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March 28, 2024

Family, friends mourn Sun publisher Barbara Greenspun

Barbara Greenspun funeral

Steve Marcus

Palm Mortuary funeral attendants bring the casket of Barbara Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, into Congregation Ner Tamid for a funeral service in Henderson on Thursday.

Updated Thursday, June 3, 2010 | 6:49 p.m.

Services for Barbara Greenspun

Services were held Thursday to honor philanthropist and publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, Barbara Greenspun, who passed away Tuesday at age 88. About 700 mourners gathered at Congregation Ner Tamid in Henderson to celebrate her life as the Greenspun family bid a tearful farewell to their matriarch.

Barbara Greenspun Funeral Services

Palm Mortuary funeral attendants bring the casket of Barbara Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, into Congregation Ner Tamid for a funeral service in Henderson on Thursday. Launch slideshow »

Remembering Barbara Greenspun

Barbara Greenspun, matriarch of the Greenspun family, died Tuesday. Her son and editor of the Las Vegas Sun, Brian Greenspun remembers his mother and her legacy of contributions to the Las Vegas Valley.

Barbara Greenspun was remembered Thursday as the matriarch of her family, a philanthropist and a driving force in the community.

More than 600 people attended a funeral service for the publisher of the Las Vegas Sun at Congregation Ner Tamid, 55 N. Valle Verde Drive in Henderson.

Barbara, who died Tuesday at the age of 88, left a mark not only on her community and family but on the world, said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where Barbara was a board member.

“I understood immediately what a special lady she was,” Hier said. “Philanthropy, compassion and concern for others were not Barbara’s only virtues.”

She stood by her husband, Hank, when he risked everything to support Israel, Hier said. Hank shipped guns to the Middle East to help the Jewish state of Israel defend itself against the Arab armies, which attacked it following the United Nations’ partition in 1948.

“Barbara always did the right thing all her life — doing God’s work, planting seeds in the greater community in which she lived and in the Jewish community here and around the world, being a source of inspiration every day to her grandchildren, her children,” he said.

Her son, Daniel Greenspun, chairman of Greenspun Media Group, said his mother was the source of strength for the family, including his father.

“I’m sure he always knew he could recharge. He always had a reservoir that he could go back to,” he said. “Talk about a woman standing by her husband. I’ve always known she had her hand on his back supporting him, because he did a lot awfully wild stuff.”

Her oldest son, Brian Greenspun, said his mother’s influence is seen throughout the community.

“Like my father, her husband, Hank, Barbara will not be easy to say goodbye to because she is everywhere we go in this community,” said Brian Greenspun, editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

“Her charity and civic good works touch everything that touches us,” he said. “She has been for over 60 years part of the very fabric of Las Vegas and in many respects, she has been the seamstress.”

Rabbi Sanford Akselrad of Congregation Ner Tamid said Barbara was “a strong woman with a vision of how the community should and would be shaped. Both she and Hank were visionaries.”

But her biggest impact has been on her family, Akselrad said.

“She had many roles in our community — as philanthropist, as publisher, adamant supporter of Israel, among many — but, ultimately, she was a wife and mother, a grandmother and a great grandmother,” he said.

“From these roles, and especially in the role as matriarch of her family, she helped to pass values on to them, and it was in this role that she received the greatest of joys,” he said.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to the Las Vegas Sun Summer Camp Fund or to Nathan Adelson Hospice.

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