SAM BEBER PARK FOREST, ILL. March 11, 1964 Dr. Max F. Baer 1640 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 Dear Max: I received your letter of March 9th enclosing the memo in regard to Abe Babior. As you know there were a group of boys banded together under the name of AZA prior to my time. I do not know how many members they had nor who was the first president. I have no reason to doubt any of the statements made by Abe except I am quite sure that there were only two chapters in existence when Omaha Lodge B'nai B'rith took the first step in providing B'nai B'rith's spon- sorship. The Lincoln and Des Moines chapters were organized after I took over. Nate Mnookin had become the advisor of a second group in Kansas City which took on the name of AZA but which had no actual affiliation with the Omaha chapter. It is my recollection, also, that we started using the Hebrew titles for the chapter officers after we drafted a national constitution, etc. Therefore, Abe must have been called president rather than Aleph Godol. However, he might be right as to his title--I am not certain. As to the name of AZA, I believe that the local group was simply cal- led by the three Hebrew letters and that these letters did not stand for specific words until after B'nai B'rith's sponsorship. I remember scrounging around to find three Hebrew words which would begin with the letters Aleph, Zadik and Aleph and which would have some B'nai B'rith connotation. The closest I could come was to use the B'nai B'rith motto and find three Hebrew words which came very close to "benevolence, brotherly love and harmony". When a committee of AZA boys called on me to become their advisor and I told them my idea of a junior B'nai B'rith and suggested that they might become the first chapter of that organization, they readily accepted. After Omaha Lodge took over sponsorship and appointed a committee to work with me, we decided to constitute the boys who were then in the Omaha chapter (I believe there were 20) as the charter chapter. I then called Nate Mnookin and asked him if he would enroll his group in Kansas City as the second AZA chapter. He readily agreed. Then I called Saul Arenson of Lincoln and asked him to help organ- ize a chapter there. I did the same with Seppy Silberman in Des Moines.