Interview with Stanley Saxe, December 3, 2015

CRANE: For official purposes, today is December 3rd, 2015 and my name is Janice Crane and I'm part of the interviewing team for the Jewish Kentucky Oral History Project funded by the Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence. I'm honored to be here today Dr. Stanley Saxe. Dr. Saxe, can you just tell me what your name was at birth?

SAXE: Stanley Richard Saxe.

CRANE: And when and where were you born?

SAXE: I was born just north of Boston in Chelsea, Massachusetts on February 1st, 1932.

CRANE: Okay, and are you parents alive?

SAXE: No. My --

CRANE: What were their -- their names and their occupations? Um --

SAXE: My father, Harry Saxe, worked in, uh, as a -- as a -- worked f-- initially had his own tobacco store, up until the depression, on the water front in Boston and then he worked for a large wholesale tobacco company, uh, until -- uh, his 00:01:00retirement. Uh, my mother, uh, who was born in the North End of Boston, Anna Pearl Kaplan Saxe, uh, was the oldest of eight children of Russian immigrants. And, uh, they, uh, after she married my father, or the -- when she married my father, they lived in Malden, Massachusetts, uh, for the rest of their lives. And it's the city in which I grew up and, uh, went through the grades, went through high school.

CRANE: Did your, uh, grandparents when they -- were they born in the United States or were they born outside of the United States?

SAXE: They were born outside of the United States; as a young married couple in Russia, the immigrated to Boston. And, as I mentioned, they had eight children, 00:02:00uh, which my mother was the oldest .

CRANE: And were there -- did they change their names when they came over or were --

SAXE: No. (laughs)

CRANE: They got to stay the same.

SAXE: Yes, yes indeed. They were, uh, my maternal grandfather was Raphael Kaplan and my maternal grandmother was Sarah Rachel Resnick, who then became Sarah Rachel Resnick Kaplan. And actually I'm named after my maternal grandmother, Stanley Richard named after Sarah Rachel.

CRANE: Okay. Um, and if you have siblings, what are their names and ages relative to you?

SAXE: I'm the last surviving sibling. I'm the youngest at age eighty-three now. Uh, I had an older brother, uh, Irving, uh, a sister, the second born, Sylvia. The second sister, Roberta, who was the third, and I was the fourth child.

CRANE: And what is your wife's name?

SAXE: My wife's name is Judith Shapiro Saxe.

CRANE: And the names and ages of your children and your grandchildren?

SAXE: (laughs) We have --

CRANE: This is a test.

SAXE: (laughs) We have three children. Uh, the oldest of whom was born here in Lexington in 1963, that's Harriet Anne. And that means that she just turned, uh, fifty-two. Um, the second oldest, who is just turned fifty, is our daughter Natalie Rose. And our third child, who is in another few days, uh, will become forty-eight, is Neal Alexander Saxe.

CRANE: And your grandchildren?

SAXE: Yes. Neal ha-- Neal and his wife, uh, have one daughter who is Heila who is eighteen years old and a college freshman. And our daughter Harriet has two girls, the oldest is Heila -- pardon me, Heila is our oldest granddaughter. Harriet's oldest daughter is Zoe, and Zoe is fifteen. And uh the second and the young-- her second daughter, and our youngest granddaughter, is Zoe -- Zoe, pardon me, Zoe is fifteen, the oldest of Harriet's two daughters. The youngest is Olivia and she is now thirteen.

CRANE: Okay. How would you describe your parents, both your mother and your father's relationship to Judaism?

SAXE: They grew up in an, uh, in an area where there was only -- predominantly 00:05:00only Orthodox Judaism and, uh, they were, uh, and the -- and the synagogue that my father attended, it was much male oriented. Women, if they did attend, were relegated to the -- to a far distant balcony; it was an Orthodox congregation. And, uh, they were observant but not, um, not fantastically observant. It was a -- it was very consistent with, uh, with our neighbors. It was uh, um, uh sort of a middle of the road Orthodox Judaism, I would say.

CRANE: And how is Judaism in your -- what was Judaism in your family like growing up? How did being Jewish figure into your life?

SAXE: Uh, I grew up in a, um, predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Malden. Um, 00:06:00and most -- I went to public schools there, most of the children were Jewish. Uh, if they weren't Jewish, they were Catholic. Our neighbors were Irish Catholic and Italian Catholic and it wasn't until I was in -- or getting ready to leave the local junior high school, which was only a block away, uh, and went to the Malden High School, which high school at that time was three years, ten, eleven, and twelfth grades, and we had the students coming in from the two other junior high schools in the city. And it was only at that time that I had realized that Christ-- not that -- I thought all Christians were Catholic 00:07:00because all the Christians that I had in school and played ball with on the street were Catholic and, um, we referred to the non-Catholic Christians, those were to all of us, both who -- all of the people Jewish and non-people in our neighborhood as the Yankees.

CRANE: (laughs)

SAXE: These were the Yankee -- Yankees were what then that name became WASP -- White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

CRANE: What did your parents teach you about Judaism and how did this impact your choices in life?

SAXE: We, uh, it was -- it was always predominant because it -- it really dictated your life and when I was a small child, um, discrimination in, uh, in education, certainly in the colleges and the professional schools, was widely 00:08:00practiced. And that includes Harvard and Tufts, uh, there were quotas for undergraduates and, uh, there were quotas for, uh, students in the professional schools -- dentistry, medicine, law. And, um, it was very real. Um, my -- the second oldest, uh, in my mother's family, she was the oldest, as I've said, her brother Barney -- it was a real immigrant story. My -- let me digress a little bit and say my maternal grandfather, uh, they lived in the North End of Boston, where most of the children were born, he had -- my grandfather -- uh, a paint and glass shop, uh, store in the North End. The oldest boy, my mother never attended college, but the oldest boy went to Harvard and -- Harvard Law School, 00:09:00the third child, the second oldest boy, Julius, uh, went to Tufts Medical School. At that time I think that one entered medical school, or could, directly from high school. Um, my uncle Lou, the next, uh -- oh, and then the next oldest, uh, of my aunts went to, um, not sure of the school, it was a like, uh, it -- it was a college equivalent school like my aunt Esther went to Sargent College which is now part of Boston University, but which was a physical education school for women, for teachers of physical education. My aunt Rose went to the New England Conservatory of Music, uh, then my uncle Lou -- there were eight children -- went to Tufts as an undergraduate and graduated from 00:10:00Boston University Law School. So, uh, and my youngest, uh, of the eight aunts and uncle-- uh, seven aunts and uncles, Albert, the only one who didn't go to college, uh, my grandmother died when he was in his early teens, and uh, he never went to college. He did well in school, went to Malden High School, went to Boston Latin School because he lived with an aunt, and then went into the Army in the Second World War But education was extremely important and being Jewish and getting entry into professional schools was always a factor -- that's one aspect of Judaism. And the other that we were always observant in terms of Kashrut, in terms of seeing that, you know, non-kosher foods didn't come into that house. Uh, but, uh, Judaism was something that you practiced, but we also 00:11:00know that there were -- it was also a time, for example, of Father Coughlin on the radio. I remember going next door where my Uncle Barney and his wife were living and they would listen on the radio to Father Coughlin. This was -- that only ended at the time of the Second World War, but in the late '30s, when I was like seven, eight years old, uh, yeah. So anti-Semitism was, uh, was a real thing, it was broadcast publically and you were aware of it. Uh, you know, in much of the time.

CRANE: The radio show itself was an anti-Semitic radio show?

SAXE: Oh, yes. Father Coughlin, and I think it was out of Detroit, gave these 00:12:00anti-Semitic rants and it only ended at the t-- at the beginning of the Second World War. Yeah, Father Coughlin g-- and Henry Ford, uh, Henry Ford, uh, out of Dearborn, Michigan, uh, funded an anti-Semitic newsletter, essentially. Well known for its anti-Semitic, uh, backing, yeah.

CRANE: Where did you go to school?

SAXE: I went to, uh, the public schools in Malden. Um, which is two towns away from Boston, going a straight line it's about five miles from the state house. Uh, I graduated Malden High School, uh, I -- my college, uh, college of liberal arts at Boston University and then the school of dental medicine at Harvard. Oh, and--(laughs)--and then I was -- I was a post doc at the University of 00:13:00Washington in Seattle and actually, uh, as post docs in dentistry, we were enrolled in the graduate school. Uh, so I was officially a student of, uh, a graduate student at the University of Washington and do have a degree from there as well.

CRANE: When you were in college, um, what involvement did you have in Jewish organizations on campus?

SAXE: Uh, there was a large Hillel, but I wasn't, um, wasn't really involved. Uh, actually, uh, when I was in dental school and there was an event, uh, at the Boston University Hillel house, I went with a couple of friends. We mostly were interested in -- in the social aspect and that's actually where I met Judy, my wife. At the Hillel house in Boston U-- at the Boston University Hillel house. But in terms of participating in the activities as an undergraduate, I -- it 00:14:00was very minimal.

CRANE: Were you in a -- a fraternity?

SAXE: No.

CRANE: OK. And what were your -- why were you not active in Hillel or a Jewish fraternity? Was there a particular reason?

SAXE: Well, uh, we were pretty busy. I, um, I mean, I commuted from home. I commuted every day, we had class work. And then I always worked, uh, um, beginning in high school, I worked in market district in the north end of Boston. And I did that, uh, when I was still fifteen years old. And we were -- as kids, we were hired essentially off the books because we weren't old enough and, um, it was all day on Saturday. When I saw all day on Saturday, we didn't start -- this was in the meat market, the North End was a big shopping area, uh, 00:15:00Blackstone Street was actually closed off. Um, meat markets lined one side of the street, wagons with produce came in backed up to that side of the sidewalk, pushed carts filled up the rest of the street. Um, some on Friday, but the street was closed off on Saturdays. And, uh, we worked until, uh, ten, ten-thirty at night. We worked, uh, more than a fourteen hour day. Uh, I was a cashier and, uh, we, um, and a bundle boy. We, um, as kids, there were several of us, we work-- a lot of kids who worked there. Uh, there were counters inside the stores, but there were also -- the street was lined with what were called cases or outside display cases, and were so busy on a Saturday, we'd take the glass covers off. So there were shelves, refrigeration in the back of it, and 00:16:00there'd be one or two sellers, adult men, who would throw -- work with the customer -- there-- there's a constant stream of people walking on the sidewalk and, uh, my--(laughs)--my, uh, my brother and my older sister, Sylvia, would tell me that when they worked there in the market district, the police would come to have -- to close the stores down because they would stay open until after twelve o'clock and there were blue laws in the city of Boston that stores could not be open on Sunday. So they'd say, "Boy, you know, you finished at ten, ten thir-- it's pretty easy stuff." But anyway, I walked -- I worked through most of my high school time and all of my college time, uh, on Saturdays so no -- we were keeping busy with other things then tending a lot of social 00:17:00functions during the week.

CRANE: Well, before we get too much into your life here in Kentucky, um, is there anything unique or anything else you would like to, um, share about your family background or your childhood years or your college years?

SAXE: Well, I think that in some ways it was very typical. You know, as I mentioned, my maternal grandparents, uh, came as a young married couple to Boston and, uh, and education was very important for all of their children. Uh, as it was for my parents, um, my father came to Boston at about the age of fourteen, uh, his mother had died when -- a few years earlier, his father had remarried, and there were relatives and, uh, people they knew, uh, so he came to, uh, the port of Boston. And, uh, it was in many ways typical of many of 00:18:00the families, uh, where there were immigrants and the, uh, in the late 1800s and, um, and with the emphasis on education, of course, we all -- we all, but you know, we felt strongly that it was because of the, uh, the Jewish background and upbringing where education was -- and learning -- was valued and, uh, we wo-- we, uh, we grew up in that environment and, uh, um, so in many ways it was very typical of a -- of our neighbors and other family members.

CRANE: So what brought you to Kentucky?

SAXE: I mentioned that, um, I was a post doc at the University of Washington in 00:19:00Seattle and, um, why did I go to Seattle from New England and from the Boston area? The -- let me -- I'll tell you an interesting story. When I told my mother in, uh, in 1958, when I finished dental school and Judy and I were married and Judy was out of college, uh, I said my -- to my mother, "We're going to go to Washington." And she said, "Why so far away?" Thinking, of course, as most people in the area did, the District of Columbia because, uh, certainly at the end of the Second World War, when I was only thirteen, and the new Boston I-- Logan International Airport was created in Boston harbor, Boston was referred to -- they -- they advertise it as not just the hub, meaning the hub of New England, but the hub of the air universe. Now Boston was the center, and it 00:20:00was reinforced -- I mentioned the name of a couple of the colleges there, but there were a lot of colleges and universities and a lot of people came into Boston in order to attend school. Uh, the major hospitals were there, uh, the Mass General, the Ether Dome was known because in the 1840s the first use of ether -- that was it. If you -- that was the educational cultural center--(laughs)--certainly of the United States, as far as we were exposed to in the Boston area. And if you wanted to go to school, the -- you went to school in the Boston area; few people left to do that that we knew of. So when I told my mother we're going to go to Washington, she's thinking Washington D.C. and why do you have to go so far away when most everything is right here in, uh, in Boston, in the area. And, uh, why did I go 3,000 miles away? Because my 00:21:00teacher, uh, at Harvard, who was teaching periodontics, uh, Paul Goldhaber, well I'm not sure he was even a regular faculty, he may have been only been a post-doctoral fellow at the time when I was in school, but within a few years later he not only rose in the ranks, he was the dean for many, many years, uh, at Harvard. Actually, he was the first Jewish dean ever in Harvard University, and he knew that. But, uh, I -- my -- his teacher at Columbia University was going out to University of Washington to set up a new program, a federally funded program in periodontics, the idea that would be a program that would foster clinician scholars, it would be researchers, and teachers, as well as practitioners in the specialty. And, uh, I, uh, I spoke to the, uh, it was Saul 00:22:00Schluger who was at Columbia University, I called him before he -- he left New York City to start that program during my last year in dental school. And--(laughs)--and, uh, he was quite a character and this great booming voice came out over the telephone and said, "Yes, send for an application. You're the type of student we want." And I was convinced that's the only place I wanted to go, and Judy and I went out there and I went out there with the idea I'd be there two years, at that time the post-doctoral programs are only two years in length, they're three years now, then after two years I'd return east, no doubt to New England. Um, we didn't because--(laughs)--I ended up on the faculty after I -- when I finished the program. Um, and, um, uh, and then was on the faculty for the next two years, uh, until I got a call one day, uh, here from 00:23:00Lexington about, uh, the new school being created at the University of Kentucky.

CRANE: Wow. Okay. What, um, can you describe the considerations in moving here? Especially any discussions that you may have had about Jewish life in Lexington at the time?

SAXE: Yeah. Uh, --

CRANE: Why did you come here?

SAXE: Uh, in our fourth year in Seattle, I was, um, with my second year as a faculty member--(clears throat)--excuse me, and, uh, Judy, um, after our first year there s-- in Seattle, started the school of social working thinking that she might -- that she wouldn't finish because it would -- would be at the end of our two years in Seattle, excuse me. But when I was in -- then when I was a -- 00:24:00was on the faculty, she went and finished the school of social work, and in our fourth year began work as a social worker at the Jewish Family Service in Seattle, where she was hired because she had a placement there. And, uh, so in our fourth year in Seattle, where Judy's working, I'm working, we decided we really liked living in Seattle and we were going to, uh, to stay there. And, uh, but we lived in a -- in a little, but nice, apartment. We said that maybe we should buy a little house; the big thing in Seattle at that time, and still was, what they called single unit detached dwellings. You would just buy a little house, but if we buy a house, we have no furniture. We never bought furniture, uh, that we would -- as if we were going to stay there. So we went and we bought, um, Danish modern couch from the store -- a well-known furniture 00:25:00store in Seattle and, um, about a week after the couch was delivered, I got this telephone call, uh, inviting me to come out, uh, to Lexington. And at that time, I had to make a couple of decisions in Seattle at the University of Washington, university -- the school was only about ten years old when I got there and it was still developing the medical center. University of Washington Medical Center. And, um, there was -- I was asked about heading a new hospital dental service, or there was this concept about -- and I -- about -- that was coming out -- promoted by one particular person in Salt Lake City who brought it to Seattle and was to consider the fact that, uh, the patient was really going to be supine, the dentist was going to sit down on one side of the patient, and 00:26:00assistant would be seated on the other side and would hand instruments to the dentist, but the instruments would be prepared in a package for the particular procedure, and I wasn't so sure about that because I was trained as a surgeon and you stood up. And if a dentist sat down, the dentist reached out to a cabinet on the side of the, uh, next to the dentist and took out a -- perhaps a mirror and put it on this bracket table in front of the patient and then reached for another instrument and put that there -- the dentist selected his own instruments, you know they were all male, so it's his, and most all the assistants were female. And this concept of sit down dentistry, uh, to go ahead and move on that -- so I had our stay in the department of periodontics, and then when I got the call from the University of Kentucky, that sounded rather interesting because the concept was things are going to be different than have 00:27:00been done in conventional dental schools up to that time. So I came out here to Lexington to visit and stayed here several days, and the exciting thing about the new -- this -- there were five people who have been doing the planning for the college of dentistry, led by Al Morris who had been appointed dean, who had come from the University of Pennsylvania. And that was the exciting aspect. Students were going to be treated respectfully, their -- even though there's a faculty and a student relationship where colleague's respect for the student, also the fact that periodontics would be in the first year of the curriculum, that is students would see patients in the first year of the curriculum and patients with teeth. In most dental schools at that time, the first patient 00:28:00that a student would see -- not in the first year necessarily, maybe the second year, most often the third year -- would be a person who was edentulous, who had no teeth. I guess that feeling was that the student could do no harm, or couldn't do much harm. And this -- here at Kentucky, the idea was that preservation of the dentition was the most important thing and the st-- the dental student would be -- have contact with patients at -- immediately. At very beginning of, uh, their time in dental school. Uh, and, uh, students -- and the stories were told at that time and about other dental schools, some of them not too -- in adjoining states, that when the class -- the entering class 00:29:00first met, a person at the head of the room would say to them, "Look to the right, and look to your left because, uh, in a year, next year, one of you won't be here." And that was, uh, not a rarity where it's more students were taken into an entering class and whoever could survive, you know, saying that possibly only two thirds of them would survive and become second year students. So the concept of Kentucky, we're here to keep students in school, to see that they learn, that their colleagues -- and have a concept of dentistry on -- on prevention and on the best possible technical care that there could be. It was very exciting because things were going to be really different from other, uh, from other dental schools. Uh, this is in, uh, early, early 1962, when I came 00:30:00to visit. Um, so one day, and I was here for several days, so one day I borrowed a car and drove down, and this was very important, I drove down Rose Street and Rose Street ended at Main Street, and there was the Mammoth Garage, which some people may remember--(laughter)--I parked the car in the Mammoth Garage and -- and then later I realized where -- where I -- where I was walking. I walked on what the north side of Main Street and I went in and out of every store and I -- until I got to what is Broadway, and then just the downtown area changed and I looked to see who was riding where on those old green crumley American buses that -- there were two way traffic on Main Street, crossed Main Street to the south side, went in and out of every store and at one point I went 00:31:00in to a men's clothing store and I didn't remember the name, but I later learned it was Graves Cox. And as you walked in, you could see it was a very nice men's clothing store, quality men's clothing store, and as was conventional with most men's clothing stores, at -- one walked in, and the very beginning there would be a counter, glass cases where, uh, accessories would be sold -- neck ties, cufflinks, small items -- and behind the counter there was a middle aged black man dressed in a suit, coat, coat, and tie -- and, uh, and I looked around and I -- it was very significant. Here is a black clerk in a very nice clothing store up front meeting the public and that had a very, very profound effect. Some 00:32:00years later, I found out from a Lexington resident, and then not so long ago actually spoke with Joe Graves whose father owned the store with Mr. Cox and Joe had worked in the store, and I found out that this was a very unique situation; this was a black person who was an employee at Graves Cox, he went off to medical school, uh, out of Lexington, came back because his wife was ill, and he got a job with -- then I think is when he began working for Graves Cox, and not as a clerk, and, uh, he was going to leave because he had a job in the U.S. Post 00:33:00Office, but Mr. Graves thought he was a very good employee and did not want him to leave and promoted him, uh, to a sales clerk job up front and he did very, very well. Uh, but it was a unique situation due to the Graves family, uh, and that -- but that one single incident, when I thought, "Well,"--(laughs)--with a sample of no less than one, but I thought, "Ah, this is -- this -- this probably is the norm." And that, uh, and Judy and I decided that we could live in Lexington; we didn't expect to be here long. I told Judy went I went back that if we were to go to Kentucky, because we had to make a decision of what we would do in Seattle or come to Kentucky, we would be there at least -- this is now talking in Seattle -- we'd be there at least two years. You do something one year, you see how you can do it better the second year. And I said it could 00:34:00stretch out, we could be there three years. And if it really stretched out, we could be there four years. We had already now four years in Seattle, and then we're off to the next place. Well--(laughs)--we had no children, uh, for, uh, until we came to Kentucky. Our three children were all born in Ken-- Lexington, and, uh, when the time came about accepting an offer to go elsewhere and the kids were still small, we really liked living in Lexington. Um, and, uh, this was in one particular offer when the kids were three, five, and seven, uh, to go back to Boston to my old dental school to head the department there in my specialty area. And, um, I had a Massachusetts dental license, I knew the area, 00:35:00I -- it was easy enough to do. But we really liked Lexington, and we decided that -- that we would stay. Actually, the house we live in now, some -- and have lived in for forty years now, we said, well, if we stayed in Lexington, we would build a house on the lot. We had bought a lot in the late 1960s on, uh, on the lake, on Lakeside Drive here in Lexington and we, uh, we said, "OK, we'll do that." And it took a few years, and we didn't move in until 1975, but we've still been in the house. But it was the, um, what brought us to Lexington was the attraction of the dental school and the uniqueness of the dental school which truly was unique and we did a lot of good things in those early years that 00:36:00gained a lot of national attention. But what kept us in Lexington, uh, this is now fifty-three years later, and I retired over eighteen years ago when I turned sixty-five, was the community. Uh, the entire Lexington community, including the, uh, the Jewish community. We really have enjoyed living in Lexington and, uh, and that is what has kept us here.

CRANE: And we're glad you came. From a Jewish perspective, what was the biggest adjustment that you had to make from Boston to Seattle to Kentucky?

SAXE: Uh, Seattle was, um, well when I -- when I lived in Boston, we lived -- as I said, I lived in Malden, a community of some 60,000, north of the city, so it, 00:37:00uh, and we traveled in even though it was only a few miles away into what was called, you know, town. Or in town, which was Boston. So I was living in a -- in a smaller community, and in Seattle we lived in the city, uh, and we did attend, uh, particularly after, uh, my student days, uh, uh, a con-- a small, new congregation that was very friendly and absolutely was a Reform congregation north of the University of Washington. But coming to Lexington, so, well I'll tell you a little story--(laughs)--you want another anecdote. We came, uh, like 00:38:00the first of September for the, uh, the beginning of the new year, beginning of new academic year, and one day, and this was early one, I was at lunchtime at the Dave Greenwald's Delicatessen in Chevy Chase. And I had met a, uh, Leonard Cohen, who lived on Breckenwood, was a neighbor of Leon and Harriet Cooper. And, uh, I'll -- I'll go back and talk about being recruited by the University of Kentucky shortly. But I was sitting in Greenwald's delicatessen and Leonard Cohen and, uh, another gentleman were sitting at a table and I -- and I -- there were three of us at the table and this is September. And Leonard says to me, um, "What are you going to do about the holidays? Uh, the new year is coming 00:39:00up, Rosh Hashanah is coming up." And I said, "Well," and, "We haven't done -- made any plans, I don't know." And it turns out that Leonard is a member of, uh, what was called the Conservative congregation, Ohavey Zion synagogue, and the other fellow was a member of the reform congregation Temple Adath Israel. So Leonard says to me, he says, "Well," he says -- "This is a Friday night," -- he says, uh, "You should come to my synagogue," he said, "I'll come by and pick you up." And so I turn and I look at the other fellow for a counter offer, and he sits there mute--(laughs)--he doesn't say anything. So I said to Leonard, "Sure, you know, we'll -- we'll -- we'll do that." So, uh, we went to, uh, Ohavay Zion. As I said, we had been going to some services that was a very small, friendly, new reform congregation in Seattle, and I felt, you know, we 00:40:00would be receptive to either. Uh, Judy's background and her father, my father-in-law was a conservative rabbi, a very dynamic figure who set the standards for how rabbis should act. He was a -- when I met Judy, he had a congregation in South Florida and was there for decades until his retirement and then was still there. But just an extraordinary person and certainly a most extraordinary rabbi. Uh, so that set the standard for me. But anyway, at this point in time, so Friday night came and Leonard Cohen picked us up and we went to Ohavay Zion synagogue and met more people there, and it was the conservative synagogue, and, uh, and that's -- we have been members now, of course it's over 00:41:00half a century.

CRANE: What was your position at the dental school? And, um, the specific areas of instruction or faculty responsibilities that you had?

SAXE: I, um, I came as the only non-chair. Harry Bohannon, who was the -- who recruited me and who was the first chair of periodontics and later became associate dean and then dean of the college, was a very -- and still he is a very dynamic figure who recruited me to Lexington, and he was the chair -- and then I was -- and so he had another faculty person in periodontics, um, so I was the first non-chair when the chairs would have their meetings that first year or 00:42:00so, I was all by myself. Uh, but uh, Harry then went to become associate dean and, uh, four years later, or so, I was chair of the department of periodontics. At that time, we had multiple departments. They were university recognized, there was a reorganization a few years ago and the entire school just went to two university departments. But periodontics was a -- a uni-- it was a recognized department within the university that had its own -- its own budget, its own physical space, our own conference room. We had -- when I became chair in '66, I hired -- I had the ability to hire on three more people. We had five, maybe six full time people. Uh, and during that time, in our first years, we 00:43:00gained some notoriety because we developed the first animal model for periodontitis, periodontitis is the concert in periodontal diseases. It's -- it's, uh, loss of bone that holds the teeth and the jaws, and the reason why teeth have to be removed when teeth are lost. And there had been no animal model for periodontitis, and we developed one, you know, with the beagle dog and gave us some notoriety in the late '60s and early '70s. Then I, uh, we went on sabbatical. I came back, uh, uh, I co-- it was really a good time. I'd do whatever I wanted, I thought, within the college. You know, things changed and we opted not to leave, you know, to stay here. And, uh, our director of graduate studies, uh, and then I, uh, by the '80s, I became interested in aging 00:44:00and I became interested in aging, actually, through what we had been doing in periodontics because wanted to find out why some older adults maintained most all of their teeth and many older adults had no teeth. Uh, why some of -- really old, old adults could maintain all of -- most all of their dentition. And my background was well you looked as -- you look at something in the tissue, something in the cells, maybe it's the microbiology, maybe it's the organisms that are different that are living in the mouth and around the teeth and -- and I spent six months at the center on aging, the Sanders Brown Center on Aging in the mid '80s and the really changed -- instead of looking just at the, uh, the 00:45:00-- the biology and the, uh, of the -- of the tissues and the microbiology, uh, the whole concept of attitudes and beliefs and it expanded, uh, my interest and was a great opportunity and I came back to the college of dentistry and, uh, I was, uh, able, uh, with help from the administration that we were able to establish geriatric dentistry as a subject in the college of dentistry; it's difficult to get time in the curriculum because every hour is basically allocated in a college of dentistry, but we were able to get time in the curriculum and we were very fortunate that Doctor Bob Henry elected to come back 00:46:00to Lexington, uh, in the veteran's administration. He was a student at the University of Kentucky in the college of dentistry and had gone off to do, uh, post-doctoral work and including in geriatric dentistry, and he was a great ally and supporter and co-worker. And together we, uh, put together courses in geriatric dentistry and had set up clinical experiences for the students. And uh, um, that was a really a very, very gratifying work and, uh, and there were a lot of, uh, many other schools around the country too who were beginning to institute programs in, uh, geriatrics and in geriatric dentistry.

CRANE: Can -- can you briefly, uh, I guess in layman terms, describe what your findings were? Is this the work that you did with Doctor Wekstein?

SAXE: Uh, yes, yeah. David, uh, as -- David Wekstein was instrumental in establishing a center on aging here at the University of Kentucky. He came to Lexington, he and his wife and one daughter at that time, also in the fall of 1962, he was a newly minted PhD from the University of Rochester, though he grew up in Boston. He and his wife grew up in Boston and David started a seminar series in aging when he was a faculty member in physiology. He was recruited as a -- a -- a new -- as I said, as a new PhD came to the department of physiology in the college of medicine here at Kentucky and, uh, he expanded that. He 00:48:00expanded the program, uh, and, uh, the original, uh, titles had to do with research in the biology of aging. And that evolved into what is now the Sanders Brown Center on Aging. And, uh, they -- the center and Bill Markesbery, who was the physician pathologist who headed the center, uh, were very helpful to me and supportive and, uh, in the, uh, in the early '90s, after we had established ourselves as, uh, as a geriatric dentistry program in the college, uh, we were able to do a major study on the role of, uh, the relationshi-- any relationship between dental amalgam and Alzheimer's disease, and it was David who was instrumental in setting up, uh, their brain study, that is having non-demented 00:49:00older adults agree to give up their brains, uh, upon death for a study. Uh, families of Alzheimer's patients are -- generally have been quite willing, and are quite willing to see that the Alzheimer's, uh, person, uh, goes to autopsy and their brains are available. But having non-demented older adults was very important, and David was instrumental in setting that, uh, program up which has been still ongoing and very successful. So we were able to all-- to join with that and added our component of looking at, uh, dental amalgam in older adults, non-demented older adults as well as, uh, older adults with Alzheimer's disease, and, uh, we were able to show, uh, that -- and we worked closely with Bill 00:50:00Markesbery and David and, uh, with, uh, statisticians, Doctor Kryscio who headed statistics and was really another phenomenal person to work with, and the chemists to do the analysis -- mercury analysis on the brain. And we were able to come up with various ways to measure the size, location, duration in the mouth of silver fillings and, uh, so anyway, the end result of that study after a number of years was to show that there's--(laughs)--no relationship whatsoever to mercury levels in the brain and quite a number areas of the brain to Alzheimer's disease and there's no relationship to levels of mercury in the 00:51:00brain to the size, shape, location, duration in the mouth, to amalgams -- silver amalgams, silver fil-- so called silver fillings, no relationship whatsoever.

CRANE: That's good to know.

SAXE: Now that's been contested by -- there have been anti-amalgamists since dental amalgam was first used in the end of the last--(laughs)--more than the last, well over a hundred years ago. Uh, people who have, uh, claimed that dental amalgam was very bad and that the mercury is coming off -- small amounts of mercury do come off, rub surfaces, uh, but, uh, there's no relationship to that and mercury in the brain and certainly no relationship to Alzheimer's disease.

CRANE: I know that Doctor Wekstein was Jewish, what was it like for you to work with, um, a fellow Jewish faculty, um, from the university? Was it different or 00:52:00the same, or--?

SAXE: Well, we, uh, we both grew up in the Boston area. We were, uh, both undergraduates at Boston University, albeit when I graduated, David was just entering college. Um, uh, we also joined together -- well, he was a colleague, not just a professional colleague, but we were also, uh, joined together in, uh, part of the -- those people in the creation of the Lexington havurah, uh, in the 1970s, and um, so we worked together on that. David was a really dynamic individual, he and his family also joined Ohavay Zion synagogue, uh, and David was a real doer, and within a few years was presi-- very few years, was 00:53:00president of the congregation. Um, I was chair of the religious committee, I was on the board in those early years, and we attempted to make some changes, uh, which weren't necessarily well received by the older establishment in the synagogue who didn't want to see these changes made. Now they do exist. For example, the role of women -- an egalitarian congregation. Women were forbidden to go up onto the bema or the platform at the -- at the front of the sanctuary. When my daughter--(laughs)--when my daughter Harriet was Bat Mitzvahed at the age of 12, I was up there on -- and it was done on a Friday night, not on a Saturday morning because women were forbidden to touch the Torah. So the -- the Bat Mitzvah was held at Friday evening and I was allowed -- I was up on the -- 00:54:00on the bema, on the -- at the front of the congregation, but my wife Judy was not allowed. Uh, so we -- we -- uh, uh, anyway, those thing-- that evolved, and of course that's, uh, just a matter of history now. The role of women is accepted and women in that congregation, of course, have, uh, assumed many roles and there have been, uh, the current president is a woman and there have been perhaps two, three other women who have been presidents in recent years.

CRANE: That's true.

SAXE: But we're talking about, uh, you know, early -- early -- the earlier 1960s.

CRANE: What was -- can you maybe tell a little bit more about, um, the havurah and what the climate at the synagogue was like at the time that, um, that was 00:55:00formed and your role or even, um, and as you said Dr. Wekstein's role in it and -- and how that impacted you working relationship? Or did it?

SAXE: Well, um, beginning of the havurah, we -- it was formed by, uh, we had, uh, temple members, we had people who belonged to neither of the congregations, and we had perhaps more people from the synagogue. Well, we had tried -- we weren't looking to leave the synagogue, Judy and I never left, we never gave up our membership in Ohavay Zion. We were looking to -- I mentioned the role of women, and also to have a little more animated, perhaps, service on Friday night. I, um, when I was chair of the religious committee at Ohavay Zion and -- 00:56:00must have been late '60s, maybe early '70s -- I went to the rabbi and I said, "We have some good voices in this congregation and perhaps we can enliven the singing if we asked a few people, four, five or so just to sit down toward the front," and the rabbi said, "No, that's a choir." So what we wanted was just to have a little more animated service and we were -- felt strongly about the role of women, that women should participate in the service, in a service. And so we asked -- we said, "Well, perhaps we just had a service in a -- in another room, 00:57:00we just have a few people together to try out something in another room," and that wasn't accepted. And it -- so we decided -- there were many -- we tried different things, wasn't being accepted, so we were not looking to quit the synagogue at all, we just wanted to have what today might be called an alternative service where principally women would play a role and, uh, so we set together and, uh, and havurot, the plural of havurah, certainly the Somerville, Massachusetts havurah set the standard as being egalitarian and incorporating other material into the service, not just going page by page in the prayer book. 00:58:00So we decided that we would try a havurot -- a havurah, a single havurah basically to supplement what was going on in the community. And people joined who had belonged to neither congregation, particularly some young people, and we had people who were members and held significant roles in the temple, Temple Adath Israel, as well as from Ohavay Zion synagogue. And we didn't look to compete in terms of starting as a -- having a school for children, that wasn't in our, uh, view, in our vision. And, uh, we, uh, celebrate all the holidays 00:59:00and have continued to do so. And, uh, um, we still -- it's much of a social organization. Uh, everybody's -- and it's peer led, that is everybody contributes in some way; some people are quite -- and have been quite learned or knowledgeable and some not in terms of Judaism in ritual, and services, uh --

CRANE: And this was during -- it's Rabbi Schwab that was actually the rabbi of this synagogue at the time?

SAXE: Yes.

CRANE: Okay.

SAXE: So, uh, and then of course there have been, uh, you know, great changes that were -- we're talking about in terms of being egalitarian and that were very important to us and have gone along and we've seen all -- we've seen both 01:00:00of the major congregations, uh, advance and be concerned about world events and world affairs and what's going on and also in terms of the Jewish world and Israel and what's, you know, universal events.

CRANE: As a, um, a Jew working at the University of Kentucky, describe any adjustments that you needed to make, um, if you needed to make them --

SAXE: Ah, that's --

CRANE: -- and how was your Jewishness treated by other faculty, staff, or students?

SAXE: (laughs) That was a very, very important part of the University of Kentucky. When I was, um, as I mentioned, Doctor Harry Bohannon recruited me and in the early days, Harry and the other folks, and we all considered ourselves very good at recruiting. What Harry did when I was invited to come 01:01:00here and be here for several days was one evening he asked Roy Jarecky, who was the director admissions in the University of Kentucky college of medicine at that time, to bring together some young Jewish couples. I came here by myself on that first visit, and Roy did at his house, and I can remember there were perhaps four or five, or even more, Jewish couples who were there and I remember there was Harriet and Leon Cooper, and I remembered that particularly because Harriet had a southern accent and I remember going back to Seattle and describing this to Judy and saying I had met this woman with this southern accent -- this Jewish woman with a southern accent, I never met a Jewish woman with a southern accent before. I think Marty and Nicky Kaplan were there. Uh, 01:02:00uh, the Derrers may have been there, Barbara and Shelley Derrer may have been there. And there were others. But that I mention as Harry knew that I was Jewish, that Judy and I were Jewish and that being Jewish would be an important consideration. It wasn't just us, I think he would -- any Jewish person that was being recruited, he would look to see what, uh, uh, that they felt, uh, comfortable. But, but he -- but he fe-- knew this brought together that evening, made it happen thanks to Roy Jarecky. And that was important that I knew there were Jewish couples there, couples our age or maybe a little older, uh, to find out about the community. And when we elected to come to Lexington, a couple who were very welcoming, of course, were Harriet and Leon. They -- 01:03:00they were truly outstanding. Leon still is, of course. But, uh, inviting people to their home and, uh, being a real force, a dynamic force in the Jewish community. And, uh, and a factor in us being -- joining Ohavay Zion synagogue in those early days. Um, the other thing about being recruited to the University of Kentucky, uh, now we're talking times when I was in dental school in the, uh, in the mid '50s and, uh, and in the late '50s and early 1960s, there was overt discrimination against Jews, not only as students, which was ending at that time. When I went to Harvard, uh, the discrimination had ended. Um, I had 01:04:00a lot of, um, single syllable last name, uh, fellow students who were Jewish. But the fascinating thing was, I don't know if you'd call it fascinating, but the truth was that, uh, that certain dental schools in the United States, uh, were low and did not hire Jewish faculty. Uh, the, uh, American Academy of Periodontology, I'm going to digress here for a little bit, when I was a post-doc, uh, there was, uh, led by Dr. Saul Schluger among others who would -- who was head of my program at the University of Washington when I was a post-doc there -- to create a new organiz-- professional organization, the American 01:05:00Academy of Periodontology was a semi-secret organization. In other words, a person could not just send in an application and say, "I want to join this professional organization." Uh, the American Academy of Periodontology also controlled the board certification for periodontists. Uh, the, uh, one hard to be vouched for by, uh, either one or two members of the organization to join. During my time, there was a well-known black periodontist who wanted to become a member of the American Academy and was refused -- in other words, they wouldn't allow even if he had a, uh, current member to vouch for him. It was -- he 01:06:00wasn't accepted as a member. Um, the officers of the organization were anointed by themselves, so there were a group of periodontists, including Saul Schluger, Walter Cohen from the University of Pennsylvania, and others, non-Jews, who decided we nee-- and also non-periodontists were members of the American Academy of Periodontology, were equal members. One president was an oral surgeon, one president was an oral pathologist, nothing against oral surgeons and oral pathologists, but this purported to be the specialty organization, the professional organization of periodontists in the United States. So those folks got together and created a new organization and it was called the American Society of Periodontists. When I was a faculty person at the--(laughs)--most 01:07:00junior faculty person at the University of Washington, we were going to hold our first meeting ever in Seattle and the plan was to have meetings at a dental school and utilize the facility of the school, and television was a new, uh, new means of uh, of adding onto to -- but were pure lectures and slides before that, having live television demonstrations of procedures at a professional meeting, utilizing the facility of the dental school. And the first one was held at the University of Washington and I was a lowly instructor, but I was chair of the local arrangements committee. It was called the American Society for Periodontists and membership was limited only to periodontists. And after this organization was created, within a couple of years -- and there were alternate 01:08:00meetings, every other year the meeting would be at a dental school and it would break away, uh, from the fall meeting time, uh, of the American Dental Association. At that time, the American Dental Association, and it still does, has its meetings in the fall. Any specialty organization had to, um, deal -- well, I shouldn't say deal with, but the American Dental Association decided where and when the specialty organizations would meet. The oral surgeons, the oral pathologists, the orthodontists, the periodontists would assign them a hotel in the meeting city and generally they would met before the ADA meeting itself. And with this new organization, we were going to meet in the spring, not in September or October, in the ADA meeting city. Uh, within a couple of 01:09:00years, the old American Academy of Periodontology wanted to talk about merging, essentially, and I remember one meeting took place -- they came to a meeting we had in San Antonio, and we had representatives. And the first meeting, the first year, I think the joint meeting was -- may have been 1967 and may not -- no, 1967 was the first -- ah, when the American Society of Periodontists was formed, the plan was to have a meeting at a dental school every other year, and 01:10:00in between years, the meetings were going to be, uh, at this resort outside of Denver, um, and in the interims, we met at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver. And the first year could be held at this resort, blocking the name of the resort, in Colorado, was 1967 because I remember being there in June 1967 when the six day war occurred in Israel and we were trying to get news out there in this resort. And actually that was the first and last year we had the meeting at that resort because most people preferred to be in the middle of a large city where you could walk out and have access to restaurants and museums and sights. But I remember that because it was 1967. And following that time, there was a 01:11:00merger and the agreement was that the name of the old organization would be used -- mostly because they controlled the board, which was accepted by the American Dental Association, that is the specialty board for periodontists. And we -- ah, and the merger also dictated who would be president of this new organization or the mergered organization, and first year it would be someone from the American Society, then it would be a person from the American Academy, and this was laid out for about five years in advance, and that was followed. And my own thinking was the only reason that the old organization was able to survive was because they held the board, the board certification. That was part of the old 01:12:00organization. And so it continues today, it's quite, uh, it's quite changed. This is, uh, you know, forty-five years later or so, and it's the American Academy of Periodontology. One of the early things about the new, uh, new -- new in 1962, American Society of Periodontists that, uh, Saul Schruger said, "And we're going to publish a journal every month." At that time, the American Academy was publishing, um, I'm not sure if it wasn't even a quarterly, and it was a small little journal, and we're going to have a lot of photographs. And there was a lot of black and white, and then color photographs in the journal of the American Society of Periodontists and it came out every month. And now the, uh, Journal of Periodontology been long well established, it does come out every 01:13:00month, and it's online. But there had been a -- a -- evolution. But, uh, the, uh, racial and religious discrimination was a big factor, uh, in why there was a new organization created.

CRANE: Were there other Jewish faculty at the dental school when you were there?

SAXE: At the University of Washington?

CRANE: No, Kentucky.

SAXE: Oh, at the University of Kentucky. Ah. Well, that was a -- a -- one of the important reasons that this school, in terms of being progressive, this new projected school was that there would be no discrimination, no discrimination in the selection of students, and no discrimination in the selection of faculty -- no racial discrimination, no religious discrimination. And in at least one--(laughs)--and this was the beginning of several new dental schools 01:14:00certainly in the south east and not -- we're the lower Midwest, I'm convinced, I know that. But in the south east, the new dental schools came where there were none, uh, in the -- in the south east, in Georgia, in Florida, uh, there were dental schools in Tennessee, there were dental schools in South Carolina. Uh, there was racial and religious discrimination and I think I may have mentioned that, for example. I won't mention which southeastern school, but, uh, the dean was, uh, basically almost an avowed anti-Semite, the dean at that time, and he's -- he had publically stated there would be no Jewish faculty. So the idea of having this school here, uh, in a state which is a border state, but that there would be no religious and no, uh, ethnic, and no racial discrimination, was very important. That if you're going to go first class, you accept people on merit, not on the color of their skin or their religious affiliation. So, yeah, that 01:15:00was -- this -- and this -- this was also an innovative thing, uh, in the creation of the college of dentistry at the University of Kentucky.

CRANE: What was your relationship with the other Jewish faculty?

SAXE: Um, it wasn't -- religion wasn't important, we didn't need, um, we didn't need a click or, uh, no -- it didn't, it wasn't a consideration. I'll tell you--(laughs)--one other story. When I was in the dental school, I guess in the early year or two, I went in the dental clinics. We had to spend a couple years in the medical school, there was no distinction, uh, when I went to dental school. We -- we -- there were sixteen of us and 114 medic-- maybe 114, 115 medical students. We were all treated the same, we did the exact -- at that 01:16:00time, in the 1950s, the curriculum was exactly the same. I did -- we who were in dentistry did tropical medicine, we did OBGYN, I won't go too much into that, but we did -- were called young doctors. And then we went into the dental clinics, and the, um, being in the dental clinic -- so these are all dentists now. And a couple of the upper classmen -- well, first of all, I got an invitation to go to Tufts. There was a Jewish fraternity at the dental school at Tufts across town in Boston and I think I may have gone to that, probably sure I -- I went to whatever it was. Um, and they wanted to recruit students 01:17:00from Harvard to join their organization because we were a very small class, Harvard in dentists, as I said, there were only sixteen of us. I ended up in a graduating class of only twelve, so I knew I was in the top twelve of my class. But I said to an upperclassmen back in the dental school at Harvard about did -- didn't any of the Harvard students or his classmates join this Jewish fraternity? And he looked at me and he said, "Do you want to join a fraternity that not all of your classmates can join?" And that was the end of it. You know, I never bothered with it. So yeah, there was--(laughs)--we, uh, it wasn't -- it wasn't a question when I was an undergrad -- I mean when I was a dental student. And, um, uh, and I don't have any thoughts about that when I was both 01:18:00a graduate student and a -- and a faculty person at the University of Washington. I wasn't aware of it if there was anything really about religious association or not, and certainly not at the University of Kentucky. That's -- I mean, we sor-- we kind of prided ourselves on that.

CRANE: I happen to know that there were at least a few Jewish students attended UK's dental school while you were there, but wondering if there were more than just a few, and what was the percentage of dental students that were Jewish?

SAXE: It was a small percentage. I think it -- just as there's a small percentage of the Jewish population in Lexington. If you talk about Louisville, of course there's, uh, a dental school right there in Louisville and al-- you know, it has been for many, many, many, many decades. Uh, so, uh, there were -- 01:19:00and the Jewish students, um, I'd say with -- so how many applicants did we have from Lexington? Only very few. Um, there were a couple of Lexington natives -- not natives, but young people who grew up in Lexington who came to the dental school. And then we had out of state students, we had out of state students from New York, we had out of state students from Texas. There were few, but they -- they -- probably more out of state. We had one, uh, actually, uh, a young woman who came from New York who, um, whose son also -- and then moved back, moved to New England -- uh, but whose son came here to the University of 01:20:00Kentucky to go to dental school and is currently on the faculty of the UK college of dentistry. But in terms of Jewish students, they were relatively few and of those few, I would say more than half came from out of state.

CRANE: What -- what would be the attraction for an out of state Jewish student to come here to go to dental school?

SAXE: Ah, well, as I've said -- I've been reti-- all right, maybe I didn't say, I've been retired for eighteen years and while I have a--(laughs)--a post-retirement appointment, uh, in the last number of years, I -- I -- I really -- I, you know, I show up and I talk to some of the staff people who were still there. But, uh, I mention in the early years, we were unique in those early years and we did have a national reputation. Unique in how the curriculum was set up, uh, unique in that it attracted some very good people -- I'll tell you 01:21:00an anecdote about that. In the early years, I was in a national meeting and someone came up to me and said -- this may have been in the late '60s -- and came up to me and said, "What's going -- what's -- what's wrong at the University of Kentucky?" And I said, "Well, what do you mean what's wrong? What's wrong? What's -- what's -- what's going on?" And the person said, "Well, so many people are leaving." And I said, "Oh yes. You know, so-and-so went down to be dean at this school," in the early days there was a new school at the University of Georgia and John Hickey went down to become dean. Uh, John DiBiaggio, uh, left and he became dean, uh, at Virginia, he went on to become president of Michigan State. Uh, he became president of the University of Connecticut. Uh, we had many people and when there was a new dental school in 01:22:00Florida, we had people who went down to become, uh, department chairs. Uh, we had department chairs at Kentucky who became deans at other schools, uh, and that's what happened. It wasn't as if they were leaving because they weren't happy, but they were offered, uh, well, myself, you know, but I opted to stay here -- not to become a dean, but to head my area in my own school, which would be attractive. But it was the community, we decided to stay here at that time, that was a -- a very large pull. So there were people who did leave and, um, uh, because we -- and I say they left because the school had a very good reputation of attracting bright young people, uh, in as faculty and then these faculty -- many of them moved on to assume positions elsewhere, and that still goes on. If you look at, uh, deans of dental schools across the United States 01:23:00and people in positions in dentistry, uh, we've had our -- our -- perhaps more than our share of people who were students here and who were faculty here who've moved on to other dental schools.

CRANE: Describe any specific resources the school offered to the Jewish students. Um, the relationship between the greater Lexington Jewish community and the Jewish students at the dental school.

SAXE: (laughs) Well, I -- I don't know if there was anything special except that the community -- the Jewish community, I think, was greatly influenced by the fact that Lexington grew a great deal in the 1960s and in the 1970s. This meant that a lot of folks came in, I can only speak for the medical center, who didn't have families here in Lexington, that is blood relatives here in Lexington. 01:24:00That certainly was true when Judy and I came in the early 1960s and people who were coming at that time in the later '60s and in the '70s, so they relied on friendships for close associations and that type of environment, I think, would have encompassed Jewish students who wanted to -- or any students who wanted to reach out into the community because I think this has been a very welcoming community. And partly, uh, it may be the nature -- we have to give credit to, uh, to -- to the native Lexingtonians, to some of them, for creating this unique community and much of the credit goes to people who came in from other parts of the country. When we came in, and I'll include myself, came in from other parts of the country, particularly from big cities, we're used to the fact that the 01:25:00school system -- that one needs equality school system. Uh, you need social services, uh, that we saw in other cities and we expected and there was a demand, and the merger of the school systems between county and, uh, city. Uh, and the quality, uh, was promoted a lot by people who came in from other areas who, uh, look at people on the urban county council now, you look at Pam Miller who became mayor, people who came in from other places. Ralph Miller was recruited, came in from because of the University of Kentucky medical center, brought in people from other places who were concerned about the quality of life in this community and, uh, um, and then made it more attractive for other people 01:26:00to come in from elsewhere. But I think the medical center played a major, major role in that -- in -- in all of the colleges. Uh, talk about Je-- the first dean of what was then called the College of Allied Health-- Allied Health Sciences was Joe Hamburg. And -- who was Jewish -- and, uh, that was it. It was, um, I -- I had--(laughs)--we ha-- we now have, as you know, Mike Karp has a -- the, um, heading the medical center, you know, is a Jewish person who came in. Today we have, uh, a Jewish president of the University of Kentucky. Uh, and it's all to the credit of the university that looked for, uh, the leadership and looked for the qualities in an individual that would be a benefit to the 01:27:00commonwealth and the university, not looking at their religious affiliation as the -- as a -- as an important factor. So, uh, Judy and I feel very comfortable in making the decision that we stayed in Lexington and there was no question when I was going to retire and I said -- I've been retired now for over eighteen years -- that we're going to stay in Lexington, Lexington is our home, our kids are all across the country and now they're concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, uh, this is true of many of the young people I guess in Lexington -- they're looking to go to larger urban areas and other, uh, opportunities and challenges. But, um, we are very, very pleased to have made the decision to come to Lexington and to have stayed in Lexington.

CRANE: Is it -- while you were busy at the University, um, of Kentucky in the 01:28:00dental school, you were also very active in the Jewish community. Um, you've already mentioned your role, um, as religious chair and board -- board members at the synagogue and the -- the havurah, but, uh, I know that you were also active in the federation, the Jewish federation. If you could just briefly tell just a little bit about that.

SAXE: Yes. Uh, you know, as, uh, you -- when it's heard, the current federation came out of, uh, what was a -- and what still is a, uh, a day camp during the summer that several, uh, Jewish women put together. Um, and by this time, it must have been uh, I'm not sure that -- when Camp Shalom, the first session -- in the late '60s, early '70s, um, and um, from that -- the -- and -- and one of 01:29:00the, um, a le-- and actually a native Lexingtonian was very important. This was not all from people who came into Lexington. Sue Friedman, who was--(laughs)--a native Lexingtonian and, uh, a social worker and a -- just an extraordinary human being, was concerned about social services, uh, in the city and in the Jewish community. And from Camp Shalom, the beginnings, the organization, the women who put it together, the need for an organization to exist not just during the summer--(laughs)--as a summer camp, but an all year round to provide social services also to meld together fundraising. Uh, and the first organization of 01:30:00which I was a member and I think I served as a secretary when it was called the Jewish Community Association or the JCA, uh, from the Jewish Community Association, uh, Dave Wekstein and Chuck Gorodetsky got together sort of on their own and decided there needed to be a new constitution and came up with the Central Kentucky Jewish Association. Uh, and from that, the Central Kentucky Jewish Association led to joining, uh, and becoming a federation into the Central Kentucky Jewish Federation and now we are the Jewish Federation of the, uh, Bluegrass. Uh, so I served on those boards in the past, and actually when I retired, talking about my retirement, I was asked to go on a couple of boards, 01:31:00one of which was the, uh, the Central Kentucky Jewish Federation and, uh, I did and then they said, "Well, you know, we really need somebody on the executive committee, we need a -- uh -- a vice president." And so I said, "Well, I can do that." And then after a bit they said, "You know, we really want to create line of succession so that, uh, perhaps next time around or next time around you would be the president." And I said, "Oh, no. I didn't sign up to the be the president. They know -- been there, done that. I don't want to be the president." So I came home and I told that story to Judy and she looked at me and she said, "You have a responsibility." So I became the president. Yeah, no, I think that we all feel a sense of responsibility and, uh, and -- and -- 01:32:00and that's what does it. We have a responsibility because we take from this community, this is a good community in which to live, and one has to do something about it and participate and, uh, one has a responsibility.

CRANE: What kind of supports and challenges were there, uh, in Lexington to raise your Jewish children? Or to raise your children Jewish?

SAXE: To raise your children Jewish. Oh, I think it was, uh, it has been relatively easy, uh, because this being a smaller community. Uh, people talk about, uh, in large -- larger communities, I talk about New York, you're surrounded by it. You know, the -- the bagel and the corned beef and the foods, 01:33:00they're always there -- uh, nobody -- you know, you don't have to do anything about this or that and the holidays are observed. But when you live in a smaller community, you have to work to see that there's, uh, for example, in the public schools, a number of people have been concerned when there have been, uh, the classic things scheduled, exams, or--(coughs)--against, uh, major Jewish holidays, for example. Uh, this has been an -- and, uh, I think Judy has gone, certainly I know we're talking a lot, and rightfully so, about Dave Wekstein who chaired the, uh, community relations community and with others going to the latest superintendent of schools, presenting a calendar, and saying, "These are the days of, uh, of the Jewish -- major Jewish holidays, and having a major 01:34:00public school event or scheduling exams, um, you know, major exams in the public schools on these dates creates problems." And, uh, but, uh, that, um, that's been done. We've had a number of people who have committed to doing that. Oh, one of the things also we had in its day, the, uh, NCCJ -- National Conference of Christians and Jews, which then expanded to include Islam and -- and -- and others. But, um, we -- it's eas-- it was easier to do and we had a discussion groups, um, we didn't call it a discussion group, we called it an interfaith dialogue. Easier to do, I think, in -- in this city. I can remember going 01:35:00with Franklin Moosnick and George Zack to like rotary clubs, to service clubs, and because many of these people had -- they'd grown up in central Kentucky, had no contact, uh, with minorities. And, uh, George Zack would talk about growing up, uh, Greek Orthodox in the south, uh, I'd talk about being Jewish, I didn't think that was terribly unique. And um, uh, but it was pretty straightforward and easy to do in a community of this size, so we went to the meetings, we talked a little bit, I didn't think I was particularly unique--(laughs)--I'm not sure what I would talk about, people asked me questions. Um, but it was easy to 01:36:00do in this community. It, uh, of this size -- easy to get around, you identified names of lots of folks, uh, but again, um, you know, I've only lived in, uh, in -- in three different communities and most of my time spent in this one.

CRANE: Okay. So you've been here a long time. How is the Jewish community in Lexington changed over time?

SAXE: Oh, I think, first of all, I think the community perhaps would have changed regardless, but an important consideration was the, uh, new people coming into the community. Uh, brought in by IBM, brought in by the University of Kentucky, certainly the medical center contributed a lot of folks within a shorter period of time. IBM brought in those five hundred families, uh, when 01:37:00they first came. Uh, and the -- as Lexington began to grow, uh, and, uh, people who are looking to establish a business or a franchise and go to the most rapidly growing areas, certainly Lexington did that. So a lot of businesses and franchises came in, uh, in the '60s and the '70s and brought in a lot of different, uh, people. Brought in a number of Jewish people, uh, because of the work situation. Uh, and, um, that was one of -- that was a particular uniqueness of Lexington, its rapid growth. Certainly in the northeast, uh, I think like my home town sti-- still ha-- limited amount of space, but still has probably a population of 60,000, same as it did, you know, seventy-five years 01:38:00ago. Uh, the population, the, uh, the population has changed, uh, in terms of its background and ethnicity, but uh, uh Lexington had a -- has had a lot of room, uh, in which to grow physically and expand and its population has grown. And I'm meeting a lot of folks who have come in not only from other parts of the state but from outside, uh, the commonwealth.

CRANE: What is your most vivid special memory of raising your children in Lexington in your Jewish life?

SAXE: In the Jewish life, well, as I said, I think it was easy because of the size of the community, that the, uh, the children all went to Ohavay Zion's Sunday school, uh, and, uh, it was -- it was easy to do. You didn't have to 01:39:00work out to too complicated a transportation system, to see that they got there. Uh, um, and, uh, and then with the organizations in the city, uh, there were various events. Uh, so this synagogue existed and its Sunday school, uh, the havurah had events, uh, Hadassah -- I don't know if that i-- really involved the children so much, but that, uh, Hadassah became a rather dynamic organization. Uh, and a lot of it from the women who were already resident in Lexington before our time, uh, to whom Judy, uh, owes a great deal, um, uh, uh, yeah. The -- 01:40:00these were women who were quite involved when Judy came and were helpful to her from the Ades Family and the Rosenberg family in pa-- that I can recall who were active. But in terms of the kids, um, uh, yeah, well through Hadassah. Hadassah, for example, sponsored young Judaea, which became a force for, uh, our children and for other young people, uh, through here in town and then certainly through the summer camps. Uh, there are a number of Jewish summer camps that kids here went to, uh, our kids went to the, uh, Young Judaea camps as small children and then as councilors until the high school camp, and then to the overseas program to the -- the -- the summer program in Israel and the year in Israel following high school. So Hadassah, as an organization in the city, and 01:41:00Young Judaea played a role, played a very important role in raising our kids Jewish.

CRANE: Is there anything -- we've talked about all kinds of stuff today, um, certainly enjoyed listening to all your stories. Um, is there anything else that you would like to share that you haven't already shared? Including, um, if you wanted to say something about Israel, um, politics, anything that you would just like to share before we end the interview?

SAXE: Well, I think--(laughs)--uh, a couple of weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, we were in New York and, uh, we were in New York, uh, because Mike and Charlotte Beard's son was married, and, uh, Mike and Charlotte came here. Mike, uh, pretty sure came here right after he received his PhD in political science 01:42:00from Oregon, came into the political science department, then chaired the political science department, became Dean of Arts and Sciences, and then moved on to become provost at Northeastern. But they always -- and now he's in Washington, uh, work for an accrediting agency and now is, um, important, uh, in doing, uh, searching for academic leadership at do-- university presidents in Washington D.C. They always kept their ties with Lexington, always kept their tie with Lexington even, uh, after they left. Well even after they left, after they left it was very important to then, important to us. So we go to the wedding in, uh, in New York City and, uh, one of the things we do is to go to the new Hadassah with Judy and Gail Cohen and I, go up to visit the new Hadassah national office in -- in -- in Manhattan, they had moved, so they're in some new 01:43:00offices and there I am, and I know some of the women that I had met, uh, before. Uh, and they're recognized by many of the women there because they'd been on the national board for a long time, but also Gail Cohen and Judy Saxe are former national vice-presidents of Hadassah and the joke used to be -- and Marilyn Moosnick was the first, was a national vice-president of Hadassah and then Gail was and then Judy. And the joke was that Lexington, Kentucky must be a hot bed of Zionism because three national vice-presidents of Hadassah have from -- come from out in the country from this little town out god knows where, you know, somewhere west of New York City. And so that brought that home because we -- 01:44:00then I thought of that again about being a hotbed of Zionism, but it isn't, but we have a lot of, uh, committed people, uh, and that has grown over the years. People who are committed, uh, to Zionism, people who are committed to the state of Israel. And we have had a lot of young people, a number of yo-- or young people who have done the year in Israel program, uh, and have visited at ot-- at other times. Um, so yes, I think there's a -- a -- Lexington is a presence. Lexington, I might even say, is a force, uh, for, uh, pro-Israel or, uh, promotion of Israel and the defense of Israel. And a great concern for the welfare of Israel exists here in Lexington, Kentucky.

CRANE: Well, I thank you very much for everything you've shared with us today.

SAXE: Well, thank you.

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