Interview with Fred Joseph, February 3, 2017

ELY: I'm Carol Ely. I'm here with Fred Joseph, for the Jewish Kentucky Oral History Project, sponsored by the Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence. It's February 3rd, 2017, and thank you for agreeing to do this interview, Fred.

JOSEPH: This is exciting. I'm very pleased to do it.

ELY: Great. And, uh, we talked about there'll be kind of a mix of personal questions about your family, and some questions about your work and your work in the community, so we may move back and forth a little bit, and, uh, we'll just see how it unfolds. So I'll start out with a, a question, which for you is really a big and important one, which is, when did members of your family first come to America and what brought them here?

JOSEPH: interestingly, on both my mother's and father's side, they came in the late 1850s, uh, and I've researched dramatically what caused them to come and I don't know. Um, I assume that--in all cases, they came from Germany, with one exception; one came from, uh, Denmark, uh, but, um, uh, I don't know why they--why they came. They came in, uh, interestingly, they came to this area. On my father's side, they came to Shelbyville, Kentucky in 1858. And on my mother's side, they came to Cincinnati, uh, and moved to New Albany, and then moved back to Cincinnati, and then moved to Arkansas, uh, and, uh, all of that happened, uh, in the late 1850s.

ELY: Do you know anything about what part of Germany they may have come from?

JOSEPH: Uh, the--on my father's said, they call came from Württemberg near st--near Stuttgart. Uh, and on my mother's side, uh, they came from near Hanover. Um, but there was a part of the family, uh, that had come from Denmark. My great, great, great-grandmother on my mother's side was the daughter of a Polish rabbi who moved to Copenhagen, and, uh, then she met my great, great-granddad in Germany and came to the United States.

ELY: So do you know anything about the political and religious beliefs they had in Europe? Were they part of the movement of liberals from Germany during the 1840s and 50s?

JOSEPH: On my grand-- on my father's side, they were very much a part of that liberal moment. In fact, I have a copy of a confirmation certificate, uh, from 00:03:001851, uh, I believe it is. It's late-1840s, early-1850s, of my great, great--of my great-granddad in Germany. Um, uh, on my mother's side, I assume since he was an orthodox rabbi, he was not. The most interesting story on a religious basis though, is that, um, my great, great-grandmother on mother's side had two brothers, uh, in Denmark, uh, that became disaffected with the Jewish religion and founded the Baptist Church in Germany.

ELY: Hm.

JOSEPH: And are sufficiently well known as major factors in the Baptist religion that, uh, a reference to them is made on the church windows at Highland Baptist Church at Grinstead Drive in, in, in Louisville.

ELY: Oh.

JOSEPH: And they, uh, have, uh, are major players in the world Baptist religion. Uh, of course the family sat shiva, uh, at the time that they became involved, but it is an interesting story that, uh, relates to, uh, the relig--the religious feelings of the family at that time.

UNKNOWN: I'm gonna stop.

ELY: Had you ever been asked to speak at the church about your family's connection? Are they aware of it?

JOSEPH: Uh, they were very much aware of it. In fact, uh, he wrote a, a hymnal in German that contains some Baptist, uh, hymns that are used worldwide, uh, and they've used that, uh, uh, Bible as a study--something to base their study on on several occasions. And I've spoken with the minister there, who's very interested about it, yes.

ELY: That's interesting. I didn't know about this. So there are Jewish roots to the Baptist movement in Germany?

JOSEPH: They were the--very important in the early--in the early German Baptist 00:05:00movement, yes.

ELY: So when your family arrived in America, you talked about some of the places that they lived. What kind of professions were they following? What, what kind of work?

JOSEPH: Okay. Um, my--I'll start with Mother's family. Mother's family moved uh, uh, from Cincinnati to--they were--my great, great-grandfather was a friend of Isaac Mayer Wise.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: In Cincinnati. Um, and they moved to, uh, New Albany, where he had an auction house, um, that is now a French restaurant, uh, and, uh, several other related businesses, and then came, um, went back to Cincinnati, uh, for reasons that I never understood, uh, but then moved to Augusta County, uh, Arkansas, 00:06:00where he was the sheriff, uh, and then became, uh, the, uh, superintendent of instruction, and moved to Little Rock after that. Oh, and published a newspaper in August County, then moved to Little Rock where he studied law and became a lawyer, and was asked by the governor to be on the first board of trustees of the University of Arkansas, and he was the chairman of the site selection committee that selected Fayetteville as the, um, uh, site of the University of Arkansas, uh, and was then elected to the Arkansas legislature. The first Jew elected to the Arkansas legislature. Uh, and one of the things he was very involved in was, uh, passage of a bill which allowed--and this is a quote--Jewish preachers, uh, to perform wedding ceremonies because previously 00:07:00rabbis had not been a recognized religion, uh, which, uh, allowed their, their ceremonies to be recognized by the state. Uh, so, uh, that was--he was only there for, for one term, and then his son was a lawyer, um, the two of them were partners with, uh, the governor's brother. So they--there was a lot of involvement in state political things, uh, and interestingly, my great-grandfather who was, uh, actually born in New Albany and then moved to Georgia, was the Arkansas representative to the founding of the American Bar Association, and was, uh, the Arkansas representative in the founding of the American Jewish Committee. The Kentucky representative of the group was Isaac Bernheim, uh, and I have copies of minutes where the two of them sat on committees together.

ELY: So they were very well accepted in the highest branches of government. Do you know if there was any pushback because they were Jews, or was it really a very smooth transition? This is kind of a southern story in a way.

JOSEPH: It's a very southern story, uh, and interestingly, uh, the spouse of--I've dealt with one part of the family.

ELY: Okay.

JOSEPH: Another part of the Arkansas family, uh--that was the Cohn branch, which was my mother's--on Mother's side, and her matriarchal background--it was her patriarchal background. On the matriarchal side, the family was also very involved. Uh, her grandfather was, on the other side, was an early, um, very well received merchant, member of the city council, uh, um, members of the bank board, did a variety of things in Little Rock. And the family, which is the 00:09:00Ottenheimer family, uh, was a very important part of the Little Rock community. In fact, at this point, if you walk out of the Clinton Library in Little Rock and go along the river, you're on a, um, Belvedere, that's named after the Ottenheimer family.

ELY: Oh.

JOSEPH: So, uh, and they were very important in early library and educational programs in Little Rock.

ELY: So at some point the story circles back to Kentucky? You have some Kentucky, uh, ancestors you know about from the same time period, right?

JOSEPH: Well, they were--no. They stayed in Arkansas.

ELY: Okay.

JOSEPH: They stayed in Arkansas.

ELY: And that's your mother's background?

JOSEPH: Mother--and Mother--

ELY: All right.

JOSEPH: Mother was born in Little Rock and ended up in Miami, and my mother met my father in Miami. So, she came back here, but the family basically continued to be, uh, southern. Uh, there was a good part of the family in Little Rock and 00:10:00also in Dallas. So her family was all southern. In fact, it's interesting, when you think of Southern Jews, you think of Driving Miss Daisy. And the mother of the author of Driving--the parents of the author of Driving Miss Daisy lived next door to my grand--my grandparents--a generation--great-grandparents. So, it, it was very much the, uh, Driving Miss Daisy kind of, uh, early German-Jewish immigration.

ELY: So, then it's your, um, father's family that's in Kentucky--

JOSEPH: Yes.

ELY: --and Indiana, or just Kentucky?

JOSEPH: Just Kentucky.

ELY: Okay.

JOSEPH: My, uh, father's family came to Kentucky in the late 1850s, and again, for reasons I can't trace, um, on, on his mother's side--so, still my father's 00:11:00side, but on his--they moved to Shelbyville, outside of Shelbyville, where my great, great-granddad, uh, was a farmer, and, uh, had a substantial farm; about 400 acres. Uh, as best I can tell, uh, they grew hemp. Interestingly, they lived on Hemp Ridge Road. Uh, and--

ELY: Hemp was huge in Kentucky. People forget that. It was huge.

JOSEPH: It was a huge thing, uh, and he had four sons--I'm sorry; I'm missing a generation. One of his two sons, uh, stayed in Shelbyville, was the captain of the Shelby militia during the Civil War, and a very highly regarded, um, soldier. His, uh, um, group was known as the Mt. Eaton Sharpshooters, and there are books written about the fact that they were one of the most highly, uh, 00:12:00skilled group of marksmen in the, uh, Kentucky Militia. He then, in 1866, opened a men's clothing store in Shelbyville, uh, and, uh--which was in the family until eighteen--I'm sorry; until 1948. He had four sons who were very prominent in Shelbyville; one was mayor of Shelbyville, uh--my great-granddad was a member of the city council in Shelbyville, uh, but his sons were very prominent; one was the mayor, one was the head of the fair board, uh, another was the fire chief. So they were very prominent, uh, in Shelbyville, uh, which at that time had a substantial Jewish community, actually.

ELY: Synagogue? A temple or a synagogue then?

JOSEPH: No.

ELY: No?

JOSEPH: Uh, uh, they, for the most part, were members of Adath Israel here. Um, it turns out that Rabbi Rowe, uh, was very involved with the family. His 00:13:00predecessor at Adath Israel was Rabbi Enlow, uh, and if you read history of Shelby County families, Rabbi Enlow played a very important part of those. There's a lady from Lexington who is now ninety-six and whose name I can't remember, just published a book. She grew up in Shelbyville and an awful lot of her book relates to--and then lived in Lexington--relates to, uh, uh, Rabbi Enlow and Rabbi Rowe. So--but they basically came in and at that time, the railroad track that is now--it runs out Frankfort Avenue, it was the interurban that went between Louisville and Shelbyville, and you could get from Louisville to Shelbyville faster than on the interurban than you can now driving Sixty-Four, because my father used to go out on the interurban to the farm in Shelbyville, um, and commute back and forth. My--

ELY: And Adath Israel was downtown then, so the interurban train went right through downtown.

JOSEPH: Right. Right. Um, and, so my father went to Manual and he could go over to the railroad station, go out and end up in the center of Shelbyville in no time at all. And, um, my great-granddad, Captain Abe that we've been talking about, uh, la-- in later part of his life, around 1910, moved to Sixth Street in Louisville and commuted to Shelbyville every day. He was near central--lived near Central Park, but he moved to Louisville so that my grandmother was in school in Louisville. Um, which leaves--then I go back to my patriarchal part of my father's family, and they moved to Louisville in, around 1860 also, from Germany, and I have virtually no record of--I've been able to find not any 00:15:00information on why they're here, uh, uh, where they came from in Germany. Clear they were German. I have looked at the census records. They were all cattle traders, they all lived within a block of the stockyards, and, uh, um, the family was very involved in stock trading, which was the normal, uh, Jewish--a very normal Jewish occupation in Germany.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Um, but, I, I don't know why they came and I don't know how they ended up here.

ELY: And were they also part of the Adath Israel community?

JOSEPH: Yes.

ELY: Okay. And, uh, you have some very distinguished architects in your family. How--start that story. Where does that begin?

JOSEPH: All right. My, uh, grandfather, uh, was, uh, went to Manual High School and apprenticed himself to McDonald & Dodd, which was a very prominent architectural firm at that time. Uh, and, uh, his brother--and learned 00:16:00architecture through apprenticeship. His brother--younger brother, uh, became an engineer, got a degree from the University of Michigan, and in 1908--during the time they were at McDonald & Dodd did some really nice buildings. One of the buildings that he was most proud of was the old Presbyterian Seminary now, on Jefferson Community College on Broadway. Um, in 1908 they started their own firm, not--my father--my grandfather and his brother, which was the original Joseph & Joseph, and they became involved in a number of major projects and had a specialty in distillery design, and designed most all of Brown-Forman, did National Distillers, uh, Seagram, um, Stitzel-Weller. Worked on a lot of distillery projects, as well as some, some substantial, uh, Jewish buildings; they did the new Jewish hospital, Jewish community center, uh, Kneseth, uh, a 00:17:00number of buildings in Louisville. Uh, in early 1930s, my father and his first cousin, the son of other architects, graduated from Manual together, went to the University of Pennsylvania together, uh, in architecture, and when they graduated, came back to Louisville. So, it was Joseph & Joseph & Joseph & Joseph, um, which was quite a--

ELY: Easy to remember.

JOSEPH: Easy to remember, um, but--and was fine, except there was no work because it was the middle of the Depression and Louisville did not have enough, um, building to support the four of them. So, my, um, grandfather's brother and his son moved to Los Angeles and formed Joseph & Joseph in Los Angeles, and that, that left Joseph & Joseph in Louisville, which was my grandfather and my 00:18:00father. And, uh, so that firm is continued today through, uh, the Motor family, which was very close to my dad and kept the name, doing some--continuing to do some wonderful building.

ELY: So the firm still exists but it's Los Angeles based now?

JOSEPH: No, no. The firm--

ELY: No?

JOSEPH: --Joseph & Joseph is here, but there are no--

ELY: That's what I thought.

JOSEPH: --there are no Josephs involved with it, but, uh, um, they've kept the name and, and, kept the, the history.

ELY: So what buildings around town are still standing that you know that they designed?

JOSEPH: Well we have them--the, uh--

ELY: Some of the distilleries.

JOSEPH: Well, we, we talked about the distillery, I talked about the Jefferson Community College.

ELY: Right.

JOSEPH: The United Way building--

ELY: Great building.

JOSEPH: --on Broadway is theirs. Uh, uh, I mentioned various Jewish buildings, 00:19:00uh, the Lions Club Eye Bank is part of Jewish Hospital, uh, was my dad's. Um, uh, the--there are major buildings around the state. Um, for example, when my dad came back in the 1930s, there was almost no work here, so he spent three years in Morehead, Kentucky, uh, and he was the principle architect for Morehead State University, uh, and actually, uh, worked in conjunction with Olmsted--Frederick Law Olmsted firm in New York that designed Central Park and designed all the parks here, and when you look at the historical markings of, uh, at, at Morehead, it's a combination of Joseph & Joseph and Olmsted, which is, puts it in pretty interesting company.

ELY: Very elite company.

JOSEPH: Um, they--

ELY: They designed some movie theaters, too, I think for the Sweito chain?

JOSEPH: The Rialto--thank you.

ELY: Right.

JOSEPH: He did, uh, the Rialto, the Majestic, I'm not sure about the Mary Anderson, but they, they did a number of, um, uh, uh, uh, buildings in New Albany. They did the old Atherton Hospital, which is now, uh, something middle school. They did Hazelwood Elementary, uh, um, they did, uh, Eddyville State Prison, uh, which is an interesting departure from their normal work, and, uh, a number of theaters. I think the Rialto was the--was my granddad's favorite.

ELY: Any of the buildings on Fourth Street now? They may have been used for different purposes, but--

JOSEPH: I'm sorry, I didn't--

ELY: They may--some of the buildings may be used for different purposes now, but--

JOSEPH: Oh, all the buildings are for different purposes. Yeah.

ELY: --right.

JOSEPH: Um, and--yes.

ELY: Well, they clearly got a lot of important commissions. Do you think that they're being Jewish, uh, was a factor at all? They did a lot of work for the Jewish community, obviously, but any, um, anti-Semitism? I have to keep asking this question about anti-Semitism. Often the answer is, no, not at all, but I'm just throwing it out there.

JOSEPH: I didn't get any feel that there was. Now, it was interesting because Joseph & Joseph did all, all the Jewish work, Nolan & Nolan did all the Catholic work, um. There was some religious recognition to be sure, um, but I, I--that was not something that I--that I had heard.

ELY: Okay. Seems probably more of an advantage to them to be connected with the Jewish community because there was so much building going on, uh, for, uh, not just the organized community, but for entrepreneurs like the Sweitos with the movie theaters. So it was a good connection.

JOSEPH: Well, and, and, now that you mention that, they did the Bensinger Building on Main Street, for the old furniture store, and the Sweitos. And, and there were--there was Louisville--there was the standard country club, and--so they did have the contacts, and clearly--but one of their principle contracts was, in later years, was Jewish Hospital, which he did a lot of work for.

ELY: Um-hm. And this is a tricky question. I'm not sure I could answer it. Was there anything, since they were artists in a sense, was there anything that you could say was Jewish aesthetically or philosophically in their work? Do you think that they were influenced perhaps by their European roots or by--have you ever thought about it?

JOSEPH: I have. Uh, actually, uh, and I don't think there was anything Jewish in it. Interestingly, if you look at--my grandfather was a Shriner for eighty years, and if you notice, any, any influence, it's a, uh, sort of a, 00:23:00um--searching for a word--uh, Middle Eastern--

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: --but not necessarily Jewish influence that, that, that has some antecedents in, in, in, uh, the Shriner tradition. I, uh, and, it's covered--if you were to take off the façade of the, uh, United Way building on Broadway, you'd see a good deal of that, uh, but there are other places that that's, that's true of. Um, but I don't know anything, uh, I remember when Dad was designing the temple and when he was designing Kneseth, Kneseth, there was a lot of research done, but the major--but I don't think there was anything other than the influence of the, of the, um, specific congregations that had specific, um, 00:24:00interests and things that they wanted to reflect in those designs that they had brought because of their, uh, Jewish religion.

ELY: There was a, sort of a fad for Moorish architecture that you see in the synagogues and in the theaters, too, and then there's the classicism people went to when they wanted to hark back to Greece, and, and early American, and then modernism. Your dad designed the current Kneseth Israel on Taylorsville, or the earlier building?

JOSEPH: On, on Taylorsville Road, yeah.

ELY: Okay, which tries to be very modern in its appearance, so, there's fads in architecture, too. I just wondered if you saw any kind of a through line in their work.

JOSEPH: I don't.

ELY: Okay. Just interesting little diversion here. Um, okay. So, let's switch back to the personal now for a minute, and, uh, tell me your parent's names and when and where they were born, just.

JOSEPH: Okay. My father was Alfred S. Joseph, Jr., I'm Alfred S. Joseph, III. Um, obviously a strange relationship to Jewish tradition, but I am the third, which reflects the reform tradition. My father was born in Louisville, uh, I'm not gonna get a year right, but I in I think 1912, um, and I was born here in 1943. Mother was born in Little Rock, as we've discussed.

ELY: And her name?

JOSEPH: Her name was Dorothy Cone, originally C-o-h-n, and changed in nineteen--the middle of 1930 to C-o-n-e, because there was clearly some anti-Semitic effect on my grandparents that they thought the change in name might, might mitigate.

ELY: Hm. Do you know what the name Joseph was originally?

JOSEPH: No.

ELY: I'm assuming it wasn't Joseph in Germany.

JOSEPH: It, it--I, I--a very frustrating part of my historical research that I can't, uh, I just am completely blocked from the Joseph side.

ELY: So, you were born in Louisville in 1943?

JOSEPH: I was born in Louisville at Baptist Hospital, uh, which was, uh, another Joseph & Joseph building, actually--

ELY: (laughs)

JOSEPH: --over off of Broadway. Um, and, and that building has now run full cycle. They're trying to re, recycle it again. Um, but, yes, I was born in Louisville.

ELY: And, do you have brothers and sisters?

JOSEPH: I have a sister who now lives in Atlanta. She's three years younger than I am.

ELY: And, uh, what neighborhood did you live in when you were growing up?

JOSEPH: Well, that's an interesting question. I grew up, uh, block and a half from the Baptist seminary on Lexington Road, uh, and, uh, any--of all the things 00:27:00that I think have affected my life, that neighborhood, uh, was probably the most important because I went to Clark School then to Barret Junior High School before going to Atherton, uh, and with one exception, I had never been in a class with anyone in public schools that was Jewish until I got to high school. Uh, and the Baptist seminary was a critical part of my growing up because so many of my friends were affiliated--families affiliated with the seminary. So it affected, uh, how, I, I looked at things in a way that would not have been the case had I grown up in the Highlands where--which was, uh, where most Jewish families lived at the time.

ELY: Did you find yourself in religious debates with your friends, or?

JOSEPH: Well, sure.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Um, and I was always the one, it, it--there were major differences, uh, for example, um, at Barret Junior High there were never any sock-hops like at 00:28:00Highland, where there were always sock-hops. And to this day, I'll say, "I never learned to dance because I grew up Baptist." Uh, uh, and, um, whenever there was a holiday, I would be asked to come to the front of the class and say, we have someone Jewish in the class explain this. But there was also a heavy dose of Christmas music and very religious music that I'm sure was not, uh, part of the Highland experience.

ELY: Did, did you ever object to that in any way, or did you just go along?

JOSEPH: Uh, I, I, I--object is perhaps too strong a word. I've certainly felt it and I--my parents talked with the teachers a little bit about it. I never felt that it was, um, pushed--I never felt pushed by it. Uh, I had an identity that 00:29:00recognized it, um, uh, and the Baptist seminary at that time was a much more open place than it is today. Um, most people don't recognize, for example, that Rabbi Waller got his doctorate in divinity at the Baptist seminary.

ELY: I did not know that.

JOSEPH: Uh, and interestingly, one of his classmates, who is Monsignor Horrigan, who was the first president of Bellermine. Uh, uh, and so that you had a very prominent Catholic and a very prominent Jew getting, uh, doctorates of divinity at a Baptist seminary. And, it--the--one of my closest friends, who continues to be a close friend to the day, uh, was the son of the president of the Baptist seminary, and I spent probably as many hours at the--at that home as I did at mine, and had the opportunity at one point to meet Billy Graham. I mean, it 00:30:00was--it was a whole different world for me, but I never, uh, from that group, never felt, um, that I was--that they were trying to convert me or pressure me. Um, it was a, a, a pretty, um, open experience. Now, that changed when I went to high school, because at Atherton at that time there were, uh, social clubs, um, that, um, were a very important part of the social youth, and at the center there were BBYO clubs, and other clubs that were important, and all of my friends, my closest friends, were non-Jewish, and I was told, absolutely, that there was no way that I was gonna be in one of their social clubs. Um, and, um, so that drew me to the center, and I was a member of Pi Tau Pi at the center, um, not necessarily because those were my closest friends, but because, if I 00:31:00wanted to be in the social activity, um, it wasn't going to be with the people that I'd grown up with.

ELY: Hmm. I've heard a lot about the social clubs at the center, and the important role it played in people's lives, but I didn't realize that it was because there were high school clubs that were restricted also in town.

JOSEPH: Well the other clubs were very restricted, to be sure.

ELY: So--

JOSEPH: Um, now, the, the, the experience at the center was a remarkable experience for me because these were people that I had been to Sunday school with but had not known well, uh, and, uh, it was a--I very much enjoyed that, but it was not because--it was not my first choice; my first choice was to stay with my friends.

ELY: Were your friends embarrassed at all about that, or was it just an accepted thing?

JOSEPH: It was an accepted thing.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: And, and there were, uh, I mean, there were worse things that happened. I mean, I remember as a kid, one of my friends took me to the Louisville Country Club and we were swimming, uh, and, uh, the lifeguard blew the whistle; 00:32:00everybody out, there's a Jew in the pool. Uh, and the family was asked not to bring that person back if they wanted to continue to be a member of the, uh, of the Louisville Country Club. Um, so it isn't as if I haven't experienced something much more dramatic than that, but, um, the, uh, the social clubs in high school were pretty--were pretty clear that it was Jewish and non-Jewish.

ELY: Going back to the pool for a minute, I mean, I could say, "How did that make you feel?" and the answer is probably terrible, but did--did you talk to your parents about it?

JOSEPH: Oh sure.

ELY: Did you talk to your friend? Your friend's parents? What did people say?

JOSEPH: Yeah, and they were- they were--they withdrew from the, from the, from the, from the club, actually, as a result of that.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: But it--but you--but one was very clear at that time that Jews were not accepted at several of the country clubs, uh, and some of the social clubs, uh, 00:33:00downtown, uh, and that continued certainly--I don't know that it's ended in every place, but it--but it was certainly a prominent thing. I joined--when I came back to Louisville in 1972 from Washington, uh, I was told by several major law firms that they didn't interview Jews. Uh, so that's as late as '72. Now, those--those firms have now changed, but, but that was clear, and when I, uh, was a member of a firm that was very active with the Pendennis Club, um, uh, they asked if I would like to become a member because they were trying to transition from a very restrictive situation to something that was less so, and I--that's certainly not something I had an interest in, although it was 00:34:00interesting to have the discussion. Um, but that kind of thing, uh--and the other situation that's so interesting, uh, I currently live in Indian Hills, which when I was growing up, uh, was very restricted, and, uh, effectively red-lined against blacks and Jews. Uh, and many of the deeds in Indian Hills, uh, had anti-Israelite and anti-black language in the--in the deeds, and certainly the, uh, realtors were not interested in selling homes to Jews over there.

ELY: I heard a story once from John Yarmuth that when he moved to Glenview, his family moved, they were shunned by all the neighbors until the Binghams came over and shook their hands, and then suddenly they were okay. So, there's--

JOSEPH: I'm sure that that's--yeah.

ELY: --yeah, a period of transition there where the social norms were maybe 00:35:00starting to break down, but not quite--not quite yet. Well, circling back a little bit, in--growing up in your family, what kind of, um, uh, Jewish education did you have? What kind of Judaism did your parents practice? What, what was your relationship to that?

JOSEPH: Uh, very, very, very, very reform. Um, we went to synagogue on the high holy days. Um, we probably went on Passover, uh, we had a Christmas tree at home, um, and, um, I went to Sunday school, reluctantly, uh, and with, uh, a good deal of pressure. But it was not a, uh, it was a not a day-to-day practicing of religion in the household.

ELY: So it was a social identification in a way? You identified with the Adath 00:36:00Israel community?

JOSEPH: Very strongly--very strongly iden--very strongly social identification. Mother and Dad were very close, were good friends with Rabbi and Mrs. Waller. Um, I remember vividly the fiftieth anniversary of my grandparents, uh, where we had, uh, only family there, but also, uh, Rabbi and Mrs. Waller and Rabbi and Mrs. Rowe, because I think they were all good friends. So, it was, it was a strong identification, but not a lot of, uh, of, of religious practice.

ELY: Um-hm. And your education was through Sunday school, mainly?

JOSEPH: To the extent there was education, as I said.

ELY: Okay. (laughs)

JOSEPH: I was--interestingly, I was not bar mitzvahed and I, and, until I had gone to college and came back to Louisville after having lived in Washington. I 00:37:00had never been to a bar mitzvah.

ELY: Hmm.

JOSEPH: So, that, that none of the, my friends who had bar mitzvahs here, none of, that was just not something that was part of the group with whom I ran.

ELY: Did you, I think, did you go to a Jewish camp, or do other youth activities when you were young? Jewish youth activities?

JOSEPH: Uh, I went to a camp in Wisconsin that was primarily Jewish, although there were no Jewish activities. I, I was with a group of, of five folks, uh, or six folks, who all were Jewish, and we stayed, uh, uh, we went through a number of years of camp together, um, but none of us, um, were actively involved in, in real religious activities. Interestingly, uh, the camp has, uh, uh, had a number of folks who came from the camp into very prominent Jewish activities; the dean 00:38:00of Hebrew Union College now was at camp with me. Um, yeah. He was not--he's younger, but there were, and there were several rabbis that came out of camp. It was not a NFTY camp or an OFTY camp or any of those things, but it was primarily Jewish.

ELY: And, uh, when you were growing up, did your, was your father involved in the Jewish community? Um, the organized Jewish community, with any groups or?

JOSEPH: My father was not a participant. Uh, Mother was. Um, Mother was very active, uh, in the Council of Jewish Women. Am I throwing you off your list?

ELY: I finished the first page. We're moving on.

JOSEPH: Mother was very active in, um, National Council of Jewish Women. She, during the war she had gotten interested in mental illness, had done some work with returning veterans, uh, and got very interested in, uh, mental illness, and 00:39:00was one of the founders of Bridgehaven, which is, uh, a halfway house in Louisville, was the second president of Bridgehaven. Uh, she then became--then got interested in, uh, working, uh, with the state mental health program through National Council of Jewish Women, uh, and became the, uh, director of forensic psychiatry at Central State Hospital, uh, and special assistant to the commissioner of mental health, which was pretty remarkable because Mother never went to college. Uh, and, uh, received several national awards for her involvement in mental health. But all of it started with, uh, National Council of Jewish Women, uh, which she had gotten involved with through some, uh, influence of my grandmother, uh, who had been president of National Council of Jewish Women in 1920, and had used it as a vehicle in several educational 00:40:00programs, went beyond the Jewish community, and my grandmother had been very active also.

ELY: What was your grandmother's name?

JOSEPH: She was Helen Joseph. She was Helen Rothschild Joseph.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: She was part of the family that came from Shelbyville to Louisville.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Um, and, uh, so Mother had become very close friends with Fanny Rose Rosenbaum, uh, and with Betty Jane Fleischaker, and there was a whole group of women at that time who were, uh, certainly, um, in front of their time and doing really important, interesting things in the community. So, uh, I, my involvement in the community comes from Mother actually, rather than from Dad. Dad was very involved with work, but had, uh, no particular community involvement.

ELY: Was there anybody else as you were growing up that was, uh, an influence on your life later?

JOSEPH: Interestingly, um, there was, there was some, there was, in the ways of 00:41:00southern families and--it was a black lady that worked for my grandparents when I was growing up, and later worked for us, and, uh, she was a, the granddaughter of a slave, and her two grandkids I later got to know; one was a CPA and one was a PhD teacher. And she started, she did everything in the family; she helped my grandparents, she helped my parents, uh, subsequently she worked with, for Anne and me in, in raising our kids, and it was my--it was the experience with her that really, I think, created some interest in civil rights, in that she was, uh, clearly not formally educated, but clearly extraordinarily bright, 00:42:00determined that she was gonna change her family, which she did, determined that she was gonna, um, stand up for what she believed in, and determined that nobody was gonna speak down to her or give her sass. And, I can't help but think that starting with someone like that at an early age gave me a different perspective on, uh, um, civil rights, than had I not had that experience or had, um, had parents who were, uh, less, uh, tolerant or less concerned about civil rights than mine. My, my, my father had, um, at any early stage--and I don't remember all the details, but I remember he hired a black architect years and years 00:43:00before that would have happened, and a number of his, his clients just beat up on him. It was something that was discussed at home and it was a trauma for him, uh, and he was not somebody that was gonna go out and lead a civil rights, um, march, or do anything like that, but he needed an architect, somebody applied, the person was good, he hired him and sort of, that was the way it was. And reaction was something that was a, that was important in the household. So, there were a number of things like that that, that, I think, the lady was Dubby Overstreet and she probably influenced me a lot.

ELY: Interesting. And, uh, she was with you through your childhood?

JOSEPH: She, she started working for my parents, my grandparents, when I was about five, and she stayed working with the family through the time my kids finished elementary school, when they had their elementary school graduation she 00:44:00was--actually she may have been there for there, one of their high school--[break in recording]--family event, she was a part of.

ELY: Hmm. And you still stay in touch with her family? You know her grandchildren?

JOSEPH: No.

ELY: No?

JOSEPH: No, once she, once she died, that, I worked with her family on her estate, but I have not kept track.

ELY: And, uh, then where did you go to college? What was that decision making process like?

JOSEPH: Uh, well, uh, everyone that I went to camp with, uh, was interested in going to college, to an Ivy League college. Uh, the group that I mentioned, one went to Dartmouth, two went to Harvard, two went to Yale. Uh, so there was an influence to head--and my dad had been at Pennsylvania, and my granddad had been at Cornell. So, the thought was go east. And I was thinking about several schools, um, but there were several schools that had fraternities. And, I was 00:45:00conscious of not going to any school that had Jewish fraternities. I'd--the whole high school thing that I mentioned to you was an important thing to me that I wanted to avoid in college. Uh, a good friend of mine, uh, from high school, and fellow named Fred Kurim, who was Lebanese, uh, and had been very important friend of mine since junior--since grade school, actually, uh, went to a school called Wesleyan in Connecticut. Wesleyan at that time was known as part of the "Little Three"; Amherst, Williams and Wesleyan, and the big three were Yale, Harvard and Princeton. And Fred was very influential in getting me to apply to Wesleyan, and, uh, explained that the, that there were fraternities there, but they were fraternities not related to the kind of, did not have the kind of concerns that I did, uh, and, uh, convinced me that it was a very small 00:46:00school, so I had an opportunity to, to meet professors in a way that I wouldn't at a bigger school, and there was no graduate school, so I wasn't competing for the professors' time. So I went to Wesleyan. Uh, and I went to Wesleyan with a friend from Atherton who was non-Jewish, um, and we roomed together our first year. Uh, we, we joined a fraternity, which was a very interesting experience because, in my fraternity class, there were, uh, I thin five Jews, five or six Catholics, two blacks, um, everything was, was completely different than most fraternities, and, and, it, it offered an opportunity to--I had Catholic roommates two years, I had a black roommate one year. I'll come back to that because he was a major influence. But it, it was a very expansive, rather than 00:47:00limiting, situation.

ELY: So were there, um, explicitly Jewish activities that the fraternity did, or was there another place on campus where you could say, go for high holidays or Passover?

JOSEPH: Well, it was a very--there were only, uh, 190 in my class. So, Wesleyan was very small. There was, uh, if there was Hillel at all on campus, uh, I never darkened its doors.

ELY: Never found it.

JOSEPH: But it was interesting, uh, there was a congregation, uh, two blocks from the fraternity house; Adath Israel, interestingly. Uh, and I, I attended high holy day services there, and actually, um, was dating the, my first year, dated a woman that I, uh, was, uh, a senior in high school at the time, at Adath Israel, and there was a--so I did participate in, in, in things there. In the fraternity, um, it was interesting because there was always a blessing before 00:48:00the meal, uh, and you rotated through so that you had a mixture of, of, of Jewish blessings, Catholic blessings. We had, uh, the president was Mormon. Um, there was a little bit of everything, which I found, uh, just delightful, and, and, and very interesting.

ELY: Ecumenical group.

JOSEPH: Absolutely.

ELY: And, uh, what years were you in college?

JOSEPH: Uh, um, I was in college--I graduated in '65, so I was there from '61 to '65.

ELY: So you were in college during a very pivotal time of change on college campuses.

JOSEPH: Yes.

ELY: So, were you involved at all with politics when you were in college?

JOSEPH: Well, I was, I had a special view to history, uh, interestingly. Um, my 00:49:00junior year I roomed with a gentleman named, uh, Ron Young. Uh, Ron had been assistant minister to Reverend, uh, James Lawson--excuse me--who was a minister in, uh, Memphis, and was the person who organized SNCC; Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. And had been the mentor of John Lewis. And, Ron took of a year to work with James Lawson as part of the Civil Rights Movement. Wesleyan had, the year that he came back, actually Martin Luther King gave the commencement address at Wesleyan, um, and I had, at that time Wesleyan had the highest number--not the highest percentage, but the highest absolute number of 00:50:00kids going on the Mississippi Summer Project. Um, one of--the fellow who lived next door to me had been, uh, in Cleveland, Mississippi, and between the first floor and the second floor of the jail had gotten a concussion and two broken ribs from the sheriff. Um, so that the Mississippi Summer Project and what was happening in Memphis were not academic things to me. I knew an awful lot of people who had gone to Mississippi, and Ron later became chairman of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which organized the peace march on Washington. Uh, actually, uh, lived with us in Washington for six months while that was being organized. So, all the commotion in the 60s was very personal, and, uh, having a--it was more personalized by the fact that my third roommate at the time was 00:51:00black, um, and came home with us at one point in 1964, and people think of segregated hotels, etcetera, in the South. The rule coming home from school was, you had to stop--we drove--and you had to stop one night because we didn't want to be too tired. So we were coming through West Virginia and northern Ohio, and we went to eight hotels before they would let the two of us stay in the same room together, notwithstanding the fact that we lived together, uh, all the time. And ultimately, the only reason they did was that he had a dashiki with him and we told them that he was, uh, African royalty so it didn't count, and, and ultimately that's how we did it. It turns out he was from Nigeria, but if we had not explained that he was African royalty, we would probably still be 00:52:00driving looking for a, a hotel. So, all of that, um, was certainly of influence, uh, in terms of, uh, things that, that happened in my world of civil rights.

ELY: So, you went to Mississippi then, or later?

JOSEPH: I did not.

ELY: Okay.

JOSEPH: No, I did not, but I knew so many folks that did.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: At that time, uh, I was trying to determine what my thesis was gonna be, because I wanted to graduate with honors; to do that you had to have a thesis. And, it did convince me that I was going to look at, at--I'll use the terminology of the time--Negro leadership in Louisville. So, I got a grant from the Falk Foundation in Philadelphia, uh, to do, to spend five semesters researching black legal leadership in Louisville, and, uh, had--took off a 00:53:00summer and met with most every meaningful black leader in Louisville, uh, for my thesis. And, subsequently worked for the Human Relations Commission in using some of the data, and the Human Relations Commission published a book that I'd written, a pamphlet I'd written, uh, on the results of the, of the, of that study.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: And, it gave me, uh, contact with an awful lot of folks I never would have met, um, and it, it--I was blessed by the fact that the family had a tradition with black leadership. The, um, my, um, oldest black funeral home is Porter Funeral Home, and Woody Porter, Sr., uh, was, you may recall, head of the board of trustees of University of Louisville, at the time, um, but my grandfather had designed the first Porter funeral home, and my father worked 00:54:00with, uh, Woody Porter, Sr., on their funeral home, so that there had been a tie in the families that way, where--and Mr. Porter was very helpful in, in getting, um, me the opportunity to meet with Lyman Johnson and a whole lot of other--Frank Stanley, Sr. A number of folks. It turns out that Lyman Johnson, who's a very well-known black leader in Louisville, went to University of Michigan where I was going to law school. So he took me under his wing, and I was helped to find things in ways I never could have done before.

ELY: So, do you feel like you were getting a sort of sense of mission? That you were going to help Louisville with its racial divide and--

JOSEPH: There was no mission at that time.

ELY: Right. (laughs)

JOSEPH: It was purely--it was an academic situation, solely.

ELY: Okay.

JOSEPH: And, um--excuse me--um, but that was, it was not a mission at that point.

ELY: Right. So, you decided in the course of this to go to law school?

JOSEPH: I decided to go to law school, um, and I'd pretty much had it with the East. It was fairly condescending, um, and I was clearly an outsider.

ELY: Because you were a Southerner or Jew or both?

JOSEPH: Um, a little bit of both. Um, more, more Southerner, but it was also, um, I was a public school guy, and Wesleyan--as with many of the schools at that time--was about seventy-five percent prep school folks; Andover, Exeter, Choate, uh, I was at Atherton. And, and, and Atherton at that time did not have the reputation that Andover, Exeter or Choate did. So, there was a little bit of snobbery that way. Um, it was interesting, I had, my first date at Wesleyan was 00:56:00with the twin sister of a very close friend, and my close friend was the son of the president of Lincoln Center, had been president of Julliard and had a--was Jewish--had a very high, uh, social standing in New York. And so, we went out on, we went out on a date. My date said, "You know, I don't understand how a good school like Wesleyan could allow somebody like you to come, because you don't have the cultural background to absorb, um, the education they're trying to provide." And it went downhill from there.

ELY: Wow.

JOSEPH: So, I very quickly started to realize that, if I was going to have a social life that left any of my ego intact--

ELY: (laughs)

JOSEPH: --I would, uh, be dating women who were western and southern, rather 00:57:00than eastern. So, when it came time to, uh, go to law school, um, my professor--my advisor had pushed me very hard, uh, to go to Harvard, and I just wasn't gonna do it. So, Michigan, at that point, had, uh, twenty-eight thousand women, which was twenty-eight thousand more than Wesleyan had, and I decided that that was a good place to go. Uh, and so I ended up in law school in Ann Arbor.

ELY: Um-hm. And at what point did you meet your wife?

JOSEPH: Um--

ELY: There or later?

JOSEPH: No, well--I'll digress to that, okay?

ELY: Well, to tell, tell me more about--we'll do it chronologically.

JOSEPH: No, well we can do that, because Michigan has a, has a role in that. Um, from the eighth grade through college I was dating, uh, a woman from Louisville, Lynn Lewis, um, who--off and on, but who went to Sophie Newcomb, um, and one of 00:58:00her close friends at Sophie Newcomb was Anne Webman, later to be Anne Joseph. And, uh, um, about our junior year, Anne came home with Lynn and we met at that point, had a date, we were not interested in one another at all, and I continued to date Lynn. And, when I went to Michigan, Lynn transferred from, uh, Newcomb to Michigan, in part so that we could be together. Well, in the intervening years she met and married, uh, Dr. Ken Silk, who's remained a very, very close friend, and Anne and I were both in their wedding. Uh, and, um, still weren't interested in one another, uh, but were with a group of friends who, uh, had us both at their weddings, and ultimately, when I moved to Washington, she moved to Washington the same week from Boston where she had been working, and we started 00:59:00dating then and got married a year later. But we got married through the Louisville connection of, of the Lewis family.

ELY: So, back to law school.

JOSEPH: I'm doing damage to your outline.

ELY: No, that's okay. I'd rather have it be organic, so that's fine. When you were in law school, did you, um, have a particular vision for the kind of law you wanted to do and where you wanted to do it?

JOSEPH: Absolutely. Um, I knew the first day I did not want to be a litigator, did not want to go to court, did not want to talk publically, did not want to do any of those things. Uh, and I didn't want to do--uh, my law school yearbook says, "Urban Development Law" as my choice, and I had--I was working for a professor who was very involved in civil rights matters, and we worked on civil rights, and actually, uh, worked with governor, with then Governor Romney--George Romney, not the son--

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: --on the drafting of the, uh, Michigan open housing statute, and so that most of my research at that time was in civil rights law, and I wrote several papers on urban development, housing statutes, what was happening in, in with then FHA before it became HUD. So, that was what I wanted to do. I wasn't ready to come back to Louisville. I wanted to go to Washington. So, um, uh, my applications were to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and to the Office of Economic Opportunity, which was the site of, of President Johnson's war on poverty.

ELY: HUD must have been brand new then, wasn't it?

JOSEPH: I'm sorry?

ELY: HUD was brand new then?

JOSEPH: HUD was absolutely brand new.

ELY: Right.

JOSEPH: It, it was, um, they were just hiring the initial people, and, uh, uh, I think the first year for HUD was 1967, which was when I was applying, so it was 01:01:00all, it was, everything was new and it was a completely different organization than it is now.

ELY: So it's interesting that the civil rights and the family background in architecture kind of come together with the work on housing issues.

JOSEPH: Well, it was a very natural thing.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: And, and, uh, I was not unaware of that. My dad had--Dad had wanted me very much to come into the architectural firm, and I, I didn't want to do that for a whole variety of reasons. But when I was at Wesleyan, um, other than the civil rights stuff that I was doing with respect to the, uh, thesis, uh, all of my study was on urban renewal, uh, city planning, uh, history of architecture, uh, and, and, it, it was, so it, but HUD was the place that was most likely that I wanted to be. It turns out that I was much more interested in HUD than they 01:02:00were in me, uh, so I, I did not get a job offer, uh, and, uh, interestingly I didn't get a job--I was turned down at OEO, also. Uh, so I was looking for a job between my second and third years of law school, and I got a call from OEO--

ELY: OEO is?

JOSEPH: I'm sorry. The Office of Economic Opportunity.

ELY: Okay.

JOSEPH: The poverty program.

ELY: Okay.

JOSEPH: From OEO saying, um, in effect, uh, "We've, we know we turned you down. Um, the people we wanted, the person we wanted got sick. Are you too proud to, uh, take a job where you're not first choice?" And I said, "Well, I have a lot of weaknesses, but pride won't, wouldn't interfere with that." So, I, uh, worked with them, with OEO, my second, after my second year in law school. Just loved it. It was a remarkable, remarkable group of people, uh, and they offered me a 01:03:00job after law school, and so, that's where I ended up there. But, it, the, the people that Johnson had working for Sargent Shriver, and Sarge had, were just remarkable.

ELY: And what kind of work did you do there?

JOSEPH: Um, OEO was divided into several groups. I was with the, what was called community action, and community action, uh, had, uh, a variety of programs, initiated a variety of programs, including Head Start, uh, legal services, foster grandparents, uh, and a variety of manpower programs. Um, my principle thing was with manpower programs, although I was, uh, worked with interagency civil rights group, um, with folks like John Doar, at civil rights, justice, uh, and, um, uh, create, and, and, programs, uh, innovative programs like healthcare 01:04:00with Park DuValle Health Center was funded by OEO in 1968, uh, I did the legal sign off on that.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Uh, and, so, it was a variety of things. I did not do, um, Vista--any of the Vista work, and did not do any Job Corps work. So basically there were three, three major areas, and I was doing mostly research and development and manpower kinds of things.

ELY: So when you lived in Washington--and what years were you in Washington?

JOSEPH: I was in Washington, um, the summer of '67 through '72.

ELY: Okay. Uh, so where'd you live in Washington?

JOSEPH: Uh, I lived in George--in Georgetown, right across, uh, on Twenty-fifth Street, right across, uh, the Rock Creek Parkway, and worked, um, near DuPont 01:05:00Circle. Uh, while I was with OEO. Later when, uh, Anne and I were married, uh, we, uh, moved to, uh, southeast, uh, four blocks behind the Library of Congress.

ELY: You were pioneers in Capitol Hill area?

JOSEPH: It was a bizarre area. Um, it was becoming gentrified. Our street had about half professionals and half welfare folks. Uh, and all of the, um, controversies, uh, were other than what you would anticipate. Uh, for example, uh, there was a very, very well-known house of prostitution, uh, around the corner from us, uh, and the major--

ELY: Close to the Capitol. Makes sense, yeah. Yeah.

JOSEPH: It was the Capitol. Uh, and, the issue was that, on Saturday night, because of the, uh, the occupation and the interest in the community, it was 01:06:00very hard for the residents to park. So we had to negotiate parking, uh, a parking arrangement, where they didn't interfere with the residents. But it was a wonderful situation in that everyone talked to one another; our next door neighbor was on welfare, our congressman was, lived across the street from us, and everyone really got along. Um, it was a very, very high crime area. There was no house--in the year and a half we lived there, there was no house that was not burglarized, uh, including ours; we were burglarized one night. Uh, and, when you walked down the street, uh, after dark, you walked in the middle of the road. You didn't walk on the sidewalk. But, I was, by that time, I was working on the Hill and could walk to work very easily, and, and loved being down there. It, it was a very rapidly changing area, though.

ELY: Was there a Jewish community there, in the area? Or were you part of a 01:07:00Jewish community when you went to Washington?

JOSEPH: Well, we were very, we were part of the Jewish community, but, but there was, there was no synagogue on Capitol Hill, that I remember. We, we joined a synagogue, uh, uh, actually, that was in Maryland, uh, we were married in Washington at Temple Sinai. Uh, and, part of the reason for that was the Rabbi was extraordinarily, uh, well-respected gentleman in D.C.; he was the head of the ACLU, which fascinated me, and, and, we were very--we were active at the temple there, but not in, uh, downtown Washington.

ELY: So, at some point something brought you back to Louisville?

JOSEPH: I'd already, I'd always known that, um, uh, I was gonna come back to Louisville, and at the point that, uh, um, it became clearer that, that I didn't 01:08:00want to stay in Washington. Uh, I'd left OEO and was civil rights counsel for House judiciary, which was an interesting experience that I, I gather will come up in your questioning. But, um, I wanted to come back to Louisville. I'd always wanted to come back to Louisville and Anne knew I wanted to come back to Louisville. So, um, we, in '72, decided that that was the time, and we took--we didn't--there were a lot of things we wanted to do, so we sold everything we owned, took seven months and came from the Arctic Circle to the Sahara, um, before coming back, and, um, then came back to Louisville to, to practice law with a private law firm.

ELY: Interesting. Will you have a story about the House judiciary when you were there, or?

JOSEPH: Well, House judiciary was interesting because, um, I was doing a, um, primarily involved in, uh, working with the enforcement of the Voting Rights 01:09:00Act, and, uh, President Nixon, uh, and John Mitchell were really doing everything possible not to enforce the Voting Rights Act because southern states were their primary voting base, um, and I as co-counsel--

ELY: Sounds so familiar. (both laugh) Go on.

JOSEPH: Things don't change. But, uh, I was co-counsel with a fellow who, black lawyer, who was, had been at Columbia law school, been born in Havana, uh, and the two of us had some, uh, really interesting experiences, uh, partly relating to being Jewish. I spent a lot of time in Mississippi, um, um, which was the concentration of our study, uh, and was down there for weeks at a time, and, was interesting because we were not allowed to travel, uh, without FBI protection. So if we left Jackson to go to Coahoma County, we would have an FBI agent as a 01:10:00driver, uh, and my most interesting experience was, uh, the Hinds County registrar was very cooperative, and, uh, very helpful. Asked, we were there over a weekend, and he said, "Would you come to my brother's house for dinner one night?" And I said, "Be happy to, but I have to clear it with the FBI." So I got FBI clearance for, to go to the house, and we sat down to dinner, and in Southern tradition, his brother-in-law was at the head of the table and I was sitting to his right and his wife was at the other end of the table, and she brought out a plate of pork chops. And, uh, I don't keep kosher, have never have, so the gentleman offered me the platter and I took it, and put a pork chop on my plate, and he said, "I'm glad you took that. If I thought you were one of those New York Jews, and if you hadn't eaten that I would have blown your head off." Um, and that was Mississippi at the time.

ELY: Wow.

JOSEPH: Um, and, um, so I was very, the Jewishness was mixed in, aside from the fact that being from Kentucky I was a northerner, which was an interesting experience, um, uh, there was a, a, a, clearly a Jewish consciousness in the whole Mississippi situation. And, I had been very conscious of the Jewish civil rights aspect of things because at OEO, the two people that were really involved in organizational kind of things, came--it filtered over as principle, um, hearing subjects, at, at, at House judiciary, where a gentleman named Hy Bookbinder, who was later, uh, who, at that point, the intergovernmental relations director at OEO, uh, and was subsequently the chief lobbyist for the 01:12:00American Jewish Committee, uh, and he was very, very involved in Jewish activities, and, and whatever, and brought a Jewish perspective to this whole aspect of poverty and civil rights. Um, he is somebody that I stayed close to, and he had offered me a job as his assistant as lobbyist for AJC, and I didn't want it. It wasn't enough law, I didn't want to do that. Another fellow was named Joe Rauh, uh, who, uh, was the chairman of the, um, conference on civil, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and was a principal draftsman for the Civil Rights Act of '64 and the Voting Rights Act of '65. And so that, when you were involved in, in, in leadership activities at, um, the legislative level, the Jewish community was very, very visible. Uh, and both Joe Rauh and Booky 01:13:00were, were, made one very conscious that if you were Jewish, you were in the place that, that other were, were leading.

ELY: Um-hm. And, uh, that consciousness of the Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights Movement was part of the consciousness of the people who were in the South, who--

JOSEPH: Oh, sure.

ELY: --dubious, the guy was gonna blow your head off, was, um, not only aware that you were Jewish, he was making distinctions between a true southern Jew and one of those northerners.

JOSEPH: Well, I think that, that, that an awful lot of southern folks thought that every Jew was a civil rights person, and, and a communist.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: And, um, of course a lot of the Jewish leadership, like Hy Bookbinder, came from garment workers and other labor unions.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Um, uh, and from big cities and organizational things, the organizational skills that they brought to the movement came from, from labor, in, in many ways. Um, but yeah, for sure the South was, was conscious.

ELY: Um-hm. So, when you came, uh, back to Louisville, there were some people working on civil rights issues and open housing issues at that point, or was that more earlier than when you came back?

JOSEPH: Well, I was out, I was away from Louisville from 1961 to 1973.

ELY: Okay.

JOSEPH: And, a lot of the sit-ins and things of that nature, uh, had passed. But, the big issue, aside--and, and some of the white testing that Anne Braden did, and, and whatever, was still lingering, but I--it wasn't something that I 01:15:00was involved in. Um, the thing that, that I was most involved in, I came back, I was chairman of, uh, Legal Aid Society, which was the principle counsel for the plaintiffs in the bussing issue. And so, um, several times during the time that I was chairman of legal aid, we had the grand poohbah of the Klan come to our meetings. Uh, and, uh, that relationship was an, an interesting one. Um, but, but of all the civil rights movements that were most active at the time I came back, it was clearly a blessing.

ELY: Um-hm. And this was when they were integrating Jefferson County Public Schools?

JOSEPH: Yes.

ELY: Right.

JOSEPH: And, and, I can't, I can't do--my capacity to do timing is, is difficult. Things have sort of melded. But, there, there was an old city, City of Louisville school system, and there was a county system, and the four city 01:16:00schools were Atherton, Shawnee, Male and Manual, and Central, because of course Central was the black school. And then other schools--Waggener, Seneca, Iroquois, all were county schools, and the city school system went bankrupt and, which caused the merger. And, somewhere around that time, that hit at the same time of, as bussing, so that, that there was restructuring of, of school boundaries based on both, uh, the bussing orders of the court, as well as the restructuring of the whole board of education.

ELY: Hmm. And, at that time in the 70s, the Jewish community was pretty much moved to the suburbs, right? There was very little still in old Louisville?

JOSEPH: Very little in old Louisville. Um, uh, there was still a high presence in the Highlands, but it was moving out, it was moving east, which was why the 01:17:00temple, uh, moved out there and Brith Sholom, and there was a merger with Brith Sholom and Adath Israel.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: And, um, then Kneseth moved out into the Highlands also. So, yeah, that was, um, I don't remember when the major presence was, was downtown, and, um--

ELY: So, do, do you remember what the Jewish community's reaction was to bussing? To the, um, agitation that was going on in the early 70s?

JOSEPH: I, I, speaking as to what the--

ELY: Did everyone suddenly go to private school, or?

JOSEPH: There were, there were--there really was, it was sort of as you expected; the Jewish community was all over, although it's supposed to be speak with one voice, it hardly ever does. Um, we had friends that were very committed to, um, to bussing, and, and had their kids bussed. We had friends that had, um, 01:18:00um, uh, that sent their kids to private school. Um, it really was a mixture. Um, if I had to characterize generally, I think the, the Jewish community was more pro-bussing than anti-bussing.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Um, but it was a time of, of, the school system was, was, was very much in turmoil. Um, um, my two girls went to private school until high school because our neighborhood school, which was Chenoweth, uh, Brownsville Road and Chenoweth Lane was a disaster. Um, it was just one of the worst schools in town. Now, it wasn't a West End school, but we just couldn't, both girls, we, we were very wary of doing that. We did not send them to private school because we didn't want them bussed, but we couldn't get comfortable with the, with our 01:19:00neighborhood school.

ELY: Right. So, since you brought up your family, so you and Anne were married in Washington.

JOSEPH: Yes.

ELY: And you moved back here, and, uh, you had two girls.

JOSEPH: Yes.

ELY: Uh, early 70s?

JOSEPH: Uh, '74 and '79.

ELY: And what are you daughters' names?

JOSEPH: Uh, our older daughter is Alix, A-l-i-x. She is a lawyer that lives in, in Denver. Uh, she is, uh, actually, uh, very involved in Jewish things growing up. She, at the time, when she was in high school, there was something called Junior Council, which was an affiliate of the National Council of Jewish Women, and they had programs for high school girls to do a variety of social, um, community, as distinguished from fun, community kinds of things, and she was local president and then was national president of Junior Council. Uh, and, uh, 01:20:00ended up being able to testify on the Hill when she was in high school. Uh, so she was very involved in, in, uh, Jewish communal affairs very early. Uh, she's, uh, uh, now a lawyer, lawyer, and she moved to Colorado to be a park ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park, and fell in love with the mountains. So she stayed in Denver and her interest has been primarily environmental. Her practice is water law. Um, and our younger daughter, uh, is, um, here in Louisville. Uh, she went to Wesleyan, following in my footsteps, uh, got very interested in things happening with museums, worked for the, uh, Kentucky Derby Museum, uh--[unrelated voice-over heard]--then, then got a, um, master's in museum education, and was the assistant director of education at the Ali Center, which 01:21:00was interesting because she had also been involved in, in working in the black community, and that was a wonderful opportunity, and now is, uh, I'm not sure of her title, but, uh, works at, um, the Bernheim Arboretum doing community involvement, and, and training in volunteer work, coordination of volunteers. So, she's still here, um, and, uh, working at Bernheim.

ELY: Okay. And we're skipping ahead in time. We'll go back again, but do you have grandchildren?

JOSEPH: I have two grand boys, uh, two grandsons in, in Denver, and, um, it's an interesting thing that the family tradition of having the toilet seat down has now been changed, so. (both laugh)

ELY: So, when your kids were growing up, when you and Anne had your own family, 01:22:00what kind of Jewish involvement did you have? Were you affiliated with the temple, or what kind of education did your girls have, Jewishly?

JOSEPH: Well, um, I became a--I'll back up a minute. When I came back to Louisville--

ELY: 'Kay.

JOSEPH: --I started a practice with Handmaker, Weber & Meyer, and Stuart Handmaker was the managing member, um, and Stuart was, at that time, chairman of the federation, president of the federation, and very involved in, in community activities. Shelly Weber was president of Jewish Hospital, very involved in things, and the two of them, uh, were very, uh, influential in getting me involved in communal activities. I had not been primarily interested in Jewish communal activities; on was on a community action agency board, I was president of Legal Aid. Uh, it was in the broader community, and both of them sort of 01:23:00reined me in and said, "Wait a minute. You have an obligation to the Jewish community. Let's see what happens." So they got me involved in the Community Relations Council of the federation, which was right up, the area that I, uh, really was most involved with. And, um, that, that was sort of the beginning of, of my involvement with the Jewish community. I was chairman of CRC [Community Relations Committee] for a number of years, um, and because of that, the girls started getting a little bit more involved in things, uh, um, because they would, everywhere I went, they were lead, uh, uh, and, uh, so they saw the involvement that I was doing. Anne was working, uh, for, um, National Council of Jewish Women projects at Park DuValle and on four Cs [Community Coordinated Child Care], and so, they saw both their parents, uh, doing things in the Jewish 01:24:00community, um, which is one reason Alix got involved with council, Junior Council, and, um, at that, the time Amy was in high school, uh, was when Kesher Kentucky was beginning, uh, and Amy was in the first class of Kesher, uh, which was a real influence on her. At that time, Kesher had an active program of history and of a variety of things, and it was a--

ELY: Sort of a high school program for--

JOSEPH: Yeah.

ELY: --Jewish youth.

JOSEPH: Yeah, a high school program for Jewish youth. And, so both of them were involved in Jewish activities. Neither of them, both of them started out at the center in a D.B. Wylde program, and neither of them found it interesting, and neither of them participated particularly in that. Um, both of them, unlike their parents, were bat mitvahed.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Uh, and, um, uh, both of them had a very good experience in that regard.

ELY: And you had the usual Passover Seders and Hanukkah celebrations, and?

JOSEPH: Well, it's interesting because that's a major change from when I was growing up. Anne's family, uh, was quite different from mine. Mine was old German background, um, most recent arrival was 1850. Uh, Anne's father was born in Russia, came to the United States, um, in the 20s. Anne's mom left Poland in 1939. Anne's grandmother, and we've counted twenty-eight cousins, were killed in the camps.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: So, her background was very Easter European. Uh, as distinguished from mine. And the great tradition in her family was the Passover Seder, and there 01:26:00would be--depending on who you listened to--tens or hundreds of people at the, at her Seder, but the thing that always happened in the family because of Anne was we always had a big Seder. Uh, Anne, um, that was a real big deal. We, uh, also did not have a Christmas tree, like when I was growing up. So, there was a tempering of, uh, uh, uh, how celebrations occurred, um, in the house, but Passover was a really big deal and continues to, to be one of the major family trans--family happenings.

ELY: Did you find you had any clashes about, uh, practice and philosophy with the Easter European versus German doctrine?

JOSEPH: I know who's boss; we never have a clash.

ELY: Okay. (both laugh)

JOSEPH: No, actually, I've found, I've found the tradition just wonderful, uh, and, it, it grew because we, I have, most of my social friends continue to be 01:27:00non-Jewish, so that they were part of the, uh, they became part of the group. Um, digressing a little, um, when I came back to Louisville, I was asked by the American Civil Liberty Union to litigate a case where a U of L student had been arrested because he had a marijuana plant in his window, and as part of the search warrant, they took, um, fifteen text books that had been sold at U of L bookstore as part of a psychology of drugs class. Uh, and, the Jefferson County Police Department was gonna burn the books, um, because there was a statute that said books and records seized in connection with controlled substances are to be destroyed. Uh, now, the normal reading for that would be ledger-slash- account books, rather than U of L text books.

ELY: Right.

JOSEPH: Um, but, um, the prosecuting attorney didn't read it that way. And so I took the case for ACLU, and a young man named Dave Armstrong was, um, running against then county--Commonwealth Attorney, Ed Schroering. And I went to Dave and I said, "Dave, what do you think about this?" He said, "Books means books and records. It doesn't mean text books. We're not Nazi Germany." We don't, that was the foundation of the relationship with Dave. Um, I later managed several of his campaigns and we were very close friends, and back to the segue, for every Seder that we've ever had, Dave Armstrong was a member of this, was at the Seder. We'd go to his house for Christmas Eve, and he comes to our house for Seder. Um, and, uh, so the Seder has become, was a very important part of the family tradition.

ELY: Right. And, for purposes of the record, he was the county judge/executive, 01:29:00and then the mayor?

JOSEPH: David started as Commonwealth Attorney--

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: --which is a prosecutor, uh, and then he became attorney general, Kentucky attorney general, uh, and then became county judge/executive and then the mayor.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: And, after that became, um, uh, commissioner, uh, commissioner of the Public Service Commission.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: But also very active in Jewish events, interestingly. Uh, went to the Soviet Union on behalf of immigration of Soviet Jews.

ELY: Um-hm. Great. There's so many things we could keep talking about. We've been talking for an hour and a half. I don't know if you want to take a break and we'll go on.

JOSEPH: I'm fine.

ELY: Okay. I'm okay. Um--

JOSEPH: I will take a drink of water.

ELY: All right. Uh, I don't want to skip over your adult professional career here. I don't want to give it short shrift, because you've been involved as an 01:30:00attorney and in the Jewish community with a lot of things that, that are going on, but rather than try to take it chronologically, maybe I could just ask if you have, um, stories or insights or things that you feel are important turning points you've been involved with, either as part of your law practice, or your work on the Community Relations board, or, it's a very open-ended question, but.

JOSEPH: I noticed.

ELY: Yes. (laughs)

JOSEPH: Um, well in terms of practice, it's been interesting because, um, I started out, my practice is focused on real estate matters, uh, on commercial real estate rather than residential, and I started out representing developers, um, doing planning and zoning work, doing contract work, doing a variety of things, which was interesting. And, about mid-practice, about, doing that after about twenty years, I started representing lenders, which was a completely different kind of practice, but also in the real estate world, um, and doing two 01:31:00different kinds of things, it's sort of like representing plaintiffs and defendants in litigation; they're completely different perspectives. I, I learned a different way of trying to, to look at projects. And in the last part of my practice, starting in about 1997, I got back to my roots and have concentrated primarily on public projects, focusing on affordable housing. So that, starting in 1996 started working on Park DuValle for the housing authority, and then have worked with Liberty Green and with Sheppard Square, and now beginning to work on Russell, which are the major, uh, innovative housing programs in the community, um, and along the way because of some, uh, um, relationships that were trying to do creative programming, uh, worked on the 01:32:00development of Fourth Street Live and on, uh, creation of the renaissance zone, where UPS is. So, I've been fortunate to work on major projects, and, uh, and the fun part of all that is that, all of those, all of those projects require, involve displacement of people.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Um, and--

ELY: And, just to characterize, they were, it's blighted public housing projects that were then revitalized through better design and involvement of the community, is--

JOSEPH: Yes.

ELY: Okay.

JOSEPH: Well, on the housing, on the public, they, the, the public housing programs were, that were called HOPE VI projects, which involved, which were a recognition of the fact that housing needs to be of mixed income, that if you, if you ghettoize folks, only poor folks, you have, you create a variety of 01:33:00problems that HUD never saw before, so that, for example, Park DuValle was supposed to be a third public housing, a third folks of income 50 percent or less of median, and a third market, and, uh, that, uh, but it involved tearing down all of the old public housing and starting anew. So, it was a very creative program that involved zoning questions. Zoning is traditionally, in Louisville at least, concentrated on, on, in a residential way, on dealing with farm property so they weren't, and, and being able just to start off from anew, we had to deal with very small lots to make them affordable. We had to write new zoning districts, we had to convince the people who were living there that they could be, that their needs could be accommodated. The fears of the people involved were dramatic, and when we moved into Park DuValle, there's a, uh, fire 01:34:00station there, and, that we needed to modify, and people there were convinced that the hose tower were century points where folks were putting cameras and listening devices to see what was happening. Every kind of, of, of concern you can think of was there. And so, it put me back in my roots where I was talking to the, to the local people, talking, and, and the background that I'd had working in Mississippi and in Georgia and in some other places, really was, was much more important, uh, than whether I could draft a strong deed or a contract. Uh, and I found it just fascinating. So, my practice switched to, to where that was going. Uh, and, um, um, it's been interesting because it's all new ground. The, the new Russell program, uh, is one of the first four in the country, uh, and no one, uh, knows exactly how that's gonna be implemented, uh, any more than 01:35:00we knew how Park DuValle was gonna be implemented in 1996. So, the advantage to me is it puts me, it's dealing with architectural design community stuff, meeting people, uh, talking with folks, and working for a social good, and to get paid for that is pretty remarkable.

ELY: Um-hm. And are you still involved with these projects in Louisville?

JOSEPH: Oh, yeah.

ELY: Yeah. Its sounds like--

JOSEPH: Oh, yeah.

ELY: --it's a present passion.

JOSEPH: It, it, it is, and the, the, my, the advantage is that I can, uh, don't have to be in the office all day, but with computers and communication can stay in touch, uh, but I'm very much involved and very much enjoying it.

ELY: Great. And, uh, you've also been involved with studying and recording the history of Louisville's Jewish community. This is something, you're on the archival project that the, not the federation, the Jewish community--

JOSEPH: JCL.

ELY: JCL is running, or?

JOSEPH: There's a group of folks that are working on an archive, um, which I think will be an exciting project, because the Jewish community in Louisville, uh, has had such an impact on, on the community. From a business perspective, from a professional perspective, uh, from all kinds of perspectives, medical perspective. And, uh, this, there are things that people have in their attics and storage that they have no, no idea what to do with or how to organize, and, um, a very meaningful experience for me was to be chairman of the Kentucky Oral History Commission, uh, for several years, and work as a part of the, and I was, was on the executive committee of the Kentucky Historical Society, and see how professionals deal with things of that nature, um, uh, I, I, on a personal 01:37:00basis, have gotten very interested in the family history issue. Maybe I've noticed and have written a book for my grandkids that's now about nine hundred pages, uh, and deals with all kinds of things that I had never, ever could have imagined finding. And, I'm, I'm hoping that--the group is excited about the archival program not only because it's gonna preserve some things, which is basically what archiving is, but it will cause folks to, to think about how those things were a product of their time, how they related to other, other, um, parts of the community. Um, I was involved last year when, um, the public library bought, brought the Anne Frank exhibit to Louisville, and had sort of, 01:38:00had worked with both JCL and the library on the institution of that program, and I was very moved several times--I've been on the library board for twenty years, so I spend time at the library. And I would go down to the library and, and sit, and see people wandering through that exhibit, and, and many of those people had no idea who Anne Frank was, no idea really of what the Holocaust was about, um, and had been unable to personalize any of the results, uh, anything about that period of history. And, they were people who, by their demeanor, who by their attire, clearly were not highly educated folks that were focusing on the larger meanings of the world, but who were very interested in that and who were clearly moved by it. And, and my perspective on the archive is that, that, uh, we have 01:39:00the opportunity to take, uh, parts of the Jewish community and, and, and use them in ways to relate to parts of the, of town that have no relationship with the Jewish community, and make them aware of, of what the, what Jewish impact has been, Jewish community impact has been on town. Um, the, the breadth of things with which Jews have been involved, the amount of involvement in things they'd never anticipated; Rabbi Waller was chairman of the Louisville Board of Education, um, there are all kinds of things like that. And I think that, so that I'm interested in the archives not only to save the stuff, um, but to create a, a, to use that as a basis for programming that has a really board community relations, uh, component to it, um, because I think it's much easier 01:40:00for people to see things and relate to them, than to read about it in a history book.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Um, even if you could get it in a history book.

ELY: So it's history outreach, in a way?

JOSEPH: Yeah, and community outreach.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: History outreach and community outreach, and I think it offers an opportunity for the Jewish community to get involved in ways that they haven't been since, uh, heritage weekends. Years ago, um, there were, you get two or three hundred volunteers to staff what was the Jewish heritage program on the Belvedere, and those programs have sort of disappeared. And I think that, that it's an opportunity to create within young people, that have no idea, Jewish people who have no idea what, what the, their elders have done here to learn about it, and for, for volunteers to get back involved.

ELY: Um-hm. The, um, local community here seems to really take an interest in 01:41:00its own history, whenever it is presented, whenever it has an opportunity to do that, but you're right; lately there have not been a lot of opportunities. So--

JOSEPH: Well, as you know from writing the premier book on the subject--

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: --there's, there's a lot of stuff around, and if you, if you get people talking, they'll talk about it.

ELY: Right.

JOSEPH: But, but, but I think that the challenge is to get that in an organized manner, and to use it as a basis for programming, rather than to, to just take a snapshot.

ELY: Well, what do you think is the, uh, future of this archives project? Is there an organization in town that will, that will host this? Is there a repository?

JOSEPH: The archives committee has, is, is unan--has done a lot of work on that subject, has interviewed a variety of potential partners because we recognize that we don't have the technical expertise to deal with it, and is unanimously 01:42:00recognizing the Filson Society to do that. The Filson has traditionally, uh, not had a large Jewish collection, uh, but has expressed a very strong interest in changing that. And their current director, uh, was director of the library for years, and, uh, is, is committed to a, a strong outreach program, and, with the Jewish content, and has spoken at length with a number of us about the kind of outreach that I've talked about. And programming is very excited about it. I've talked to a number of members of the directors of the Filson and they're, they're just as excited as they can be about it.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: So, I'm, I'm really optimistic, because I think it takes a professional kind of competence to deal with that. They have on staff some wonderful folks, two of whom, for example, have been, uh, uh, uh, professional archivists at the 01:43:00American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati. So, I think that the potential for this is just overwhelming.

ELY: Um-hm. And what stories would you like to see told, once there's the archives and there's a possibility of doing exhibits or educational programs or outreach? What, what do you think this community's story--needs to be told?

JOSEPH: Well, I think that there are, there are some stories that nobody thinks about. Um, one of the things that Louisville, um, is very proud of is Crusade for Children, for example.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Crusade for Children, uh, started out, has always, the allocation has always been by the staff of the moral side of the news. The moral side of the news was originally--the three original folks were Rabbi Waller, uh, um, Monsignor Horrigan, and Duke McCall, president--Dr. McCall, president of the seminary. I think that, that, that this pro--that the Crusade is something the 01:44:00city is really proud of, and a Jew, a, a Rabbi was very influential in getting that whole thing started, as best I understand it. Uh, he was president of the board of education, there's a public school named after him, um, I don't, I don't think that the community at large recognizes the influence of the Jewish community on, on, on so many things. If you look at the, the business history of the community, um, the major stores, Bensinger's, uh, Kaufman-Straus, um, uh, Ben Snider, um, were Jewish stores. You look at so many different areas, um, uh, in a professional nature. Uh, some of the major medical programs in, in, in the country, come from Jews in Louisville.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: Um, Jewish Hospital for years was the premier heart transplant center and a spectacular hospital for them because Jews could not get, uh, um, uh, could not be on the service of other hospitals.

ELY: Um-hm.

JOSEPH: I think that in the same way that current, the current black comm--black youth don't recognize what their history is, I don't think Jews recognize what, the young Jewish community doesn't recognize what their history is, and I don't think that adults think about the impact that we've had here.

ELY: Yeah, I was shocked recently when people were mentioning famous Louisvillians, how Louis Brandeis just didn't come up in people's minds. They just didn't, didn't think of him.

JOSEPH: Well, and, and interestingly, not only Brandeis, but for lawyers, the first major--

ELY: The--yeah.

JOSEPH: The first major treatise on Kentucky law was written by Dembitz.

ELY: Dembitz. Right.

JOSEPH: Who is his cousin.

ELY: Um-hm. And the role of the Flexnors in medicine, and, yeah, there, there are a lot of stories.

JOSEPH: So, I, I think that's it's a win-win thing for all kinds of folks.

ELY: Um-hm. So is there anything I haven't asked you that you would like to be on the record talking about? Anything in your professional life? Any thoughts about the Jewish community today?

JOSEPH: I think we've covered, uh, covered things pretty well.

ELY: 'Kay. Well, thank you so much for this interview.

JOSEPH: It's a pleasure.

ELY: It's great talking to you.

[End of interview.]