Mark Kreditor
Mark Kreditor was born in 1958 at a hospital near Glen Cove, New York, and grew up in Hicksville on Long Island in what he compared to a scene from The Wonder Years. His mother was a public school teacher and his father owned a liquor store in the Bronx, a business that had come from his mother's side of the family. His mother's family traced its roots to Eastern Europe and Czechoslovakia, arriving in America before World War One. His father's family came from a town in southern Ukraine, where they had been furriers and where his grandparents met in a small shul. His great-uncle Lou, a legendary Dallas figure, moved there in 1943 and inspired Mark's lifelong love of Texas.
A natural entrepreneur, Mark ran his own small businesses from his teenage years, selling sneakers at flea markets and later selling backgammon sets while attending Northeastern University in Boston on a five-year cooperative education plan. He first visited Dallas in 1971 for a cousin's wedding at the Fairmont Hotel and was instantly smitten with the city's warmth and promise. After graduating and traveling to Europe and Israel, he loaded a U-Haul and moved to Dallas in August 1981. He built a career in direct marketing and later in managing and marketing real estate, a field he remains in. In 1985 he met his wife Carol through a Jewish singles group, and they married soon after.
Mark has been a passionate leader in Dallas Jewish philanthropy, beginning some thirty years earlier when Nate Levine brought him onto the Jewish National Fund board. He served three years as annual campaign chair of the Federation, worked in campaign development at the JCC, and sat on executive committees for Levine Academy, Yavneh Academy, and his synagogue, Beth Torah. Carol, described as brilliant with financial services, is a past president of Yavneh Academy and also serves the Federation. A devoted musician who teaches classes and presentations on music, Mark treasures family events and his daughters Sarah and Laura. He and his father returned to their ancestral Ukrainian town, where he found the synagogue his grandparents once attended and reflected on the family's survival and roots.
Full Transcript
you and your wife Carol what do you have an involvement with the Jewish community very much so I was always involved with collecting money in my businesses as a kid always is sold ads for my school newspaper and was really good at making sure people paid them so I was always wanting to do something involved with fundraising and my first encounter 30 years ago was with a gentleman named Nate Levine who brought me into the Jewish National Fund Board and i would sell trees on sundays and and i think that was something that started me with philanthropy mostly to do with the direct mail because
that's what I really loved and studied at school for annual campaign so so fast forward I've been an annual campaign chair of the Federation for three years I've been annual campaign development director for you know to JCC when I served on the executive committee for the day schools Levine Academy and for Robin Academy for my synagogue Beth Torres there is nothing like a pledge nothing in the world there is nothing that we had more than anything like your pledge I've always been very passionate about helping others have the mitzvah of giving my wife past president of the yagna Academy and very smart brilliant with financial
oriented services has always been involved much with the day schools through our children and she also serves a federation as well mark 1958 Glencoe Long Island let's go back to the tell me about life and your little kid I grew up like most kids that of the scene from The Wonder Years I was probably kidding Arnold so that is what my life was like it was my mother was a public school teacher my father owned a liquor store in the Bronx that was what my grandfather's business was my mother's side so we went every week to the Bronx to see our grandparents I thought it
was every kid's dream to have a bicycle and ride to north shore south shore took a lot of public transportation but I always knew that I was not going to stay there forever because i had this uncle Lou who would come visit us from Texas and uncle Lou moved to dallas in 1943 and uncle Lou came here to cut back uniforms to avoid the draft because at that time they were drafting even men with children and he had one daughter Barbara so uncle Lou would come to New York he had a hat he had boots he had lots of wealth and smiles and Texas always
was this this Mecca this this gold city on a hill because everything uncle who spoke about about Dallas was that you just really could find incredible happiness and and wealth I was always a hustler as a kid I always had a business I was always either mowing lawns or working or selling things at about the time of my bar mitzvah my cousin Pat Gaspar she got married and I came to Dallas for the first time in 1971 uncle Lou had the whole family up in a hotel we had room service we were driven around in beautiful cars the Fairmont Hotel where the wedding was was
the nicest affair I'd ever seen and I was smitten i remember in fact landing at Love Field and at the time Roger Meyer Cadillac was on the north service road of LBJ and in all it was was a Cadillac dealership there was nothing else and the pilot made it a point to show us that we flew in on bran affair all the stewardess is were gorgeous they all look like Farrah Fawcett I was smitten there was no question that as soon as I finished up whatever it was that I was still to do I would move to Dallas not at your parents know this where
your plan my sad hoppity to move to Texas because uncle who wanted everybody to move to texas in the 60s but my mother was I think recently tenured as a schoolteacher and it was a big decision for her to give up that New York State Teachers benefit plan so they stayed and they still live in Long Island now you move on your young to hicksville New York's well I grew I grew up in hicksville that's like a nice element that was just born in Glen Cove the hospital was a couple of towns away we involved any sports activities throwing up to New York sure I
played tennis from my high school tennis team and that was pretty much my sports activities make it through a US Open out there in New York and ID number to the US open on the bucket list yeah okay now where'd you go to college I went to school at Northeastern University in Boston it was a five-year cooperative education plan always had my own business when I was in high school I worked at a sneaker store and on weekends I would take some of the sneakers and go to a flea market with my mother station wagon slept in the car all night so I get a
good spot and I was I was pretty successful as a high schooler with my own small business when I was at the flea market I met a young man who sold backgammon sets he was graduating from Boston University and he said he needed someone to take over his street corners when school opened to sell backgammon sets so I loaded up not only my clothes but lots of backgammon sets and went to college in the fall of 76 and sold backgammon sets outside of most of the colleges and universities sold a lot of the bookstores backgammon and then in the summer of my third year at
college I took my unaired condition chevy nova and headed to dallas to visit my uncle Lou and sell backgammon sets along the way to every store I went to UT and got an account there and really immediately was embraced by the friendliness of Doug Dallas at the time I was a marathon runner and I went every day to white rock lake then the that I met there were the most welcoming wonderful people that still to this day are like family and I just knew that when I graduated college I was going to move to dallas in fact i tried to switch schools and go to
the university of dallas and even put it the positive down in the department on stone canyon and then i got cold feet at the last minute thinking i will really want this degree from Northeastern and it made sense to not change that because I was ready three years into my program so stayed but again every summer would come to dallas and it was the summer of 80 i remember which was the hottest summer on record and i said if i can run through this i can definitely make it the day I graduated from college I went to Europe and Israel and as soon as I
got back I loaded up at uhaul with a piano a couch a bed and headed to Dallas okay and you came alone I came alone wow what was that trip like no I mean I came with a buddy who drove my club behind me and then I flew him home but I died we was fine i had an apartment already rented on manner of Elaine got here in august of 81 and had a business to want to build which was very fun i would try to find cigarette smokers that smoked Winston's and we'd sell them tomorrow and and then my job was to sell other
parts of this data card to find and Times Herald readers for the morning news and it was really a very interesting business of direct marketing I handed out flyers to have the surveys filled often using models downtown and in 1983 I had a cousin who built some condominiums near downtown and was having trouble selling them and I designed a little flyer that looked just like the cigarette flyer use the same models and we handed the Flyers on we sold out the community in six weeks he lien in my business that I'm still in which is really managing and marketing real estate met your wife Downton
then my wife in 85 we had a mutual friend in the Jewish singles group and I knew of her and as soon as we had our first few dates we were done we were very nice timing okay and where's your boyfriend from she grew up in Houston such my kids are fourth-generation Texan and I'm very proud of that her dad was a CPA and moved the family to Chicago from grades 6 through 12 and then she went to Tulane and the family moved back to Atlanta where her dad was from okay but we have Houston roots tell me about your grandparents now what would your
grandparents do my mother's side were from Eastern Europe and Czechoslovakia I think was really the word my mother said she was very good at spelling and they came to this country before World War one and my favorite story was that my grandfather's brother did not come to this country and yet when he fought during World War one he fought against his brother so I always thought they would see each other in foxholes shooting at each other as a little kid I never could understand that he was a proud Jewish war veteran he also was an entrepreneurial he had a hackney license so he drove a
cab and then he got a liquor store and that liquor store in the Bronx became my father's job when they were married my father's side of the family I know much more about they were from a town called sha Garrett and my grandfather Morris his little brother was uncle Lou who is the Dallas connection that is a legend in this town may rest in peace and my grandparents fell in love in the little shul and their shtetl in southern Ukraine called shattrath my father and I returned there a year ago this week and saw the roots of the family they came here with modest means
in the early 1900s and my family were all furriers on my father's side they were Ferrer's in the Ukraine and they were for New York and my uncle also was a cutter so an uncle Luke came to Dallas he was a cutter for Lorch but I have fond memories of my grandmother's my grandfather amara suckle is older brother he died nine months before I was born so I was very close with my grandmother so there was always a real tight connection in our family now when you went back on that trip with your dad was there something about the family you learned that you did
not know well we went to the little town which was once you know five thousand Jews there were 17 left so I learned that they probably had nothing to stay for I learned that there was certainly a likelihood they wouldn't have survived I definitely felt somewhat of what perhaps a survivor might feel who goes back to a area of their former life where there was a lot of loss of life and I felt a connection that my family probably would not have lived if they stayed it didn't make me you know anywhere near as important as the wonderful survivors that this community has but I
felt like I connected my roots my dad and I were very happy to be able to find the synagogue that his parents my grandparents met at when he was 16 and sang at Cole nedra now that you have been a culture shock sort of when you came to Dallas I know you were excited about coming but you're leaving New York that was a great question I don't think there was any culture shock because I knew everything that I was told from my uncle about how wonderful the people were a beautiful the girls were how lucrative any business would be and I just trusted every person
that I met and I've yet to ever regret that people were really as kind as honest and is forthcoming and helpful as uncle who expressed that there was no culture shock I felt like I had found found paradise here now your kids born in Texas do they know your mama their moms and your roots of course I might grab my parent thank God are still alive and my wife's mother is still alive my children definitely know all about our roots and are very proud Texans and both are living in Boston and my oldest daughter recently had to get a Massachusetts license because she was now
working in Massachusetts and she had to turn in our Texas license and she cried wara don't mess with Texas shirt to the motor vehicle Bureau it's a big deal for our kids to not live in Texas but at this point in their lives whether it be through their education or the first jobs in their career they're not yet ready to come home as a happiest time in your life I love celebrating events that my children and my wife all share so it could be certainly any any any musical performance that kids sang at when I was when they were little dance recitals from my oldest
daughter theatre pro-growth eater shows from my youngest daughter here at the JCC thrilling the bus mitzvahs I like like a family events in seeing the kids succeed in your lifetime there's been so many momentous occasions of course you know the Kennedy assassination first moon landing in 69 something good of course their tragedy of 911 it was there something on the national scene that really stood out in your mind that made you sit up and take notice of I remember where I was during the oj verdict at my office with the TV there and that was certainly a memory of recent you know I do remember
in college when there were hostages in Iran and and the Carter turning it over to Reagan I remember that very clearly in 1980 and you know I i do remember mostly events that caused people to rebel and I am very happy here when those things happen even just today it's the first day after the George Zimmerman verdict which no one will know about 50 years from now but there is a lot of people have said and other to the country here it's business as usual Dallas is a very conservative I feel very safe contained place so I think I probably have more of those memories
when I wasn't in Dallas is there an invention or something that came along that you really took notice oh the ability to carry recordings ick with me I am a musician and I do a lot of presentations and classes on music and it's the most passionate thing in my life after my family but I really am so changed since I would have been able to contain all of my songs and all of my videos on one device whether it be an iPad or an iPhone and I can plug it in anywhere and teach tell me a little bit about your daughter's Sarah much like my
wife very reserved and very poised and a very good dancer always love to help others and now he is an occupational therapist helping children born with special needs young children and she's really repairing the world and most proud of her always she was a sweetheart at bbyo for one of the chapters burger and she she really kind of took us down this path as the first born of being very it may is very proud because she was always well presented good kid Laura equally wonderful in our community very passionate about Israel very passionate about our Jewish roots did such beautiful theatrical performances here at the
JCC got into Booker T went to Jana after her year at Booker T laura's much like myself and I think she will do very well if there's ever an opportunity as she has found to just be liked by others she really couldn't charm and she's she's very special and I think she's very close to our head to our roots if she's named after my grandma advice I'd like to leave for the next generation is that you really should not take for granted what you have been given and that the people who came before you certainly before me they lived with much less nice things than
you have and because of that they didn't take for granted that the entitlements they were receiving were theirs to enjoy they probably shared much more in other words you need to make sure that you give back that you truly make charitable giving an important part of your life based on what you earn not what on you what you can enjoy or not enjoy because you can talk yourself out of having or not having enough things any day of the week but the truth is the city is a wonderful community for our Jewish people because of the fact that so many people gave time resources that
made this just the most wonderful place you can't take it for granted you have to give back well thanks for doing this today that's it