Ronald Mankoff
Ronald Mankoff was born in South Dakota in 1931 to parents who had both come from Russia, and he grew up in a loving and reasonably observant Jewish family in Minneapolis with an older sister. His father, Harry, came to the United States at about age 15 with his mother and sisters, served in the army around 1917, and afterward returned to Europe to bring relatives to America. As the story goes, he ultimately helped bring some 150 people to the United States, traveling in his uniform with letters from the army and senators. After a drought forced the family's Dakota stores to close, they eventually returned to Minneapolis, where Harry worked 30 years for Metropolitan Life before becoming a real estate investor. He lived to be 101.
Ronald attended North High School in Minneapolis and went on to the University of Minnesota, earning his undergraduate and law degrees in 1954. Through the Navy ROTC program, which helped pay for his law school, he served three years in the Navy, including aboard a troop transport. During a stop in the Virgin Islands, where his ship supported the making of a film, he met Joy, a bright and spirited young woman he quickly fell in love with. After briefly practicing law in Minneapolis and studying tax law at NYU, he moved to Dallas, married Joy, and made the city his home in 1959.
In Dallas, Mankoff practiced tax, corporate, and business law, becoming a partner in a firm that carried iterations of the Durant, Robey, and Mankoff names until a 1983 merger. He grew deeply involved in the community, serving as president of Temple Emanu-El and of the American Jewish Committee, and spending years on the board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. He led the North Dallas homeowners effort that secured underpasses along the Dallas North Tollway through negotiation, and later chaired other homeowners groups. He remained active with the Jewish Federation foundation and Temple boards, and with groups concerned with the direction of Reform Judaism, while enjoying golf, bridge, woodworking, and travel with Joy and their family.
Full Transcript
is May 16 2008 my name is Roslyn been jet I'm here for the Dallas Jewish Historical Society to record the oral history of Ron manga and our videographer is Ruth Anders run tell us about your family my family in Minneapolis with my folks my mother and father both came from Russia and I had an older sister who still lives in Minneapolis and her family was there I grew up in a very loving and reasonably Jewish family I would say mm-hmm I came to Dallas in 1959 and created my new family with joy right how did your parents happen to get to Minneapolis my father's older
brother had come some years earlier and started a chain of general stores in North and South Dakota and he and his brothers-in-law I had a chain of stores and they when my father was old enough to come over I think he was about 15 he came with his mother and sisters and the logical place to come for education was Minneapolis because the Dakotas didn't have any major cities so he went to high school in Minneapolis and then started to college and then went in the army it was about 1917 at that time it's been a couple of years in the army and then left the
army in order to go back to Europe actually his mother did not come with him he went back to Europe to bring his mother and relatives after his army service a very exciting story because after he made the first trip and brought back his mother and some relatives the word got out that hairy man cough can go to Europe and bring relatives back and it was widely known and so he was solicited to go back and all in all the story goes he brought a hundred and fifty people from Europe in the United to the United States and to Minneapolis this would have been in
the early twenties mmm-hmm yes that's right after they shortly after the war mmm he traveled in his uniform and he had letters from the army and from senators saying that he was authorized to go over there and bring these people over it was very interesting story people would stop him on the street and and thank him for bringing the hero with him over or their parents over it was very a wonderful story my father lived to be 101 and right up through his last birthday party when he was 100 people came and and told the story about how he had brought their parents over from
Europe he and his family worked in South Dakota where I was born in 1931 until about 32 when there was a a drought and so all of the farmers were unable to pay their bills and the stores were unable to continue my dad initially went to California and they lived with my mother's sister who whose husband had a furniture store in Pasadena California and they stayed there for about a year and then came back to Minneapolis where my dad went in the insurance business which was a connection that his nephews had they were all selling insurance from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Minneapolis and he
came back and went to work for metropolitan stayed there for 30 years and then retired and started his life as a real estate investor had a very nice life and what was Minneapolis like when you were child living there very cool Minneapolis was it was restricted sum of anti-semitic I think in in those days a very conservative town there were Jewish law firms and and really no Jews in the nine walk Jewish law firms there was a Jewish neighborhood where I grew up on the north side and but it's developed over the years and it's opened and warmed but right through the time when I
was practicing law there and I right after law school I did practice law for a year and a half in Minneapolis I it was with a souca a Jewish law firm and I think since that time it has opened up and in that period individual Jews would go and practice with with the white-shoe law firm so to speak but it took some years for that to happen it's very conservative community in those days um tell us about your experience in school I went to grade school in high school in Minneapolis place called North I which was about I think it was one-third jewish one-third black
and one-third wasp in a very good school i'm a very bright school a very large large student body i don't think it it's not in that location anymore the north side has turned rather rough over the years then for minneapolis i went on to the University of Minnesota where I uh I had my undergraduate and law degree I graduated there in 1954 and went in the Navy I've been on a Navy ROTC program which basically paid for my law school the but required me to go on summer cruises and that brought me south to Dallas where I visited my aunt uncle Jerry Thomas who Frank
on the way to Orange Texas where did summer cruise one year and I really loved Alice that was it seemed to me that people down here knew have how to live nobody had to shovel snow and everybody grew flowers and it was just a lovely place to live when I graduated law school in 1954 I won in the Navy it's been three years met joy came back to Minneapolis after after the three years and went to work for a firm called Leonard Street and died nerd and they were notwithstanding the names they were all Jewish and practiced there for about a year and a half
and then decided it was time to go to court joy was still living in New York and so I left to go to NYU tax law school there anyway law school had a tax program in those days it still does so I went out there and took the tax program for nine months and we got engaged and then moved to Dallas I intentionally didn't pick up the phone the reason I would I didn't plan to come to Dallas initially but when I got off the ship the phone rang and it was my mother she said she had got a call from this lawyer who really
wanted to know when I was coming back because he wanted to offer me a job and so I had to go back to Minneapolis under that circumstance and did and went to work but the second time I didn't answer the phone I went directly to Dallas because we I really wanted to go south let's go back to your childhood and Jewish affiliations that your family had I'm sorry what was it let's talk can we talk about Jewish affiliations that your family had in Minneapolis well let's see when I started we lived just down the street from an Orthodox synagogue and like her kodesh it was
called and that's where my Boy Scout Troop was and I sang in they had a little choir you know for high holidays because they had that the virtuosic Cantor and that was our connection then we moved and we were not closer to a conservative synagogue and so we became members of beth-el and that's where I was bar mitzvah'd and Jewish affiliation I would say it was temple synagogue my mother was a nun sister were very active in that da so my sister was on the National Board and my mother was very active and was the Hadassah woman in the year one year serving in Minneapolis
and I belong to a Jewish fraternity gbt at the University that is probably the extent of our Jewish affiliation what made you decide to study law well I thought it was good preparation for general living I initially didn't think it was I didn't really plan to be a lawyer but I thought he had to do something and I thought going through law school was a good idea I didn't like the sight of blood so I wasn't gonna be a doctor and one time I was thinking about being an architect that then I found out architects didn't get paid very well and I was thinking about
being a rabbi at one point but that's sort of went away very quickly and what was left whose law school and so that was it off we went to law school and then I enjoyed it and it turned out that I had learned the skill and trade and there was something that I liked doing so I decided to and I practiced I enjoyed it very much and how did you enjoy me well I was on a ship called the ran ball which was a troop transport that carried marine troops and we were stationed in Norfolk Virginia and the ship had been loaned out to universal
international to make a movie called away all boats which was a story about a troop transport that had been attacked in the Pacific and crippled and all of its boats had been used to pull it around it was a very sort of touching story and so the Randall was sent to the Virgin Islands which is where they made the movie and the first night we got off the officers went to the bar at the Virgin home hotel and a sitting there any a young lady went by with an older gentleman and I turned the thought nice to me and I said isn't it a shame
that these older guys bring these young girls down yeah and about half an hour later a woman came over and she said I'm the social hostess or social director of the hotel would you like to meet a young lady who's here with her family I have a drink with that - ed sure so I went over and there was joy sitting in a booth with her father and her mother turns out this was her father her mother was late and the joy was a very and still it was a very beautiful girl very slender dark hair blue eyes and wonderfully opinionated I was from Minneapolis
and you know in Minneapolis everybody sort of had unspecific opinions you know we would sort of go along enjoy I had very strong opinions about everything and she was well educated and bright and we danced and I fell in love so that the next day I went to my captain I said can I get the weekend off I want to move into the hotel and date this girl he said fine so I did then we spent the weekend dining and dancing and swimming and just had a wonderful time and that's how I met your way mm-hmm story um when you did to Dallas what was
the city like it's wonderfully small very friendly uncrowded it was hot and but dry seemed drier in those days is now but the people were just lovely it had a combination of the southeast where people were gracious and elegant and the Southwest where they were warm and welcoming and when we came it was we just sort of fell into home so we'd always been here what were you doing professionally when you first moved here well when I first came down this was before we married and I came down and I got a job offer with a particular firm and went back up to dead Hartford
got engaged came back down here and the offer fell through it didn't turn out to be it didn't happen so we put the wedding off from June to November and then I looked around for it's been another six weeks found another job with a very nice law firm called Lyon Blanchett Smith and Shelton although I will say they had an interesting comment they said they had never hired a Jewish lawyer before because Jewish lawyers tend not to stay and sure enough about a year later I left but the circumstances were I'd rather typical I had been fortunate enough to bring in a lot of good
business my uncle Jerry in the tax case and I was able to bring in business that paid for my salary and quite a bit more and about a year later the firm that I had originally wanted to go with fell on him when Worth T Durant and Robert giv Durant and avi who did exactly what I wanted to do they were tax litigators they had not had a job opportunity when I first came they approached me after a year and said you know we now have business we'd like you to come with us and I said that swallowed what how much does the job pay
he said it's not a job it's a partnership I said wonderful Wow well it turned out that hobby had cancer and they were interested in continuing the firm's hobbies could be paid out and I was going to be the continuation of the firm and it became Durant hobby and man come in 1961 I guess and stayed in iterations of that for about 20-some odd years until 1983 when I we merged with the fine Bryce and it became Bryson mancom but that was the Association that's where I practiced wonderful practice whoop went direct to Bob Bobby died six months after we joined together but Durant and
I practiced for 20 odd years and then he died age of 77 and the firm when I'm practicing good tax law good corporate law business law for a long time and you've been involved in the Jewish community for a very long time how did you get started and what did you do well I went on the board the temple sometime early in the temple I joined the temple and join the country club when we first got here joined the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce and joined a lot of things to sort of things that lawyers do and I was on the temple board for a
number of years and it was reasonably active and at one point the the leadership of the temple sort of well sort of slid to younger people and I was nominated president and became a president of temple in nineteen when I was about 47 49 46 47 years old and I'll take it back before that I had the president of American Jewish Committee which was another group diet joint it was active in I think those were my two main interests and activities then after Temple I went on the board of the union of American he our congregations which was the National realization of performing congregations that
was partly because the temple manual had dropped out of the union for several years because there was a controversy about how much dues we were being asked to pay and whether it was fair and in the absence of negotiations success temple manual was just dropped out when on its own and it was during that period that I became I think I think I was president when we went back in and as part of the the deal two or three of us went on the board of the Union and Lonnie Pollock was one I was another and can't remember the third and so I was on
the union board for another eighteen years which was a nice Jewish activity what else have I done I'm sure there are others doesn't jump into mind okay what is the favorite project that you've worked on though during those over all the years that you've been probably the the Dallas toll road called daddy's toll road this was this was actually an earlier activity then either the AJC or temple I've been in Dallas practicing for a couple of years and it seemed to me that it was time to get active in something communal and I said that to Joy and in the newspaper there was a little
blurb about somebody at the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce fellow it was an architect who announced that they were a formated group to oppose the North Dallas toll road because it was not as represented the toll road and all of the publicity and early pictures was going to be a submerged road that nobody would see because it was going right along the railroad track and through some very nice neighborhoods and when the plans finally came out it turned out that it was going overpasses going through all these neighborhoods with high concrete bridges going along and there was a consternation in North Dallas so I call
this fellow at the North Dallas Chamber and I said because I had been to some of those meetings and I said I'm all over here and I'd be glad to help you if I can and you know some believe you may have some legal issues and he said that'd be fine he called me back said would you be President hmm he said it turned out the North Dallas chamber didn't want to be on the other side of that issue because they thought the road would be good for the community so he couldn't do it because he was a director but could I be the president
of the North Dallas homeowners association I had set up for exactly for this purpose which I agreed to do and we had some lovely meetings wonderful meetings and we all agreed that we would oppose this and we would through negotiation we did have some hotheads in the in the media in the organization who wanted to sue at all costs Suleiman stopped the project but cooler heads prevailed and we agreed that we didn't want to stop the project we just wanted a better project and so as a matter of fact at one point with meat at all very exciting was that I was to have my
office was downtown and I was walking by a building that housed the central business district Association which was going to the issue one of the entities very involved in this operation and just on a whim I walked in and walked into their office and there were about a dozen people having a meeting and I looked in and I turned around walked out they said wait a minute aren't you the fellow who was involved with the North Dallas homeless I said yes but he said come on in you know we want to work this out and they did and what we negotiated was that the city
was going to which was getting several hundred thousand dollars for part of the land that was going to be used for the toe room agreed that they would contribute that money to pay for the additional cost of underpasses because underpasses are you know a submergence road would cost more and the Turnpike Authority agreed to pay and the result was that we ended up with six out of eight under passes so that the streets at Walnut Hill and parkland our underpass and forest land or under passes rather than over passes we two of them remained one of them may be forest one of them was Lovers
Lane because of drainage problems but I felt very good about that this was this was the solution to a problem through discourse and negotiation rather than brute force since that time I've been the chairman of other homeowners associations dealing primarily with the natural property just north of where we live and we negotiated in that case a successful shopping center alternative to the high-rise office park that he had proposed it's called Lincoln Park and everybody is very happy with it now he said mister did the late mr. Nash sure I'm sure it was how do you think the city has changed since you first came to live in Dallas well it's become a lot bigger a lot more complex when I first got here there were individuals who were dedicated to the good of the city who could get things done they were called an oligarchy another aspect of my activity was at one time I became I was part of a young leadership group that Eric Johnson had put together and I think I was drafted partly from the North Dallas homeowners association and part of and we were there we were assigned out to different
organizations and I was assigned out to the citizens charter Association which at that time was the political oligarchy in town and it would nominate people to the City Council because it was did not have single-member districts and it would pay for an advertising campaign and by and large their candidates won although not always and it was right that this oligarchy was run by people who were dedicated to the good of the city and over the years we've seen some of them but I think one of the major changes we've seen has been the introduction of political leadership rather than community leadership with the result that
you get the feeling that perpetuating their position in office is almost is more important than getting something done for the good of the city I think that's been a major change now at least every once in a while we see somebody come back I'm very impressed with the mayor Leppard oh we didn't support it from there I think he's one of the people who is of that Hill who has sees something to be done for the city and wants it to be done rather than simply running for mayor or running for higher office that's been a major change in the city we're very fortunate that
a lot of things got done the airport for example would not have gotten done except for the individual effort of Eric Johnson who put his own money up to option land and kept his secret so he accumulated a large enough area that could be an airport without the price getting out of hand and so the result is Dallas is now in the center of the city and served by a wonderful airport without which it couldn't possibly have prospered as I do other men other individuals have done that but mostly for their own benefit and very few for the better of the city how about the
Jewish community has that changed it's got an awfully big you know there was a time when you you thought you knew everybody in town you know 50 or 48 years ago when we first came here it's a very big very diverse community I think it's done a wonderful job of taking care of its own of representing itself in the large community one of the nice things temple manual always did was to be part of a larger community and I think the Jews in Dallas have always prided themselves on being active participants in the political life and the charitable life and the intellectual life of the
city I think they're doing that well continue to do it I'm very proud of the Jewish community in Dallas Texas I don't think there's anything that's happened that has not been well done well thought out whether it's the new Legacy which i think is a beautiful project the projects that council National Council of Jewish women does it was our outreach and you know programs to help the larger community I think those things are very important I think they're well done and what are you doing what am i doing now in the community Oh fine larger I'm relaxing I'm playing golf and I'm playing bridge and
I'm building furniture and we're traveling quite a bit we do a little I'm on the board of the high investment Finance Committee an endowment Finance Committee which takes a little bit of my time I'm still on the I was chairman of the foundation of the Jewish Federation as it was called at that time so I'm still on that board I guess I always will be and I'm still on the board of Temple and I guess I always will be and I'm active in a couple of groups that are involved in Reform Judaism and what it should be whether it should be the classical reform progressive
Reform Judaism thoughts about Judea Reform Judaism has changed over the years and that's an area of my interest concern did you have role models role models I say this but not really mm-hmm no I've always felt very lucky that where I was and what I was doing was very satisfying to me out of an individual and personal basis and I wasn't wet Durant was a mentor of mine and I would say that he his standards were high and his intellectual ability was enormous and but we were comrades rather than he wasn't a role model of the strictest sense he smoked cigars and I didn't smoke
cigars but I've always been very fortunate in that the paths that I've taken seem to have led well we've been very lucky that way tell us about your family today well joy is relaxing with me although she's much more active than I am I think all of her the organizations that she has created or participated in are still quite active and she's active in them my son Jeff is here and we office together and hug every day he's got a wonderful family too a boy and a girl and my son Brad Douglas out of California is in the movie business has three children and living
there all living happy productive lives we're very very very happy we look around and we're very pleased at what we what we have what we have had and what we look to have in the future so anything that you would like to add I'm glad you're here today thank you you