Arnold Cogan

Asch: So, to get started today, why don’t you start by letting us know your full name and when/where you were born.
COGAN: Now, when you say my full name, you want my middle name too? 

Asch: Sure.
COGAN: Okay, but I never use it, but anyway. It is Arnold, [spelled out] Maurice [spelled out] Cogan [spelled out.] Date of birth: December 3, 1932. What was the other question?

Asch: Where were you born?
COGAN: Bath, Maine.

Asch: What are some of the earliest memories and when did you come to Portland? 
COGAN: [Talked about having to cough a lot because of sinus problems.]

I was brought up in Maine. I was the fourth of six children. Three boys – three girls. I lived in Bath, Maine until 1948 when I was 15 years old. That’s when we moved to Portland, Oregon. 

That really becomes two stories, so we can get into those stories. The reason why we came to Portland, Oregon, is that my father David Cogan had lived here during his young years when he immigrated to Portland at the age of 16 in 1914. He came with his aunt directly from Lithuania to New York to Portland. The reason why he came to Portland was that there were a lot of other, aunts and uncles. There was a brother here, Lou Cogan, who was older. My father was the youngest. Lou Cogan was here. The oldest brother in the family had gone to New England, first to various states, ultimately to Bath, Maine. His name was Morris Cogan. The brother that was in Portland, was Lou Cogan.

It had become kind of important to my father and to me as I was growing older. In Bath, because Morris Cogan was who he was, had he not left Lithuania when he had, his parents and my father’s, my grandparents, pushed that part of the family out of Lithuania and this was, not because of Nazism but because of the Russian Cossacks and the pogroms that were going on in the early part of the 20th century (actually the latter part of the 19th century). His aunts and uncles, the Feves family. Feves was my father’s mother’s maiden name, my grandmother. So there was a large Feves contingent that was also living in the small town in Lithuania. Both the Feves and the Cogans pushed their brother and the younger ones out onto a boat to get to America. Like thousands of other people.

So, Lou Cogan had come to Portland. Morris Cohen, the name was [Kagan in Lithuania], Morris changed his name to Cohen. My father and his brother changed it to Cogan. Morris Cohen, had he remained in Lithuania, was almost a rabbi. He was the really learned one in Jewish culture, learning in history and so forth. Had he been there just a few more years, he would have been a rabbi. He had all that learning inside him when he came here and he continued that while he was here to the point where he was my instructor for my bar mitzvah in Bath, Maine. My best friend, Jimmy Smith, who I mention once in awhile, Jimmy Smith was born just four days after I was, on December 7, which turned out to be a significant day in American history. He was born on December 7, so the two of us had our bar mitzvah training together at Morris Cohen’s house. His profession, he wasn’t going to earn a living doing that, so he became a meat cutter and butcher, not a kosher butcher, but a meat cutter.

That became significant later on. (I’m not sure how much you want me to ramble on here.) When my father came, because a lot of my history was my father’s before me, so when he moved here in 1914 at the age of 16, the only talent he had with him was he was a musician. He had a beautiful little C melody sax, saxophone. He played all those wonderful tunes that were at the turn of the century and the beginning of the 20th century. His older brother, Lou Cogan, was a real promoter. He didn’t have a musical talent, but he knew how to promote things. He said, “Why don’t we pull together some other musicians and organize a little dance group, a combo. We’ll go up and down Willamette Valley and play to the agricultural pickers.” There were a lot of agricultural workers flooding the Willamette Valley then, maybe later too. At the beginning part of the century there were just hordes of them in the Willamette Valley. He suggested they buy motorcycles so they could drive up and down the valley and that’s what they did. Long before, forget the freeways, long before paved roads. I remember my father telling me, “This is a tough time to be driving up and down the Willamette Valley on dirt roads.” They did that every weekend. They played at a different dance band. They were having a great time. About four or five years of that a learned older brother in New England about 1921 or ‘22, writes my father a letter and said, “You guys are raising hell out there and I hear about what you guys are doing. You can’t live like this. I want you to come to Maine; I want to teach you a trade, meat cutting. I have a young woman I’d like you to meet.” [The woman] turned out to be my mother. My father, being the youngest, was a very obedient young child and he bid his brother Lou goodbye and went to Maine. He learned to be a meat cutter, opened a little grocery store and meat market, met my mother and then that’s when our family got started. 

In the meantime, the brother here, Lou Cogan, sold that motorcycle early on. His two uncles, Harry Feeves, not sure if you remember Harry Feeves, but anyway. Harry Feeves , I remember when I was growing up here in Portland, was just a fine old man. My grandfathers died when I was way too young (I barely remember my mother’s father). I think when I was four years old I visited him in the hospital and I remember he was dying then. But I remember that. That’s my earliest memory of anything.

But Harry Feeves, and I forgot who the other Feeves were, but they were my father’s uncles on his mother’s side. They were her brothers. They were shoe repair people. They also made shoes, too. That was in the day when shoe repair people could do just about anything with a shoe. They could make them, repair them, take them apart, build them new. My Uncle  never became a shoe repair person, but he opened a shoe making factory for World War Two, because that when that was happening, then. He got contracts, being the promoter he was, did pretty well selling those shoes and boots to the US Army. He continued doing that and made enough money that he bought several buildings. Do you remember the Nortonia Hotel? It’s now, right across the street from Kenny and Zukes. It is a residential hotel. Anyway it’s right on the southwest corner of that intersection of 11th and Stark. He bought those first, then bought the Admiral Hotel Apartments in the middle of downtown, Park and Taylor. Then he bought some other things and expanded his shoe factory, so when World War Two came around, he was equipped to do really well and sell boots to the Armed Services.

My father was doing very well in Maine and my earliest memory of my father’s store: I never learned to cut meat, my two older brothers did. Ed and Jerry, you know Jerry Cogan? Ed moved to Portland in 1969, he married Rose Adele Mozorosky. They moved to Israel and had four children. My brother just died, just a year ago, there in Israel. But Jerry and Ed, we called him Sonny in the family, no one else called them that. They worked in [my father’s] meat cutting business. I, as the youngest boy, learned how to sweep the floor and how to pack up potatoes in 10 pound, 20 pound bags, and onions and things like that. That’s what I learned. I worked in the store, but that was about the extent of my professional training.

During World War Two, Bath, Maine became a boomtown. It was a little, little podunk of a place, under 10,000 people. It grew to 20,000 people because of Bath Iron Works. Anybody in the US Navy during World War Two knew of the Bath Iron Works because they had a continuous contract to build destroyers. Almost all of the destroyers the US Navy had in World War Two were built in Bath, ME. So the Bath Ironworks was just a booming place. My father and my uncle Morris had independent meat markets and they both did very well.

After the end of the war they weren’t doing very well. Everybody left. All of the contracts were gone and Bath became a Depression village. In the meantime Uncle , here in Portland, was doing extremely well and he invited our family to come to Portland, which in 1948 we did. Two years after the war. So, in three cars and a pick-up truck we packed up what we could and drove across country. That summer of ’48.

In the meantime, my uncle had purchased a home, a six bedroom house in Irvington. A beautiful house. 16th and Brazee, on the corner. A lovely house. He bought a store for my father to have his meat market on Fremont Street between 12th and 13th on Fremont. He was all set up and ready to go. We arrived. I was between my sophomore and junior year in high school at that point. So, I started going to Grant and my two younger sisters went to Irvington Grade School. 

In Bath, Maine they had a little synagogue. In a town of 15- or 20,000 people, we had about 50 Jewish families. That was probably the biggest the Jewish community of Bath, Maine got to be. That’s where I had my bar mitzvah. It was a very energetic synagogue with my uncle officiating as the acting rabbi of the congregation. That’s where we had the bar mitzvah. But, I remember, there was a visiting rabbi who neither Jimmy Smith nor I cared for too much. We always got into mischief while we were waiting for him. We set fire to grass in back of the synagogue, one time, accidentally. We had magnifying glasses and seeing, there was nice straw there. What can you do with a magnifying glass? So that was fun. It was things like that.

Asch: When you arrived in Portland, what was your first reaction?
COGAN: My first reaction was, this is a huge place. Coming from a little town. Grant High School, which is where I went – the enrollment of the entire city of Bath, for all schools, including high school was smaller than just the enrollment at Grant High School. It was a little intimidating for me. Of course, my father is moving back to a community that looked different from what it did when he left in 1922, but it was basically the same. Living on the east side, which is where he lived when he was here before. He was a charter member of Tifereth Israel congregation. Tifereth Israel was always sometimes called the Alberta shul because it was on Alberta Street. Even after it moved to just near Prescott and 15th it was still called the Alberta shul. He was a charter member of that when he was here so it was natural, when they came back, to become members. He joined again. He became very active. He became president. I have some, I’ll show you one item here. We were the first (and only!) wedding at Tifereth Israel. I look a lot younger than I do now [laughter]. This is in 1952. Elaine and I were 20 years old. 

Asch: Why were you the only wedding there?
COGAN: I don’t know why there were no weddings before us. I can vouch for the fact, that we were the first and last wedding. I don’t know that. I just have a hunch that we were. There was never a rabbi here and they never just had any, they couldn’t afford a high school principal, teachers and all that. I think they had a Sunday School for a while. It was all volunteer stuff. Abraham Boxer was the sort of the quote ‘rabbi’ in residence, or cantor. There were two Boxer brothers. I have another picture; so you can see that. Anyway, I believe we were the first and last.

This has been on our wall in our house. Elaine said, “I am willing to loan it to you,” but she is going to want it back.

Elaine and I met in high school in our junior year. One of the Jewish clubs was putting on a dance. I can’t remember which club it was. I belonged to AZA. She belonged to BBG Girls and she belonged to another girls’. One of them was putting on a ….My date was, her maiden name was Kellenson, Judy Kellenson. I forgot her married name. Judy something. I don’t know what her name is. I don’t remember who Elaine’s date was. Anyway, she was fresh from New York, but she had come from New York in 1947. Her parents lived in Brooklyn, Brighton Beach, New York, right on the ocean. That’s where Elaine grew up until 1947, so she was 14 when she moved here. The only reason that they moved here is, her father said, “I’m sick and tired of Brooklyn.” He was a furrier by trade and he went downtown every day and he had a practice, in fact, before, he had worked for his father, who had the furrier shop. They made fur coats and stuff. They did pretty well. He said he was tired of New York. He wants to go as far away from New York as he can. Portland, Oregon. That’s as far away he can think of. It was just by chance that they came here. They met one or two people in New York, but they weren’t friends. They were just acquaintances. One of them promised him a job, which turned out not to have materialized. He ended up going from one kind of job to another. He finally started his own wholesale food selling special food, canned foods and gourmet foods – stuff like that. That’s what he was doing when we were going to high school. 

So, Elaine and I, we met our junior year at this dance. As it turned out, we both became day camp counselors at the Jewish Community Center at their summer camp for kids. 

Unbeknownst, to the two of us, I didn’t know she was going to be a counselor and she didn’t know that I was. The Monday, after the dance, we went to our first orientation session to be counselors. She comes in one door and I come in another. “Oh, I just met you.” That began the whole relationship. We got married. We met when we were juniors in high school. We got married when we were juniors in college.

Asch: Was her family also a member of Tifereth?
COGAN: Yes. They were very active. As a matter of fact that gets me to this [shows a book]. Her father was secretary of the synagogue. My father, at various times, everybody changed different jobs because there weren’t that many. My father was president at one time. [Showing photograph]. That is his brother, Lou Cogan, Jack Sherman. That’s Elaine’s father Lou Rosenberg and George Pearlman. The Sherman family. The Sherman family has become very prominent in town. 

Their children are members of Neveh Shalom. This, I don’t know who else might [inaudible] George Sherman had been around quite awhile. Jack Sherman and George Sherman, who were brothers and the whole Sherman family comes from there.

You can keep these. This one here is a newspaper clipping. You can also keep this. It comes from the Oregonian. They were covering the High Holidays. It just so happens they did Tifereth Israel. So, this is my mother. That’s Mrs. Jacob Sherman. Everyone went by the name of the husband, so this is Mrs. David Cogan, Mrs. Jacob Sherman, and so forth.

Asch: So, the men and women sat separately?
COGAN: No, no. We weren’t particularly affiliated with the Conservation Movement, but they followed their practices. I don’t think they were a member of the United Synagogue as Neveh Shalom, but they were more inclined to follow Conservative principals, rather than Orthodox or Reformed. So, no, they didn’t sit separately, although it looks like they are sitting separately, doesn’t it?

Asch: In the newspaper article that the Arnold is referring to, they are seated separately.
COGAN: It’s in the Oregonian article talking about the upcoming High Holidays in 1973. We came here in1948. This is my father David Cogan here. And there’s another Sherman here. Harry Slifman was cantor at this particular time, I guess this is before Boxer. Boxer officiated at our wedding. We got married six months before Rabbi Stampfer came, or otherwise we would have had him, had we known he was coming. So we had Rabbi Gordon from the Orthodox, Shaarie Torah was our rabbi.

Asch: Would occasionally west side synagogue rabbis come over?
COGAN: Once in awhile, for special occasions, if there was a bar mitzvah, as I said, don’t know of any weddings. But he did this as a special accommodation for us.

This article might give some perspective as far as a wedding in east side congregation. When Tifereth Israel disbanded, let me back up. Connected [inaudible] was the Rose City Lodge Cemetery, which happens to share the same area of ground as the old Ahavai Sholom Synagogue. It’s out off of Canyon Lane. That’s where that cemetery is and that’s where my parents were all buried in the Rose City Lodge, because there was, when Tifereth Israel was disbanded, and I don’t remember the year when it happened, it wasn’t too long ago, maybe, for me, not too long ago, 15, 20 years ago there was a big discussion about who was going to inherit the effects of the congregation. Neveh Shalom was interested. It somehow didn’t turn out that they did acquire that; I don’t remember who did.

Asch: Shaarie Torah.
COGAN: I think maybe you’re right, but the Rose City Lodge, because of the physical location, (Ahavai Sholom at that time later became Neveh Shalom), took over the responsibility for that. So the Rose City Lodge is now merged with that.

Asch: What was your involvement to Tifereth? Were you ever president?
COGAN: No, I was nothing. I never became an officer or anything because having gotten married at the ripe age of 20, I was in no position to become an officer of anything, particularly. Elaine and I went off to school. Our first schools were Oregon State University. I was an engineering student. She was a history and literature major, but there was none of that at Oregon State, so she ended up in majoring in home economics, with minors in history and literature. That’s where we went off to Corvallis for our honeymoon, where we had one bicycle. That was our transportation during our time there. We couldn’t afford an automobile. That’s how we got around. One of the interesting things was, we moved into a nice little apartment when we got married, but during the following summer, between our junior and senior years, we had an opportunity to live in a fraternity house with no rent. They just wanted a caretaker for the summer because everyone else was gone. The reason why we went there is because it had a piano and Elaine and I were going to write a musical comedy. Which we did. The independent students each year get to put a show on and we were asked if we could put a show on. It was going to be a talent show. I said, “Why don’t we do a musical comedy?” I played the piano and Elaine was wonderful on limericks. I wrote 11 songs and she wrote the words. We put it on. It was a hit for three nights in a row. I have the recording of it and I have the sheet music. I don’t know how I got on that track, but we did a lot of things together. It was just a fun time.

When we graduated we came back to Portland and we had jobs here. We were attracted to Neveh Shalom, Rabbi Stampfer was the principle reason. Not so much the facility; it was Rabbi Stampfer. Although we had an affinity for Beth Israel, we went there frequently for High Holiday services and often times for Shabbat services. Both Elaine’s folks and mine were active there and we went there out of respect and attended events and so forth. For example, when my folks had their 50th wedding anniversary we had it at the synagogue, Tifereth Israel. We had a big celebration in the basement part. But, we never took any active leadership role there. We did take an active leadership role at Neveh Shalom. Elaine was the first woman president at Neveh Shalom. my brother Jerry became president later and I pulled up the rear. About 10 years later I became president. So, three presidents at Neveh Shalom. 

Asch: Where did you live when you returned from college?
COGAN: We lived in a little apartment in Southeast Portland. We always lived on the east side. Southeast 41st and Clinton, just off of Division. A little apartment. We bought a house, our first house was on NE Morris Street near Rose City Golf Course. That’s when I was drafted into the Army. It was after I was out of college, about, let me see, I was drafted in the Army in ’56. Elaine were expecting our first baby. We tried, but too late to get a deferment because she was going to have a baby. It didn’t work. I was drafted. We had my oldest brother Ed, who would eventually move to Israel. He and his wife and two small children rented the house and we went off to Detroit, Michigan to serve my time in the military. Engineers were a shortage at that time. I was a graduate engineer by then and had worked a few years. They wanted some people to work in their design and planning shop in Detroit, at Ordinance Headquarters. That was my job. They had a cheap engineer. Cheap and available engineer. We had our first-born. Mark Cogan was born in Michigan at Selfridge Air Force Base. The big advantage was, he was a free baby. So, that was something. But, Selfridge Air Force Base was 40 miles away, which is a long way to go for a first baby. Fortunately, Elaine had a check up that day and the doctor said, “Why don’t you just stick around?” We did and that was when he was born. The interesting thing is, my brother, Jerry, their first born, Laurie Cogan, was born the day after Mark was born. So they’ve always been very close. We wrote them and he said, ‘Guess what?” They wrote us and that is how we found out. 

When we went back in 1958, Elaine was already expecting our second child, who was Sue Cogan. She was born here and three years later our youngest, Leonard Cogan was born. So we had three children. When we came back we moved into the house that my folks had at 16th and Brazee. It was still there. Then, we moved into the house on Morris Street and then built a house in Mount Tabor area, which is where we are now. We built it in 1962 when our son Leonard was born. We’ve been there ever since. Children not there anymore. Actually, the children have children. So they are not there but we’re still there. I don’t know, I mean I’ve covered probably back and forth the United States several times here for you. Rambling on.

Asch: Your father ran his own meat market, then, for the rest of his life?
COGAN: Actually, quite a while. He sold it when he was getting along. When I was 20, I thought he was getting along then, but he was doing pretty well then. He sold that market, it must have been somewhere in the early ‘60s. Let’s see, when we moved back in ’58, he still had the market. Interesting, my oldest brother Ed Cogan, the one who moved to Israel, became a theatrical agent. He booked shows like Mel Torme. He was his booking agent here. Sammie Davis. Got to know Sammie Davis really well. In fact, my father was a wonderful maker of corned beef and my mother made these wonderful corned beef on rye sandwiches. I remember him having Sammie Davis over at night. I remember Mel Torme in the kitchen eating sandwiches. Who knew these guys were big stars then? You know. They were just my brother’s talent people coming in and going out. So he had a lot of talented people like that. 

Ed ultimately became a chemist, a research chemist and nationally known expert in rare earth metals – zirconium, titanium and things like that. That’s what attracted an Israeli mining company to come search for him and offer him a job. He didn’t want to refuse it. Actually he was interested in going to Israel anyway. So in 1969 they moved to Israel. In the meantime my next oldest brother Jerry had gone to University of Oregon Dental School and became a dentist. The oldest person in my family is Ruth Cogan. Later she got a doctorate in English from University of California at Berkeley and taught there. In fact she became a specialist in teaching English to Asian students as a foreign language. She wrote several books on them. My other two sisters, Carol became a psychologist and Judy, was the youngest, she was the best musician in the family. All of us were musicians because my father was a saxophone player and my mother was a violin player. We were all ordered to take piano lessons for all of our young and teenage years. I learned how to play the piano fairly well. All of us did. Judy was the best of the pianists. So, she did a lot of piano playing, sometimes for hire and sometimes just for the fun of it. She lives in Los Angeles. My oldest sister, Ruth, lives in San Francisco. Carol is here and Gerald is here. 

You asked about my father. He sold that store. He must have sold that store in the early ’60s because they sold their Irvington house. That house in Irvington was a six-bedroom house. They sold that house in 1957, I think, for something like $75,000. Six-bedroom, 100 by 100 lot. We later met somebody that we didn’t know that she was living there, but she lived right across the street from my folks for years and years. When we were talking with her one time, about 20 or 30 years later, do you realize what that house just sold for? They have remodeled it sold for $725,000. When my oldest son Mark went to law school in New York (NYU Law school) he met a woman there and they had a child and decided they did not want to raise that child in New York. They lived in Brooklyn. So they moved back here and he said, “I’d like to buy that house.” That was 16 years ago, which would have made it in 1980, 1990. He remembered the house as a child. He looked at it and there was a wrought iron fence put around the place. A gorgeous house. It was advertised for sale for 1.1million. I don’t what it is today if you were to sell it or buy it, or if you could. I think, what if my folks owned it, had kept hold of that house?

My father sold his store around there somewhere, in the early ’60s, I think. Because my Uncle , had the Nortonia Hotel. He had a booming restaurant in that hotel. They were doing very well. He hired my father as the manager of the restaurant, since he knew a lot about food, buying food and stuff like that, what food to get, whatnot. He managed that restaurant. Then he went in with my uncle to buy a few more buildings; an office building in Vancouver, an apartment on the East side someplace. So that is what they did until he dropped out doing anything. In fact, the last five years of his life he had Alzheimer’s, really bad Alzheimer’s. He couldn’t even remember my mother’s name. 

A little side story. When he was 90 we were going to have a birthday party for him. He died when he was 96 or 97. That would have been about (I know exactly, our youngest granddaughter just had her 21st birthday and she was born the day after my mother died. My mother died about four years after my father). So, my father died about 25 years ago. The last five years of his life was just a total blank on Alzheimer’s. He lived at the Robison Home. When he had his 90th birthday, we still had that C melody saxophone. My brother Jerry reconditioned it. I don’t know if you have ever seen saxophones, but just a beautiful little saxophone. It’s the smallest saxophone they make and has this nice tone. We had the birthday event at my house up at Mt. Tabor. We presented him the saxophone. He couldn’t remember anyone’s names there, the children, his wife, anybody at that party. But he picked up the saxophone and played all those tunes from the ‘20’s and ‘30’s. All of them. The Saint’s Go Marching Home, Alexander’s Ragtime Band. A lot I don’t remember, but familiar tunes. Isn’t that something? Wasn’t a dry eye in the house. To be able to play like that and not remember anything else. That was a memorable event in our life.

Asch: What did your mother do?
COGAN: My mother was primarily a homemaker. With six kids she had her hands full. But then later in life she found a lot of things to do outside of the home. Not for a living, or for pay, but she became very active in the Alzheimer’s Association. Before that, she was very active. I do not know what brought her to be interested in Braille, but she learned, I don’t remember this, but she somehow, it must have been through a blind person, I think a friend of hers.

Asch: The National Council for Jewish Women had a big Braille program.
COGAN: Maybe that was, she was very active in the National Council for Jewish Women. Good. Thank you. That’s how she did it then. She became expert at Braille. But on top of that, in high school, she was valedictorian of her high school class. To go back in old time when my uncle, my Uncle Morris said, “I want to teach you a trade. I want you to meet a young woman.” She wasn’t so sure she wanted to get married to my father. My father was ready to get married. He was 22. He was getting to be an old man already in those days. My mother, she was accepted to university, oh no, she wanted to be a nurse. My father took the acceptance and he tore it up. It’s one of my mother’s really vivid memories. That cemented it between the two of them. I don’t know if I would do that with Elaine, she would say, “Go to hell. Now I am going to go.” It was a different age. She was superb in math. So when she learned Braille she decided she wanted to teach Braille, math Braille, in math. I have a hard time even thinking about Braille, much less doing math problems with it. That is what she did. She taught blind people how to do math with Braille. Which I thought was interesting. Then when the Alzheimer’s came on with my father, she joined the Alzheimer’s Association and went to [inaudible] class with their books, wrote a lot of stuff for them and taught some classes for them, too. The Alzheimer’s Association does a lot of orientation classes for families just getting acquainted with the problem of Alzheimer’s. She saw that as a need. She always wanted to do those kind of public service things. As the children were grown and left home, there was something that was available.

Asch: Going back to times in the military, when you were an engineer, after that period, did you come back directly to Portland?
COGAN: Yes. We drove back to Portland and unfortunately it was in the middle of winter. We were trying to go the southern routes, but ended up going through Wyoming to angle back up to Oregon and we got caught in a snowstorm in Wyoming. There’s a place called Little America. I remember this motel. We were stuck in this motel for about three or four days because there was a blizzard. The roads were closed. Yes, we came back in the winter. 

I did come straight back. I had been working for an engineering firm when I was drafted and they hired me back for the firm. But, because, with Elaine’s prodding during school during Oregon State, she prodded to, the engineering curriculum is a massive amount of stuff to take. Elaine prodded me to add classes to that in literature, English, and history, which I did. So I accumulated a lot of other credits, most of them were graduate credits. So, by the time I graduated, I not only had my bachelor’s in engineering, I was well on my way to get my master’s in something or other. When I came back I had this accumulation of stuff. When I came back from the Army and went back to work, I was very unsatisfied with my engineering career. I worked on some interesting stuff, at that time I worked on the piers on the Willamette River for the new Morrison Bridge in 1960. I was released from the Army in ’58. We were designing the Morrison Bridge that’s out there now. I designed those piers. Later, the Memorial Coliseum was going to get built. There was like a bowl inside and I designed these beams that are holding up the seats. The final thing I did when the engineering firm was getting some nice contracts was for the new Hilton Hotel to be built around then. I designed all the foundations for the hotel and got to inspect them. I was down in the pit inspecting the construction, the concrete, the quality of the concrete, to make sure they were doing it right. In fact Elaine, with our two children Sue and Mark, remembers standing at the top saying, “See way down there. That’s daddy down there.”

But I was growing dissatisfied with engineering. I don’t know if it was all this English, literature and history that Elaine had me take in college, or it was just seeing the different world. The work I had done in the Army in Detroit. Planning these ordinance depots. I had to plan them so that they fit in with communities and so forth. The whole idea of city planning became attractive to me. I don’t know if you remember Loren Thompson. He had a major engineering firm. He was President of the Portland Planning Commission at that time. He was a close friend of the head of the engineering company that I was working for. So I told my boss, at the engineering company, “I’m really not happy here. I think I would like to go into something like planning.” He said, “I have just the guy. You should go see him. I’m going to arrange you to see Loren Thompson.” [He was chair of the Portland Planning Commission.]

That was the most wonderful series of visits I have ever had, visiting with him. It was a wonderful time. He said, “We’ll get you a job.” [inaudible] Lloyd Keefe. He was the Planning Director. I met Lloyd Keefe. I said, “I don’t have a master’s in planning.” Lloyd says, “We’ll get you a master’s in planning. We’ll get you enrolled in Portland State.” Which did not have a master’s program in planning, at that time. Master’s in urban studies, which today, I think you walk down there and say, “What’s urban studies?” I had some GI Bill. I didn’t fight in any war, but it was the end of the Korean War. I went to night school for about four years in a row. It was kind of a grind, working and going to night school at the same time, but I managed to get through. 

Lloyd had already given me a job at the City Planning Department, and I started working for the City Planning Program. That was really wonderful. I just enjoyed it. Fred Fowler was the city engineer at that time. He invented the one-way streets in downtown. He had just done that. Bill Bowes was the City Commissioner, who is the Commissioner overseeing the Planning Bureaus. Fred had another idea. We had Harbor Drive and we had Front Avenue. We had four lanes of Front Avenue, six lanes of Harbor Drive. We had ten lanes of highway going down along the river. Fred Fowler had what he thought was a wonderful idea. He proposed to Bill Bowes. “We are going to build ramps. Out of the north bound lanes of Harbor Drive, up over southbound, up over Front Avenue and into downtown. On every one-way street going away from the river. Every one of them. So, Ash Street was the first one. There were all kinds of pictures in the paper; what it would look like – architectural renderings. Lloyd Keefe said, “That is the worst monstrosity ever.” Bill Bowes was his boss and he was also Fred Fowler’s boss. He [Lloyd] said, “You’re the engineer.” He pointed to me. I said, “I was becoming a planner. I’m not an engineer.” He said, “You’re the engineer. You can talk in their language. We’ve got to stop this.” I then began my first big lobbying effort. I had never done any lobbying before. That’s when I really begin learning how to lobby. Without just telling Bowes, “You’re crazy for doing this; you can’t do that. An elected commissioner in charge of the Bureau.” I ended up mobilizing the architectural community, neighborhood groups, and other people. We stopped a ramp. It never got built. The whole idea of any other ramps was stopped. Lloyd said, “You’re my boy.” I could do no wrong after that. I got to work on a whole bunch of things. Converting Pioneer Square. It was the Meier & Frank Parking Garage at that time. I don’t know if you remember the parking garage. It used to be the Portland Hotel, which was torn down. Meier & Frank built the parking garage. Just a two-decker – a basement and a street level. There was an opportunity to build something called Pioneer Courthouse Square. So, I got a chance to work on that. Lloyd had the assignment to do the preliminary planning. So that was interesting. Zimmer, Gunsul, Frasca, you remember the architectural firm? It’s the biggest firm in town. Bob Frasca was at the drawing board right next to me. He, later, became a founding partner of Zimmer, Gunsul, Frasca. He and I had a friendship all that time. Today, nobody uses a drafting board; it’s all electronic, which buffaloes me, because I couldn’t do it. I understood the T-square and the pencil and paper. That’s the way we did it. We planned Pioneer Square.

In 1962 I had an opportunity to leave the Planning Bureau. The Port of Portland was starting a Planning Department. Swan Island was a big muddy hole out there. Fred Meyer was there. One or two other stores. Sears, I think, had a warehouse there. The Navy had a submarine base there. Port of Portland acquired the whole thing and they wanted to convert it into an industrial park. There was an opening for a new Planning Director of the Port of Portland. So, I applied and got the job. Thanked Lloyd a lot, sorry to leave him. So in 1962, I became the first Planning Director of the Port of Portland and planned the 650-acre Swan Industrial Park. The Port Commission was kind of happy selling lots for little, I think, $5,000 to $10,000 an acre to more organizations like Fred Meyer, Sears. I got them to understand what the advantages of an industrial park were. Nobody ever heard of an industrial park around here. There were industrial parks being built in Chicago, Los Angeles, in the south, in Texas. So, I got literature on that and persuaded the Port Commission what it could do for the place here. We had to have architectural standards. People couldn’t build without following standards. They had sign standards, noise standards, traffic standards. It was a controlled industrial park. You go to Swan Island today, you’ll see the results of all that. By the time I finished this thing, they put up For Sale signs and were selling lots for $35,000 an acre. By 1967, they were selling them for $60,000, $70,000 an acre. 

My next job at the Port was the Rivergate Industrial District. You ever heard of Rivergate? That became my next one. The Port acquired all that land where the Willamette and the Columbia Rivers converge. The old Kaiser shipyards during the war had been abandoned. The North end of St. John’s was kind of a slum. The Port acquired 3,000 acres. I became the Director of that planning project. Have you ever been to Kelly Point Park? I saw this opportunity to set aside 100 acres right where the two rivers come together. I presented this idea to the Port Commission. They said, “You must be out of your mind. This probably the most valuable property in the industrial area, maybe in the entire city, to have the panorama of the two rivers.” I told them to look up the Willamette, up the Columbia, down the Columbia. We’re going to make a park of it. Give it away. Think of it this way. That’s 100 acres. We’ve got 2900 more acres here. We can do something with. There are all sorts of opportunity out there. Most people in Portland never get a chance to see industrial parks. This will bring everybody through to get to Kelly Point Park. They’ll have to come through the industrial park and they’ll see what it looks like.” That’s an idea. I said, “If you ever want a bond levy, or if you ever want to raise some money for something, (which they ended up having to do, for a whole bunch of things, not only for the Rivergate, but for the airport and other projects), you’ll want public support.” After, “Umm. Okay fine.” We dedicated 100 acres for the park and gave it to Multnomah County. 

The Port said, “We are not a park agency.” So they agreed to give it to the County. I arranged it with Bob Baldwin, the Planning Director of the County, a good friend of mine. We made the arrangement, “You guys take it.” They said, “Fine. We’ll be happy to take it.” So became officially a county park. It is a nice spot. That’s how that got there.

I’ll tell you one more thing, how something got somewhere. In 1967, Tom McCall was elected Governor. Tom McCall had a very brilliant aide, Ed Westerdall. I don’t know if that name means anything to you. Ed Westerdall was about 25 years younger than McCall. McCall was basically a radio announcer. He had a nice program on KGW. He was a commentator. He talked about environmental issues and other public issues. He had a wonderful voice. Have you ever had chance to hear McCall? 

He had a wonderful voice. Once you hear it, you can’t forget it. He had heard about, or knew about the Port’s Rivergate Project and we had invited him to its dedication. It was a big spectacular thing. He was a candidate for Governor at that time. Ed Westerdall asked me to come down to Salem and talk to them about a new program they wanted to create in the Governor’s office called a State Planner. Oregon never had a State Planner before. We never even had a State plan. I did that and got a chance a meet McCall, Westerdall, and a few others. They said, “This is kind of an informal interview for a new job. If we can persuade the legislature, Governor Mark Hatfield had a Department called the Department of Planning and Economic Development. Lloyd Anderson was head of that. McCall and Westerdall persuaded the legislature. He said, “Let’s move Planning out of there and we’ll call what’s left the Department of Economic Development. We’ll move Planning into the Governor’s office.” The legislature said, “That sounds good to us.” So that’s what they did. They hired me, and I became the first planner in that office. That began another career for me. It was a wonderful time to work for McCall. He was the most unbelievable boss ever. We had an opportunity to visit my old boss Lloyd Keefe of the city of Portland. Because McCall got wind of the fact that Keefe wanted to close Harbor Drive, but was facing huge opposition. Every time Lloyd Keefe spoke of his ideas people would say, “Come on. There goes Lloyd again. You wouldn’t close Harbor Drive. My God. That’s how we connect the rest of the city with the NW industrial area. It’s a lifeline. It’s a major highway. It’s a state highway as a matter of fact.” Glen Jackson was a big name around Oregon politics for many years. Named the I-205 bridge over the Columbia River after him. Glen Jackson was head of what was called the Highway Commission. That’s before we had a Transportation Commission. Every agency had its own commission. In fact, we had over 300 boards and commissions when McCall was elected. We had a Mattress Commission, if you can believe it. A Creeping Red Fescue Commission. Those were from the days when the philosophy was to keep government as weak and vulnerable as possible. Don’t let it get too big. Glen Jackson was head of the Highway Commission, which was the most powerful public job in the state. He was also Chair of the Board of Pacific of Power and Light, which was probably the best “other job”. So, he was Mr. Big. McCall began a series of discussions with him. In fact, we all had a series of discussions with Glen Jackson about closing down Harbor Drive. Glen liked the idea. It was a headache to maintain and to keep that highway open and said, “All right, we’ll close it.” But to be able to make up for the lost access to NW Portland, we’ll need to build I-405. That’s how I-405 came about. I became the go between between the Governor’s office and the City. Governor McCall knew how close Lloyd and I had been. So he wanted me to do the lobbying with Lloyd because Lloyd had to persuade Bill Bowes, who was still his boss, Terry Shrunk, the Mayor at that time and Frank Ivancie, his Executive Assistant. So you got these heavyweights down there. If it was partisan politics, they would be the Republicans who would say, “Whatever you want to do, we’re not going to do it.”

So I was the go between. Finally, when Glen Jackson said, “We’ll do it.” McCall says to me, “I want you to deliver my message to them. I’m going to ask them to schedule a meeting to include Frank Ivancie, Bill Bowes, Terry Shrunk, Lloyd Keefe and a few other staff people. They don’t know why, but I’m sending my note with you to take to that group.” Which I did. I commuted to Portland, anyway. You could have heard a pin drop in that room. Lloyd looked at me and a smile came over his face. He would have hugged me right then [laughter]. Bill Bowes said, “I’ll be going to Hell. They’re actually going to do it. My God.” So that’s how that happened. The rest of that became history. It was appropriate that they named the Waterfront park for Tom McCall, which I think was a nice gesture. That’s how I-405 was born. It’s interesting that I just happened to be at these little places at the right time. 

I’ve talked more about myself. You probably want to hear about some of these other things. 

Asch: What did you do after you left the state?
COGAN: After I left the state in 1969 to join a national consulting firm for a while. I was commuting to Los Angeles with this consulting firm, which I didn’t really care for. Elaine didn’t care for it either. The State Department of Land Conservation and Development (LCDC) was created in 1973. Legislature passed that bill, called Senate Bill 100, to create a new State Land Use Agency – first one like it in the country. By that time, we had strong state agencies. All that time that we had been working while I was in the Governor’s office, we managed to persuade the legislature to create  a transportation commission that contained units for an Environmental Quality that was created to include a Commission of Air Quality, Water Quality, Noise, and so forth. So we got rid of the Red Fescue Commission, the Mattress Commission. We put it in a single department. We consolidated a lot of those agencies down to less than 100. Still a lot. But there are some big ones now like DEQ, and Transportation, Economic Development, and so forth. 

In that environment, LCDC was born. The Governor knew where I was. He called me and said, “I want you to come back and be Director of this new agency, the State Land Use Agency.”  So, I did. I happily quit my consulting job and didn’t commute anymore. Well, I continued to commute to Salem, better than Los Angeles. I came back and became the first Director of the State Land Use Agency. We go it moving. We got it started. Got the basic regulations written up, that are still valid today. McCall went out of office in 1975 and Straub was elected. He wanted to get a new director for the department. That was fine with me. That’s when Elaine and I started our consulting firm. We’ve had our consulting firm almost 40 years. We actually retired, I think, we think of it as retired. We sold our interest to our partners anyway, two years ago and we still work there. We hang around. We go in late and leave early. I can take off for things like this and stuff like that. Because I had a lot of knowledge about the State Land use program, a big part of our consulting projects have been land use. A lot of agencies like cities, counties, private parties, had land use problems. Elaine’s field was communications, mediation, facilitating public meetings which was also a big part of the land use process. She did that. She’s written several books on the subject. One sold nationally, How to Hold Successful Public Meetings, sold by the American Planning Association all over the country. She’s written another one with, do you remember Ben Padrow? Elaine, about three or four years before he died, Elaine and Ben collaborated on writing a book; How to Speak to Anyone About Almost Anything. It is still sold today. She still has that book. She has another on communications, which is a much larger field than just speaking. It gets into electronic communication and PowerPoint and all the other gadgets we have now. She has a lot of clients in that end of it. In the field of Land Use, it gets controversial. You’ve got environmental groups opposing a supermarket or a neighborhood organization doesn’t want something happening in their neighborhood or something. There’s a lot of public involvement going on. So our consulting firm now thrives on that stuff. The firm has picked up on land use and public input and public collaboration. That’s the legacy we left for the firm. Anyway, that’s what we’ve been doing. We still kind of do a little bit today, but a little less. 

Asch: I want to talk a little bit about raising your family in Portland. Did you ever run into issues, either within the Jewish community, raising your children on the east side, or within the larger community of, just, kind of, your Jewishness?
COGAN: Growing up on the east side always seemed like a natural thing for me because that’s where we moved to when I first came here and we’ve never lived anywhere else. As it turns out, our kids – all three of them live on the East side. Although, my son Mark, the attorney, is not exactly the east side. He lives in West Linn, so it’s West side, West Linn. But for a while he did live on the east side. My daughter, Sue, lives in Eastmoreland and Leonard lives in Sullivan’s Gulch. Actually, there was always a west side, east side division in the Jewish community. It’s becoming less so now. Elaine and I are active in Neveh Shalom east side, Mizrach. It’s the East side program of Neveh Shalom activities. For example, Shabbat in the Park. We just had the Shabbat in Mount Tabor Park last week. The year before we had it in the park over near 33rd and Prescott, forgot the name of that park, but anyway, We’ve had a wine tasting at 43rd and Alberta, where we persuaded the wine merchants,(it’s a wonderful wine store) to have the wine tasting for wines that are not just kosher with Passover, but go well with Passover food. Not every wine that is kosher for Passover goes particularly well with gefilte fish, matzah, horseradish. He found about eight wines and we had a regular wine tasting. The place was packed with people. A lot of people from the west side came too. It was Neveh Shalom advertised it that way. But, it was primarily east side congregational program. We’re doing a number of these things. We belong to the Steering Committee that plans these and so, today, the west side, east side divide is more of a memory than it is real. Still when I talk to people who are driving to the east side they say, “East side? Where do I go when I cross the bridge, what do I do?” [laughter] It’s becoming less fearsome thing than it used to be.

When our kids were growing up, though, it was quite a schlep to get them over to Sunday School. We took them over to Sunday School all the time and to bar mitzvah classes for the three of them, Bah and bar mitzvah. And Hebrew school. Yeah, it was a big schlep. It fell on Elaine more than me, but then we had car pools and stuff. It was tolerable.

Asch: So there was a community on the east side?
COGAN: Yes, there was a community, but less of an organized community. Not like it is today. We didn’t have gatherings or get-togethers or anything like that. There was a barrier. There was no question about it. It wasn’t as convenient had we lived on the west side, that’s for sure. I don’t think anybody was really aware there was much of a hardship. We just had to go for a drive. When we took them to Sunday School or Hebrew school or whatever it was.

Asch: Did you ever encounter antisemitism either growing up or an adult in state politics?
COGAN: As a matter of fact, I’ve never discovered it in state politics or local politics. No, I hadn’t. Well, I guess I’d say, I remember when I first got started working for the state, when I started with McCall. At that time we had a group called the Posse Comitatus (I don’t know if you remember that name) Posse Comitatus inherited the Ku Klux Klan. At one time the Ku Klux Klan was a big force in Oregon, Idaho and southern Washington to some extent, but mostly in Idaho and Oregon, especially in eastern Oregon during the mid part of the 20th century. I’d say World War I past World War II. 50, 60, 70 years. Posse Comitatus started out as the Ku Klux Klan. That was a big element here. There was a major Klan here. Posse Comitatus picked up where they left off. Ku Klux Klan was pretty well beaten down. But the Posse Comitatus was as fearsome. When I was having my meetings when I was with LCDC. I had over a hundred meetings around the state. Hundred of them in a space of about 10 months. Which is a lot of traveling around the state. So, I really got to see Oregon. We met with the Posse Comitatus a lot in Eastern Oregon. Never antisemitical. They just wanted to, they knew they wanted us to take our Land Use stuff and shove it someplace. They knew that. They were very quick to suggest that. I never encountered any antisemitism. I don’t know if they knew I was Jewish or not, but I never heard it come up. The Ku Klux Klan, aspect of it, I’m sure the white/non white part of the Posse Comitatus, they inherited from the Klan. In those days, outside the Willamette Valley we didn’t have too many black or non-white families like we do today, Asian or Latino. I guess, never, I really frankly never really faced that. To tell you the truth, even when I was in the little town in Bath, Maine. I didn’t face it too much. I recall seeing swastikas around and I recall that, but I don’t recall anything being directed to us. I know my folks had some worrisome times there. But, I don’t recall that happening here that much. So, I’m probably not your best testifier for that. 

Stern: Are you interested in commenting on the long range planning efforts at Neveh?
COGAN: He’s referring to the time when Bev Bookin and I were asked about 12 years ago to work on the first long range plan. Then just two years ago we did the second one. 12 years ago, on the first plan, we had a very large congregation then. There were over a 1000 families. Today it is down to about 20% less that. Shrunk some. It was a large congregation and growing and there were worries about the Sunday School and its ability to handle it. Is the congregation able to handle it? On High Holidays the main sanctuary was overloaded. So we had what we called the second service downstairs. How was that going to be handled? We didn’t have an assistant rabbi at that time, so we always just hired a rabbi or a cantor, and developed a program and an approach to deal with it. 

We made a number of recommendations at that time. We didn’t have an executive director then either. It may have been more than 12 years ago. Our current plan is now about three years old already. The earlier one must have been 15 years ago. So we recommended hiring an Executive Director. We recommended hiring a junior rabbi, assistant rabbi or younger rabbi and a full time principal of the Sunday School and making some other changes to the configurations of the sanctuary such as moving the bima closer to the congregation. Actually we had recommended bringing it into the middle of the congregation. That wasn’t done, but it did get brought closer. Didn’t follow the full recommendation, but they did part of it. Then we had some other recommendations. But the more recent, that he is referring to, was just two or three years ago. We took a much broader look at the whole program. Not just education and religious programs, but new members – how do we deal with new members? What do we do when we are changing cantors about that time? What qualities do we want to find in the new cantor? What kind of participation would we like to encourage to bring more converts into the service? Make the congregation a more friendly place to be. Three years ago we were also facing what we did 15 years ago, a growing membership. Now we’re facing a shrinking membership and competition from other synagogues. They’ve been spreading like weeds among the community. We’ve always had competition but at the same time a lot of Jewish families were moving to Portland. It’s hard for me to believe that 15 years ago, I think the survey was about 25,000 Jewish people, people who could be identified as Jewish. Today it is almost double that. Which I still don’t believe but that’s what the survey said. I think, it’s not maybe exactly doubled. I think it’s in the mid 40’s or something like that, 45, 000. But the problem today, that we didn’t have then is most of these people are unaffiliated. Not just unaffiliated, they don’t affiliate at all. They won’t affiliate. We have people coming to services. They like to come to services. They don’t want to become members. You have this dilemma. So we are facing that issue here. What do we do here? Do we just say no, ticket, no service? No we can’t do that. The old joke: The old guy comes into the High Holiday service and said, “I left my hat in my seat.” “Where’s your ticket?” He says, “I left the ticket somewhere else.” He goes in and he said, “Okay, you go get your hat but don’t let me catch you praying.” [laughter] That’s an old joke.

So we have this issue that we are dealing with now. That’s really not an easy one to deal with. To try to keep the programs imaginative and attractive, welcoming the people in, not being closed-door, you can’t enter without a ticket and all that. But at the same time we want to be able to get these people to become members of some type, at some level of participation. That’s continues to be an issue, even now. We didn’t solve that altogether. We covered a lot of ground in this more recent plan. I think we have a great committee. A wonderful committee. Bev is now on the board and can continue keeping them aware of it, keeping them alert to the opportunities. So trying to maintain a welcoming attitude at a time of increasing costs and decreasing membership is quite a dilemma. 

As a former president of Neveh Shalom, when I was president, well, actually when I, Elaine, and [my brother] Jerry were presidents, we didn’t have that problem. It was a time when were enjoying demand. I think that people have changed in that people don’t feel the need to pay dues to things or to become members. It’s a much, I don’t know, maybe it’s the electronic age, you don’t have to buy a paper, you can just look on the web. You don’t have to be a member of something. You can just Google it. What’s the need to become a member of anything? It’s a time to be looser and free and not have to pay or give up your independence. The trouble is, if you are an organization, like a synagogue or another organization like the museum here, or community center, whatever it is, you’ve got continuing problems to try and maintain a place, keep the doors open and do things. 

Asch: Were you members of the JCC or did your kids go to events there?
COGAN: They didn’t really go to, no. We never did take membership in JCC. Actually most of our Jewish life revolved around the synagogue. As opposed to what Elaine and I did when we were very busy in high school and with all the communal groups; AZA, K’maia, BBG, etc. We were at the Center all the time. I think our kids never did that. It was just part of the changing attitude of things. No, they didn’t do that. 

Asch: Did they go to BB Camp?
COGAN: They did go to BB Camp. Well, actually, they didn’t go to BB Camp. The went to Solomon Schechter, which is Neveh Shalom’s camp. You familiar with it?

Stern:  You mentioned quite awhile back, you were attracted Neveh because of Rabbi Stampfer. You and Rabbi Stampfer have been close for a long time. What kinds of qualities, what were they that attracted you to Rabbi Stampfer. 
COGAN: Well, I think, there were so many. His humanity, his imagination, his humor, his broadmindedness. Even at an early time when broadmindedness in rabbis wasn’t exactly an admired trait. A lot of rabbis learned to do what the board told them to do. At least a lot of boards were habituated to think that way. Rabbi Stampfer never insulted the board, but he also learned how to work with them and around them to do things. He’s done so many things. We’ve always admired his creativity and all the wonderful things he’s done in the Portland Jewish community. It’s just incredible. Even down to today, his ability to understand and comprehend and communicate his feelings, I think is very admirable.

Asch: Do you have any memories around from when Tifereth Israel closed?
COGAN: That’s the trouble. I was trying to remember that before and I’m sorry, I don’t, in particular have that. I don’t think I have anything here (looking through materials). Maybe, that gets me to this book, and you might find some information in this book. This book is the minutes from, it’s hard to tell exactly because they seem to bounce back and forth. A lot of ’66, there’s ’65. Elaine’s father,  Rosenberg, was the secretary. That’s why she had this book that I am looking. I see  Rosenberg, was the secretary. So these are the minutes from those meetings from ’65, ’67, I see some ’68 here. Someone is just going to have to go through… I can’t help you, since just before Elaine’s father passed away, we never looked at this book. But you’ll find a slice of history here. There’s ’68. I’m not sure. It talks about closing. Talks about the history of Tifereth Israel since 1911. [Several Cogan names given] submitted to the Jewish Review, write up the history of [inaudible] since 1911. They’ve written in two parts. Somebody has a history of that. It would be good if you could get that [inaudible] I don’t know if there’s any, and this goes to ’69. I see, that’s December ’68, January ’69. To tell you the trouble that George Sherman suggested someone to clean out the shul. That’s how things got done. I was just looking to see if anything would come to the point, [inaudible-something to do with closing the shul]. In April the president suggested the congregation put on an out of town show. Here’s one here before that was a huge success. I didn’t participate much in that at that time. This looks like it’s not typed here. Here’s something goes to 1970. They complain about the lack of attendance at board meetings.

Asch: Did your family move with the foundation to Shaarie Torah or did they go to Neveh to join you?
COGAN: They never went anywhere else. I think it just closed and that was it. Elaine might have something, but. Here’s a letter from the Neveh Sholom Sisterhood, regarding a November 1970 bazaar. Something that says they’re going.

Stern: I remember when I was president of Neveh Shalom, which was probably in the late ‘60’s, that we would come to Tifereth Israel and lead services. 
COGAN: [small conversation] Brings back the memories. So, I’m afraid this doesn’t tell you much…

Asch: [Simultaneous talking]
COGAN: [Conversation about the materials he is looking through]

Elaine says, “For good or not, we’ll give this to OJM.” These things we’re going to give that to you too and this to you. Let’s put this in the book. Have all of that. These things we really need to have back.

Asch: When you moved here in ’48, were you aware of Israel and Zionism?
COGAN: My folks were always very active in Zionistic and Israeli events. We had family in Israel for a long time. Particularly on my mother’s side. They were some of the original Kibbutzniks in Israel. In fact, when my brother and his wife immigrated to Israel in ’69, some of them were still alive. They visited them then. They were getting elderly by that time, but they had been there quite awhile. We’ve been involved, not to the point of going there particularly, until my brother went there and then after he went there, we made a number of trips there. We were there the year before my brother died and that would have been about two and a half years ago. It was a bar mitzvah for a grandson. We went for that. That’s the last time we were there. 

Asch: I think we have covered almost everything I was hoping to cover. Do you have any final thoughts or things you think we missed? 
COGAN: No, offhand I can’t. [More conversation about the materials there]