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Phil Stern has lived in Boulder since 1967. He has worked on many environmental issues through his positions as Director of Environmental Affairs for the Boulder County District Attorney's Office and as a city council person from 1981 to 1987. He describes many of these efforts and also describes the development of and his involvement in the Jewish comunity in Boulder. He was part of the establishment of Congregation Har HaShem at the time it evolved from the Boulder Jewish Fellowship. He discusses what he sees as some of the positive and negative aspects of the growth of the Jewish community in Boulder.

This interview's primary focus is on the narrator's experience of Judaism. Nanette remembers her childhood in Germany, where she was born and lived until age ten when her family immigrated to the United States, in 1939. Her father spent one month in a concentration camp. She talks with great affection about arriving in and living in New York City, where she studied and practiced textile design. She and her husband met and were married in New York before moving to Boulder - her husband took a relocation job with IBM. Nanette recalls the formation of Har HaShem congregation and the synagogue, which she helped to establish; she talks about other Jewish orgnizations and the growth of Boulder's Jewish community from 1966 forward. The interview concludes with discussion of Nanette's secular interests and pursuits, such as her career teaching watercolor painting at Colorado Mountain College. Some of her work is displayed at the end of the video recording.

Sheila Malcolm is one of two co-leaders of Beth Ami/Colorado Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, a Denver Metro area congregation that practices secular Humanistic Judaism. The members of this branch of Judaism do not believe in God, but are brought together by and honor cultural and values aspects of Judaism. Ms. Malcolm describes the origins of the movement, which has been guided by Sherwin Wine, and explains both the philosophical underpinnings and the day-to-day practices and services that are part of the congregation's life. She also explains how Beth Ami fits into the larger Jewish community in Boulder, including participation in interdenominational Jewish initiatives such as 18 Pomegranates and Jewish Together Boulder. She reflects on the growth and changes in the Boulder Jewish community since 1975 and ends by discussing her passion for teaching and for volunteering with organizations such as I Have a Dream and Reading to End Racism.

Charlotte Smokler's interview starts with her account of her family's emigration from Poland when she was a young girl. She describes her childhood in New York City and her move to Boulder with her husband in 1968. She talks about her jobs and community involvement in Boulder such as her job managing the Daily Camera's clipping library, writing book reviews for the Camera, running a Jewish film series for Congregation Bonai Shalom, and helping to catalog book donations for the Boulder Public Library. The heart of the interview centers around an exploration of Jewish identity as she encountered it during her childhood and in later years, including ways in which Boulder and its Jewish congregations have grown and changed.

This folder contains newspaper clippings about churches in Boulder and Boulder County. The clippings were compiled by the Reference Staff at the Boulder Public Library.

Marion Kreith talks about her sense of Jewish identity stemming from her childhood in and escape from Nazi Germany. She mentions the path that her family took from there to the United States, which included immigration to numerous countries, including Cuba. She also recalls some central Jewish figures in Boulder during the mid-twentieth century. She talks about how, although she feels culturally Jewish, she did not actively participate very much in organized Jewish community life in Boulder, in part because of her childhood in Nazi Germany having imbued her with an instinct for keeping her Jewish identity out of the public eye. She also reflects on her belief about the importance of the existence of Israel in shaping the identity of American Jews.

CU Professor Paul Levitt, born in Newark, New Jersey, and who grew up mostly in the San Fernando Valley in California, has led a life focused on literature, writing, and political action. He begins by describing his Jewish family’s origins in Eastern Europe, his relatives’ immigration to the United States and his own boyhood. He came to the University of Colorado as an undergraduate student in 1954, began teaching at CU in 1964 and was the founder of CU’s Creative Writing Program. He also lived in London and wrote plays for the BBC for two years. Levitt became a prolific writer of historical novels and scholarly nonfiction. He also has strong beliefs about the importance of university faculty teaching lower-classmen as well as pursuing their own scholarship. Professor Levitt was an outspoken opponent of university participation in the investigations and subsequent firings that grew out of McCarthyism. He sponsored a meeting that resulted in university officials’ apologies to Morris Judd for his firing in 1952 and a lawsuit that resulted in the release of a previously secret report about President Robert Stearns’ investigations into the political leanings of CU faculty, which resulted in many firings and resignations. Professor Levitt discusses a number of his critically acclaimed books, including Stalin’s Barber and Come With Me to Babylon.

Frank describes his experience of leaving Austria with the kindertransport just after the Nazi invasion of that country. He tells how he came to immigrate to the United States and details his education and other experiences that brought him to Boulder in 1959 to work for the University of Colorado in the field of engineering. Frank discusses his Jewish identity, his interactions with the Jewish community in Boulder, and the ways in which the Jewish community has grown in numbers and variety since the 1950s. The end of the interview includes video of numerous family photos and photos of Frank with President Jimmy Carter.

Four "founding mothers" talk about the creation and growth of the Jewish Community Center Preschool, including a sense of community that it engenders among students and parents alike, the way it builds knowledge and pride in children about their Jewish identity, the bridges built to the non-Jewish community in Boulder, and the expanding opportunities for enrichment that have been offered to students over the years. They are joined part way through the interview by the first director of the preschool, who now has taught there for more than 30 years.

Maria Krenz was born into a Jewish family in Hungary a year before the end of World War II. Her family was of Jewish heritage, although her father had converted the family to Catholicism due to the dangers involved in being Jewish. She spent the first year of her life in hiding from the Nazis, along with her mother and father. She grew up knowing that she was Jewish and that she must keep that fact a secret. In this moving interview, she describes what it was like to experience such a complicated upbringing: first in Hungary until she was thirteen, then in Venezuela as a refugee, and finally in New York and then Boulder, where she has lived since 1968. As a practicing Quaker, Maria also has been reclaiming her Jewish heritage. This interview is an illuminating companion to Krenz' historical memoir, "Made in Hungary: A Life Forged by History", which was published in 2009.