American ewish Periodical Carter
CLIFTON AVENUE - CINCINNATI 20, 01110
Friday, February 15, 1946
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So They Tell lie---
Personal Problems
Director, Counselling Service
Copyrighted. 1946, by W. A. Goldberg, Ph.D.
All rights reseNied
Your questons in personal problems will be answered
by mail as far as possible or in these columrs. Send
your question and a stamped, self-addressed rowel.
ope to Dr. W. A. Goldberg, 1314 Eaton Tower, D e.
beet 26, Mich. or to the Detroit Jewish Chron.
,cle, 525 Woodward Avenue, Detroit 26, Mich.
Two Ways of Overcoming Grief
'A young lady in our office lost her husband a year ago in the
Navy. She was a quiet person whom we enjoyed and invited to our
homes. .. Now she drinks quite a lot, has a date with a different
man every night and is rushing to forget her grief in a 'good
tinse.' 11'e sympathize with her loss. We would like to help her.
But she pushes us aside when we try to talk. Do you have any
suggestions for us?" OFFICE FORCE AT CO.
I
Because this is a problem which many young women and parents
are facing, we would be pleased to have the reactions of readers. We
could like also to know the specific ways readers have found success-
ful in dealing with the loss of husbands and children.
Your commendable efforts are being balked because the girl is not
ready for your help. She has lost her sense of balance. She leans back-
wards to forget, yet her rushing about indicates she does not face
facts. Until she sees what she is doing, no word or action of yours
will have any effect. Perhaps you can stay with her, stand by her so
that she does nothing desperate. Perhaps, if she sees you standing by,
she may ask your help.
Grief, like other shocks and disappointments in life, is solved in
various ways by different people. I know a young lady with the same
misfortune. She was away from work for a week after official notifi-
cation. Now she dresses modestly. She works every day. Community
affairs continue to occupy her time now as before. On the surface, she
is no different than before her loss. I am told she and her husband
were exceptionally devoted to each other. I am sure she is lonesome.
know that she cries when alone. That is a good way of relieving her
feelings. What is the difference between this girl and the one yoe
mention?
My friend is a well-balanced person. She realizes she had love.
She knows now that the Lord, in His wisdom, gave her only a short
period of devotion with her husband. She is grateful for His blessings.
A second difference is that she is living. Her mind is busy with satisfy-
ing work. She has her friends. She is essentially a grown person
in her emotional ife. That has been her salvation. She lives for today
and tomorrow, not yesterday alone.
Extreme Reactions
■
Your friend, on the other hand, has no apparent sense of values.
Perhaps her only values were surface matters. They cannot sustain
her when she has disappointment or grief, Is she so foolish to think
that life is all happiness? She is chasing shadows and never quite
catching up with them. Her parents and her friends had their dis-
appointments. I am certain they did not give up. People of limited
outlook cling to the past. They fear to face the present. Some women
mourn their husband for ten or twenty years. During' this time they
have no husbands. Their children have no mother. During this time
they should be thinking of life ahead, of remarrying, of preserving
the family.
Your friend would characterize the same reactions, in another
girl, as downright scandalous.-Perhaps she is afraid to look into the
mental mirror. Can she detach herself and look at the picture outsiders
get of her? Of course, no person is a rubber bail, bouncing back when
slammed down. It takes time to accustom one's self to life without a
husband or a son. But that time is not eternity, not the rest of life. A
continuous period of grief is a continuous escape from life and under-
mines personality.
Crying is good. It Is a form of relief. Talking about the Person
who has gone is a form of relief. But if carried to an extreme, it may
bring serious problems. The pace of your friend makes one suspect
that she is heading for a collapse. Unfortunately, people cannot he
helped unless they wish it. You cannot force them to change, to seek
advice. In such cases, all that friends can do is to stand by as faith-
ful friends. You may ease the greatest shocks. You may be able to lend
a supporting hand when she wants help.
LEGIETER9
Eox
Brotherhood Week
Gentlemen:
Is our American way of life to survive? If so, we must unite and
have teamwork In peace as we did in war!
For what is the use of having won a global war if the same forces
that tried to conquer our nation (runs without are allowed to divide
and destroy us from within?
Hate movements, like the old Ku Klux-ism, are again setting creed
against creed, class against class. I know this for certain. I also know
that in many cases the leaders are working for personal financial
gain. To my mind this is a crime, and to use the words of a legal
euthority, "a community bus the moral duty to ace to it that, like any
other crime, racial aggression does not pay." Personal knowledge of
tie , subject came to me as Pmesiding Judge at the trials of the in-
I■ 11110US Murk Legion
When one group is assailed, soon another group provides victims
Intederante and hate have no limit. Remember how the Nazis started
with the Jews, ended by torturing even Germens and our own soldiers
Don't let It happen here Leta atop it Let'a °laws' it by ever),
uu ills le't's all of us eland up and Ise counted us loyul Americium,
imseed like heolliess against u cruel enemy of the family
So. if you belong to my cluse) or to any chinch. you, 14'11)0011
•easinande you to regard all own us bruthers So now dot's you'
Americus) leyulte Then enroll in the Anetrican Brotherhood become
011)110.1'd with the Nutiowil
member of the Detroit Itound
f!'itsfvfon . i . of Chrirtlans and Jew is
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(INCE IN A while. justice is via-
l-7 ited upon evil doers. It is
only human for one to feel happy
when such a visitation of justice
takes place. Therefore the friends.
relatives and acquaintances of a
certain practical joker whom we
will call M may listen with joy
and anticipation.
ItI was a practical joker from
the word go. The flower in his
buttonhole spurted water in your
face if you smelled it. If you shook
hands with him, a little pin
pricked your finger.
M's favorite deviltry, however,
had to do with restaurants. He
loved to walk into a restaurant.
unscrew the tops of the salt and
pepper shakers and then barely
put them on again. If someone
wanted a little salt on his egg.
he found himself with a lot of
salt. If someone wanted a snuff
of pepper, he got a big blob.
To add to it all, Id had a great
big horselaugh which he used
raucously and continuously. His
friends all knew it. Every one of
them had at one time or another
contemplated justifiable homicide.
M was a gay blade. He liked to
go places and do things. He was
very fond of good company and
liked to appear in public places
very frequently. Because he was
a good spender and full of life.
his friends tolerated his practical
jokes.
But there is a limit to anyone's
patience. One evening, a whole
crowd of young fellows went out
skylarking, lit among them. They
all landed in a restaurant about
three o'clock in the morning for
a cup of coffee and a sandwich.
While the others went into the
kitchen to wash their hands, M
tat alone at the table.
The opportunity was too good
for him to miss. He seized the
sugar bowl and dumped it sur-
reptitiously behind the table.
Then he took all the salt cellars
and emptied them into the sugar
howl. His inward glee mounted
as he pictured his friends drink-
ing coffee with salt instead of
sugar.
The others trooped back and
gave their orders. Everyone asked
for coffee except 11I who took gin-
ger ale. Service was slow and
they were all tired and sleepy.
Only M was full of life. His in-
ward anticipation was growing
and he was having the time of
his life.
Came the coffee. Every drinker
added his sugar, each to the
amount of his taste. AI proposed
a toast and lifted his glass • - of
ginger ale. He wanted them all
to start drinking together.
And they did. The results were
amazing. M had already started
his raucous, booming laugh at
the sight of their faces but his
laughter stopped suddenly. For it
was not necessary to tell these
lads who had done what.
With one accord, they seized
M and handled him with violence.
They laid Islas out on the table.
They poured all of their coffee
into him. They poured the cof-
fee, scalding hot, into his mouth,
his eyes, his ears and his nose,
M drank, choked, spluttered and
wept. When the coffee was fin-
ished, they dumped the bah into
him and all over him. His mouth
was full of it. So were Isis eyes
and ears and oust.. Then they
poured glarsos of water into him
and over bins.
The proprietor of the pluses
rushed to protcet but when they
told Uttar tale, he brought them
more wstter. And inure salt. SI
took it that night us lie had nev-
er tstkt n it before It slopped hie
practical joking for is whole week
But it [likes s n ort (hap th a t to
destroy u want. of humor And
today, twenty years utter the rer•
still bias W
tuursint Incident
be careful when Whale to )4 If
you bold to easel! the fluster
his button hole, tie. chance. sit'
tell Its one. you M III get( saute
)ul,11
A lieteinity boy detidsal LO
fist 4u1lurs tutu his buddy
picked out us the one lu hos
sink (IOW u ). 01411it 111411 fµ1 *haw
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490,
MAN elf 11-11E WEEK
By LOUIS W. ENFIELD
By W. A. GOLDBERG, Ph.D.
I
Page Five
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Civeniclet
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16161
USKY. ORATORICAL friendly Alvin D. Hersch, prominent De-
H trod
attorney, is saluted by the CHRONICLE as the Man e' the
Week. Hersch is in the fourth generation of Detroit Jews to be brought
up in the folds of liberal Judaism. His great grandparents came from
Bavaria in 1848. At that time, the democratic revolution led by Carl
Schurz in Germany was defeated. The wave of anti-liberalism that set
its was accompanied by a wave of emigration.
A colony of Germans was set up in Detroit and among them were
Hersch'a great grandfather and his grandfather, both of whom were
among the eleven charter members of Temple Beth El.
Hersch himself was born in Detroit and educated in Detroit
schools. He took his Bachelor of Laws degree from the Detroit College
of Law and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from
the University of Detroit.
Youngest Lawyer in State
He started to practice law in Detroit as the youngest lawyer in the
State of Michigan, being sworn in on his 21st birthday. In the course
of his law practice. he has handle.'
important litigation for Dodge
Brothers and for the American
Auto Trimming Co., predecessor
of Briggs Manufacturing Co.
At one time, he represented the
objectors to the city's attempt to
condemn land for the first air-
fort in Detroit. The land in ques-
tion was situated eighteen feet
under the Detroit River and when
he defeated the city's condemna-
tion case, he thereby saved the
taxpayers millions of dollars.
Hersch is the author of three
books. In 1918, he published a
book called "Michigan Chattel
Mortgages" and In 1929, he pub-
lished another called "Michigan
Conditional and Instalment Sales."
This last has been quoted as
authority by no less than the
Michigan Supreme Court. In 1924,
he published a novel called "Soul
Toys."
"The novel was pure trash,"
said Hersch with a grin, "but it
sold well."
ALVIN I). IIERNCII
On Bar Association .Committee
For a number of years, he was chairman of the legislative com-
mittee of the Detroit Bar Association. In 1929, he was assigned to study
the Traffic Court situation and he drafted the bill establishing the
present Traffic Court, When an attack was made on the constitution-
ality of this bill, he represented the judges in its defense. The bill
was declared constitutional, the first new court in fifty years to be
held constitutional by the Michigan Supreme Court.
Questioned about the present difficulties of the Traffic Court,
Hersch snorted.
"These difficulties are not with the organization of the court but
with its administration and Its personnel. The organization is still as
sound as when It was first set up."
Together with Justice Frank Murphy, Hersch drafted a model
Public Defender bill to provide counsel for indigent accused persons
It was designed to supplant the haphazard system of assignments now
in use.
On Speakers Bureau
In request as a speaker for organizations all over the country,
Hersch wits for five years chairman of the Speakers Bureau of the
Detroit Community Fund. For a number of years, he was also chair-
man of the Speakers Bureau of the Allied Jewish Campaign.
Since the war, Mr. Herscfl has devoted most of his spare time to
the Detroit Round Table of Catholics, Jews and Protestants for which
he is an ardent worker. He does a lot of speaking on this subject for
schools, clubs and churches.
Interested In Brotherhood
"I find myself tremendously interested In Brotherhood," he said.
"1 feel that the National Conference of Christians and Jews, of which
the Detroit Round Table is the local chapter, is making great prog-
ress. I feel also that Jews are the greatest beneficiaries of this group.
One very intereeting development of this work Is that Fundamentalist.
Christian churches are constantly requesting talks on' Jewish religion."
In connection with this, Hersch left last Thursday for Fest Worth.
Texas, where he will be engaged In giving talks during the whole of
Brotherhood Vs'erk which lusts from February IT to 23.
'reseed* Extetatively
He has traveled extensively In Europe. In 1924, he went to the
American liar Association meeting in London and, at that time, he
made II tour of ten countries and thirty cities. In 1932, he revisited
Europe, traveling in England and France.
When the war broke out, he tried to get Into active military
service but was lifistit•eviod ul. Accordingly, he became active in the
army orientation program, Nerving without compenaution. During the
user period, he spoke to over half a million soldb.ra and sellout Its
army Famish and naval stations all the way from Texas to Canada.
Fin. Wile years, he wile a nieniln•r of the board of Temple Beth l';1
unit iit one wise nreuident of the old Phoenix Club, He Willi also
formerly a member of the committee on Public Itelutions of the let-
I Olt Ji . V.1611 Comeisitaty CO14111'11.
of flu' 'A/WWII,
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future welfare of the Jewish community here cuteliree it *tying, active
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