’t every week that we would observe it. I did go to Hebrew school from probably the second or third grade until sixth grade. So you get the religious exposure and history.

Weinstein: At what synagogue?
SADIS: It wasn’t a synagogue. It was the Seattle Hebrew Academy.

Weinstein: Yes. Talmud Torah.
SADIS: Talmud Torah. Exactly. Just off Cherry.

Weinstein: You mentioned Caston. Was that Jerry Caston’s family?
SADIS: That’s Jerry Caston’s father.

Weinstein: I went to high school with him. Nice guy.
SADIS: Oh, did you?

Weinstein: Yes.
SADIS: Jack Caston and Regina were two of my parents’ closest friends.

Weinstein: Nice. So when the High Holidays came, what synagogue did your family go to?
SADIS: Ezra Bessaroth.

Weinstein: Okay. I’m just trying to get a sense of how, not observant in the sense of reading the Torah every day, but just — your parents were involved in a Jewish community?
SADIS: Correct.

Weinstein: In a subculture, and that was the Sephardic community.
SADIS: Yes, it was.

Weinstein: Now might be an appropriate time to talk about the Sephardic community in the greater Seattle Jewish community.
SADIS: Okay.

Weinstein: You experienced it. You were there at a different time than when your parents were there.
SADIS: Right.

Weinstein: Originally. Can you tell me about what your personal experiences were, and then contrast that with what your parents experienced as young people?
SADIS: Let’s go back and do it in reverse order.

Weinstein: Okay.
SADIS: When my parents were dating, it was a very tight-knight, cohesive Sephardic community. Everybody knew everybody else and lived within proximity of everybody else. As it is today in the Jewish community, people are moving out, there’s not as much concentration, there’s a lot of different influences on the life and lifestyle of people. When I was growing up, the Sephardic community was still cohesive, but not nearly as tight as it was when my parents were growing up. Today there’s still a lot of interaction, on my level, with people I know, but I don’t know what it’s like for the younger kids growing up in the Sephardic community today. We had a lot of friends who were Sephardic, and we still keep in contact.

Weinstein: How are they as far as their experience of being Sephardic Jews in a modern community that is more integrated? The younger generation, like your friends’ children, do they stay tight with other Sephardic people, do you know?
SADIS: I can’t tell you, but you know who could tell you that? Ask Jerry Mezestrano [sp?].

Weinstein: Yes! I’ll take my recorder to the desert and interview him.
SADIS: He’s one of our good friends, and he and I grew up …

Weinstein: Okay. So tell me what it was like when your parents were young people. I’m getting at something. We’re kind of skirting around it, but …
SADIS: Okay.

Weinstein: I know that there was a lot of prejudice from the Ashkenazic and the German community towards the Sephardics.
SADIS: There was, but I don’t know any instances that they would speak of. However, I do want to talk about antisemitism in general, an experience that I had with my parents.

Weinstein: Okay.
SADIS: We were on a cruise down through Mexico on a cruise ship. The entertainment was Fiddler on the Roof. There was a group of 500, 600 people in this theater, and when it was getting over, this guy who was in back of us said, “Those damned Jews.” I stopped and turned around, and I said, “What did you say?” “Those god-damned Jews, they’re always getting into everything. They’re even on this ship!” I said, “Sir, I think you’d better knock it off because I’m Jewish. And if you don’t knock it off, I’m going to knock you off.” My dad said, “Espereki [sp?].” That was Ladino for “Hold on.” Espereki. I said, “No, Dad. I’m not going to stop.” I said, “You’re an elder and I respect you, but I don’t respect what you’re saying.” And he was opening up his mouth, when his wife said, “Enough.” Okay. That was the first time I had really had any open experience of antisemitism.

Weinstein: How old were you at that time?
SADIS: We would’ve been probably in our 30s — 33, 34.

Weinstein: Really? So you really just went all through school and everything, and you — but look what a mitzvah you did. You spoke out.
SADIS: Yes.

Weinstein: And who knows if you changed his mind.
SADIS: I guarantee you I didn’t. But he wasn’t going to mouth off.

Weinstein: But people do have to speak up, don’t they?
SADIS: They do. I guess I’m blessed. We haven’t had a great amount of overt antisemitism, so …

Weinstein: That’s really a wonderful story, and it’s not what I heard growing up.
SADIS: Okay.

Weinstein: And I’m not supposed to be involved …
SADIS: That’s okay. Come on, I want to hear [laughs]!

Weinstein: So we were talking about — oh, did you serve in the military?
SADIS: Yes, I served in the army reserves. When we were — my wife and had I announced our engagement; we were getting married on August 15th — we’re getting ready to celebrate our 50th.

Weinstein: Mazel tov. 
SADIS: Thank you. At that time, if you were married, you had a marriage deferment from the draft. The cutoff date was going to be September 1, and we figured, “No problem.” Then a change was made. They said, “No more marriage deferment.” I wanted to get into a reserve unit, but all of the reserve units were filled up by that time. We ended up getting into a security unit, which meant that I just had a little longer active duty. That’s what we ended up doing, so …

Weinstein: Did you live in Seattle?
SADIS: Right.

Weinstein: And you did your two weeks? 
SADIS: Did my two — well, because of the Vietnam War, they couldn’t get us into basic training for three years. So I went for three years going to summer camp and everything else with no training whatsoever; it was just typical army. Anyhow, I went into my basic training. We left from — that was back east, and I got out earlier than the rest of my crew from Seattle because of business. I left the fort on Thursday, and Friday is when the “Pueblo incident,” the boat that was in the — Koreans took over, and that was security. So these guys all got extended another 30 days. They didn’t know how long they were going to be. Just another little anecdote.

Weinstein: Tell me about Bunny, about your wife.
SADIS: Bunny and I were set up on a blind date by a friend of hers, and coincidentally, a friend of mine. We went out, liked each other. We were 14 years old. Kept on going out and finally became steady dates and everything else. From the time we were 14 until 21, we were usually together. There was a period of time when we went to college. Bunny went to a sorority, but my dad said he would pay for college but no fraternity. So I was not at a fraternity, but all my friends were there. I was very, very close with, not the Sammies, the other — ZBT [Zeta Beta Tau]. I was there all the time, but I couldn’t go to their events. Bunny was involved in being the sweetheart of ZBT, and so she had to go up to Vancouver. That was one of the times that we weren’t going around with each other, but then we ended up getting back together. Her father passed away when she was a junior in college, so she didn’t finish. We got married two months after I graduated from the University of Washington.

Weinstein: What was Bunny’s maiden name?
SADIS: Mitchell.

Weinstein: And what was the name of the friend who fixed you up at age 14?
SADIS: Linda. I can’t remember Linda’s last name.

Weinstein: Okay.
SADIS: It wasn’t love at first sight, but it was just a very comfortable relationship. A funny story, my dad was the one that drove me to go and pick her up to go on the first date. It was an AZA [event]. When I got home he said, “She seemed like a very nice girl.” 

Weinstein: At age 14!
SADIS: Yes.

Weinstein: Oh, my goodness. What fun [laughter]!
SADIS: We got married in 1965, and we have two daughters. The oldest is Sheryl, with an “S.” She lives down in L.A. She’s single. And Kim, Kimberly, lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She’s married and has two kids, our two grandkids: Nicole, who’s going to be bat mitzvahed in September, and Sofia, who is ten years old. You may not know this, but she’s the gal that wrote the letter to the president of the United States to put a woman on the dollar bills.

Weinstein: You told me this story, but this is historic. Please tell.
SADIS: Okay. My granddaughter, as an assignment, wrote a letter to President Obama asking why there were no women on any of the dollar bills. She thought it would be nice if there were. He received the letter and wrote a letter back thanking her for what she’d done. As a result of this dialogue, she got invited to the White House to do the Easter egg hunt and was interviewed by Al Roker. They sent me a picture of the tour that they got, which was not the regular tour; it was the press briefing room …

Weinstein: VIP.
SADIS: VIP. Right. She was then interviewed on ABC News. She’s just a cutie. The latest one was NBC, Good Morning America. The comment that she makes — they asked her, “What do you think of that?” She said, “I’ll be able to tell my kids that I had a part of history” [laughs].

Weinstein: And she’s ten?
SADIS: She’s ten. She’s just as poised as can be.

Weinstein: I can imagine. What a darling.
SADIS: It’s been an eye opener for her. She says, “It shows what one person can do if it happens right for them.”

Weinstein: Oh, my goodness. Yes. You told me that story on the phone, and I’ve told it to other people.
SADIS: “Sofia, from Massachusetts.” They didn’t want to give her last name, keep it low key.

Weinstein: Sure.
SADIS: My grandson was a little irked because of all the attention she was getting, so they brought him into the equation also. The organization that is backing this, now he’s on board. Everything’s happy. He’s part of the group.

Weinstein: That’s a wonderful story, and it is historic!
SADIS: It is. I guess they’re going to go ahead with the $10 bill instead of the $20.

Weinstein: There’s a lot of discussion about what woman, and I heard a really good argument for Eleanor Roosevelt.
SADIS: Right.

Weinstein: It’ll be interesting to see who they do.
SADIS: Yes. My granddaughter wants Harriet Tubman.

Weinstein: Good.
SADIS: She keeps on saying, “Go on the website and vote!” [laughter].

Weinstein: Maybe I’ll do that.
SADIS: Yes, there you go.

Weinstein: I’m just trying to think. We’ve touched on the subject of any kind of antisemitic — because that’s really something that the museum, and historians in general, are interested in. At OJM a lot of history people come and go through the archives and read. They’re looking for a certain topic. That’ll be interesting that you didn’t really experience any overt — that’s progress.
SADIS: Right.

Weinstein: Jerry, were going to shift gears a little bit. We’ve talked a lot about your personal and family life. I’d like to touch on the subject of your involvement in the general and Jewish community. When did you come to Portland?
SADIS: In October of 1972.

Weinstein: Okay. And you’ve taken a major role in several different organizations and activities. I’d like to start by asking you what motivated you to become involved?
SADIS: From ’72 until ’87, I was at Fred Meyer. That is intense activity that didn’t leave a lot of room to give back to the community. The time that was available was spent with our family, trying to raise them, so I didn’t have a lot of time on my hands. But when I left Fred Meyer in ’87, I had plenty of time on my hands. That was when I decided, as the cliché goes, to give back to the community. So I got involved with Temple Beth Israel. I was on their board prior to that, but was then asked to be president. I was president from ’89 to ’91, or ’88 to ’90, for two years. That led to being involved with the Robison Home, on their board. I never was president of the Robison home, but was on their board for probably eight, maybe ten years. I was on the board of the OJCF, Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, and was president there for a couple of years in the ’90s. 

I got involved with the Federation, was on their board, and the Federation asked me to go over to see what was happening at the MJCC, Mittleman Jewish Community Center, because things were not being communicated properly and they were losing a lot of money. So I went over there, and it was evident that we had to do something. I got involved with the Federation, with two major donors, and we ended up saying that we had to take over the Center and see if it could be resurrected. With a lot of community support and a lot of effort, we ended up taking on the challenge of the MJCC, recognized that it was a community asset that needed to be saved if possible. But it didn’t have a right to be saved by itself; it had to have a purpose. After a lot of effort, we concluded that, yes, it does have a purpose. It should be saved. I was actively involved in the fundraising that went on there. We raised $24,000,000. Got the center and the school on financially solid ground. 

Weinstein: The school, you mean the …
SADIS: The Portland Jewish Academy. They were housed in the same building. As we said over and over again, it’s like the two were joined at the hip. You can’t let one go and not impact the other. That was part of the decision on salvaging the Center. The Center is doing very well right now. The membership is 1,650 people, and they are operating on a break-even. It does have community support, but that was always there.

Weinstein: What happened to revive it to the point that they break even when they were in such terrible straits?
SADIS: My background is financial, and one of the disciplines that we instilled as a board was fiscal responsibility. That is something that is needed in every organization, but particularly non-profit organizations because they are typically not motivated to a net profit. But you don’t have to have a net profit, you just have to break even in order to have a successful operation. Nobody’s asking you to put money in the bank. We’re just talking about, “Don’t spend more than you bring in!”

Weinstein: That’s a good motto for everyone.
SADIS: Everyone. Exactly. So the community involvement has been in those areas. It’s primarily been Jewish organizations, although I have been involved with United Way and a couple of fundraisers for OHSU. But primarily it’s been the Jewish community. And it’s been since ’87, so it’s because of the ability to have time.

Weinstein: What do you see happening to the Jewish community now? Everyone is bemoaning the fact that everyone is disassociating, de-affiliating — if they ever were affiliating — either with organizations or with synagogues. What do you see, as an individual? I’m not looking for you to state a solution necessarily, but where do you see the Jewish community heading?
SADIS: I’ll answer that question by going back to the Sephardic community in Seattle — when my parents were growing up, and when I was growing up, and today. It’s the same situation. The cohesiveness of the Jewish community is never going to be the same as it was back in the early 1900s. It’s just not. It’s a physical situation. People are not living together, not interacting together. It is a generational issue. There’s a bigger difference between my grandkids, my kids, and myself than there was between my parents and their kids and grandkids. It’s an evolution that’s going to happen. The challenge is how to make heads or tails out of this whole process, because it’s going to happen. The question should be asked, “Do you need a Jewish community?” My answer is, “Yes, you do.” It’s how do you make it stronger.

Weinstein: Do you tailor your actions now according to what the younger people are experiencing? Or do you emphasize more traditional observances, like Hebrew school, synagogue attendance, supporting the Jewish community rather than the general community? I see a lot of young Jewish kids, mainly of bar and bat mitzvah age, their mitzvah projects are involving general community activities. You hear the phrase tikkun olam, to heal the world. So what do you envision, a way to keep Jewish values in young people in today’s world?
SADIS: Let’s use the mitzvah projects that the bar and bat mitzvah kids have. The fact that they have a mitzvah project is more important than if it goes to a Jewish organization or a secular organization. It’s those kinds of things. Anybody who says you’ve got to be tradition-bound is going to fall far, far behind. You’ve got to have the ability to bring in the younger people and recognize that they’ve got their own shtick, and you’ve got to be able to embrace them.

Weinstein: And accommodate their …
SADIS: Exactly. Electronics is a good example. I bring it up because you could say, “Gee, wiz. All we could do is talk on the landline.” Well, if you do that, you’re going miss all the young kids, because they don’t have landlines anymore, It’s more important to say you’re talking on a phone as opposed to texting, so you’ve got to play to the changing times.

Weinstein: Jerry, we’ve had a long and very, very positive and fruitful interview, but we’re not through yet. I’d like to continue this. I’m anxious to get your experiences in the business world and the fascinating story of your work with the Fred Meyer company. I’d like to see you again, and we’ll continue this interview. Would that be okay?
SADIS: Indeed.

Weinstein: Thank you very much, Jerry.