Mark Switow, September 20, 2016

Mark Switow, September 20, 2016

Mark Switow, born in 1958 in Louisville, Kentucky, grew up in a family of Jewish entrepreneurs and Jewish community leaders. Switow’s grandfather and great-uncles started M. Switow & Sons, an entertainment business throughout Southern Indiana and Kentucky. Switow’s father Irvin was also involved in the family’s concession supply business, Standard Vendors. Switow grew up in Louisville’s Adath Jeshurun Synagogue. He describes youth activities at the Louisville Jewish Community Center and the mixed Jewish and non-Jewish social circles he grew up in. He also discusses the development of the Standard Country Club for the Jewish community in response to the antisemitism of other private clubs and his recent desire to preserve the club as another center for the Jewish community. Switow served on the foundation board of the Jewish Hospital from 1996 to 2002 and on the full board from 2000 to 2012. From the merger and sale of Jewish Hospital, Switow and other Jewish Hospital board members created the Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence.

Genealogy

Jewish businesspeople

Small business--Kentucky

Small business--Ownership

Religion

Jewish children--Kentucky--Louisville

Louisville (Ky.)

Childhood

Discrimination.

Families.

Jews--Identity.

Jews--Kentucky--Louisville.

Judaism

Jewish leadership--Kentucky--Louisville

video

2016oh403_jk038

Carol Ely

Mark Switow

Standard Club

Standard Country Club

Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence (JHFE)

College students--Social conditions

Universities and colleges--Administration.

Universities and colleges--Finance

Immigrants--Kentucky

Holidays--Kentucky

Hospitals--Administration

All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.