Report from the Holy Land

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Another non-Jew who has come here to settle
with the Detroiters in Urim is Benjamin McKinley.
A six-foot, 250-pound Negro, who has had a uni-
versity education. He came here several years ago,
was enchanted by the idea of the reclamation of
the Holy Land by persecuted Jews, and asked if
he could stay on. He has been a member of the
collective settlement of Urim since then.
This love for and interest in Israel by peoples
from many lands, who belong to all faiths, stemming
from many contrasting cultures, who seek freedom
for the oppressed, accounts for the confidence of
Israelis that their libertarian aspirations will not
be destroyed—"not even by the attempts at intrusion
into the Middle East by Soviet Russia," as one
Detroiter described the faith of his kinsmen in Israel.

Detroit Firm Thrives

HAIFA—In the Evan Vashid Building in this
Israeli port city there are offices of the Rock Prod-
ucts Corporation, one of the largest private invest-
ments made by Americans in behalf of Israel's
reconstruction. It is strictly a Detroit project in
Israel, and a number of the leading Jews in Detroit
are participants in it.
While the major contribution towards the de-
velopment of Israel's economy is being made in the
United States through the sale of Israel Bonds,
numerous private investment efforts have been made,
and the Rock Products is proving one -of the most
productive.
The plant, located in the Wilhelm district be-
tween Lydda and Tel Aviv, produces large rocks
for water retaining at beaches and breakwaters and
smaller rocks for road-building. It also produces
sand for finer concrete and aggregate mixes for
concrete.
The Detroit group's investment is part of the
Israel America Aggregates Corporation, a com-
bination of two equal stockholders, the Evan
Vashid and the Rock Products. They own, together,
five quarries and crushing plants, and operate a
large trucking service.
This project had its foundation in a study made
of Israel's needs by Leon Kay, Detroit engineer
who was one of the owners of the Keystone Oil
Refining Co. Upon his recommendations, after his
study of Israel's needs on the spot, he was joined in
initiating the Rock Products effort by Israel David-
son, of the Federal Department Stores; Abe Kasle,
of Kasle Steel Corp.; David and Hyman Safran, of
Safran Printing Co.; William Roth, of Frigid Food
Corp., whO presently is president of the corporation;
Irwin I. Cohn, Louis Berry, Edward C. LeVy, Joseph
Holtzman, Alfred A. May, Tom Borman, Philip
Lipson, Morris Schaver, Benjamin Wilk, Richard
Sloan and a number of other prominent Detroit
industrialists.
The Detroiters' investment in this project ex-
ceeded $600,000, and there was added to it a similar
investment by its Israel counterpart. It was a
struggling enterprise for the first three years. This
year, however, the corporation hopes to net a profit
of 400,000 Israeli pounds—the American dollar now
being valued at 1.8 pounds. Within a short time,
at this rate, the Detroit group hopes to wipe out
the losses sustained at the beginning of the enter-
prise and eventually to benefit from a profitable
concern.
There are other private investments in Israel
by Detroiters. Leon Kay has planted more than 100
dunams (25 acres) of orange plantations with the
Mehadrin Ltd. in honor of his son Barry S. Kay,
and he speaks with pride of the sign at the Mehad-
rin plantations with his son's name.
Similar investments have been made by Morris
Schaver, for his son, Isaac, and by a number of
other Detroiters who desire to assist newcomers

to Israel by helping them become self.supporting

—through industrial enterprises.
Israel's major industries are financed by Israel
Bonds, in whose campaigns more than 6,000 Detroit
Jews are counted as participants. A Detroit delega-
tion is part of a group of 100 American Jews who
are in Israel this week to study the results of Am-
erican efforts in Israel's upbuilding, through the
gift dollars given to the United Jewish Appeal.

Aid to Education

RAMAT GAN—Israel's universities won't open
until next week, but dedications of new buildings
are in progress this week, and in the area of educa-
tion Detroit Jews emerge in as prominent a role
as they have played in land reclamation and the
resettlement of oppressed Jews in Europe and
Africa.
One of the major contributions of the Jewish
community of Detroit is to the newest university
in the land — Bar-Ilan University, located in this
suburb of Tel Aviv. This university is sponsored by
the religious Zionist movement, Mizrachi-Hapoel
Hamizrachi.
At the formal dedication ceremonies of Bar-
Flan, this week, the national president of American
Mizrachi, Rabbi Isaac Stollman, of Detroit, was
among the participants, and honor was paid to
Phillip and Max Stollman, leaders . in the Detroit
religious community, who provided the funds for
the first dormitory at the university, known as the
Stollman Dormitory.
Another Detroiter, Abraham Nusbaum, paid for
the construction of the Nusbaum Lecture Hall. On
the spacious grounds of Bar-Ilan University, ground
was broken this week for another dormitory, to be
known as the Detroit Dormitory, to be erected with
the $150,000 fund pledged by Detroit Mizrachi lead-
ers to this school, which combines in its curriculum
religious studies with courses in modern sciences.
The second largest gift to an Israeli university
was made by Sam Brody, Detroit builder, to the
Technion of Haifa, the Israel Institute of Tech-
nology. Brody's $120,000 gift was earmarked for
a laboratory for the Technion's Department of Agri-
cultural Engineering. In addition, the Detroit Chap-
ter of the American Society for the Technion, has
pledged an additional $200,000 towards the Tech-
nion's program for a new $10,000,000 campus, in
order to enable the hundreds of applicants for
admission to this engineering college—the largest
technical school in the entire Middle East—to gain
admission.
The largest of Israel's universities, the Hebrew
University, which now is building an impressive:new
campus on the outskirts of Jerusalem, is enlisting
the aid of Detroiters through a committee headed by
Charles Feinberg.

Educational Exchange

JERUSALEM—An' effective interchange of stu-
dents between Michigan and the United States was
pointed out here by a representative of the Ministry
of Educatibn.
A number of Detroiteri are here for a year's
study at Israel's special seminars arranged for those
who desire to perfect a knowledge of the Hebrew
language and to study agricultural methods here.
At the Jewish Agency Institute, at the Katamon,
in Jerusalem, three Detroiters have enrolled for a
13-month program they started last week. Ora Kut-
nick, Susan Feuer and Zvi Snitz are part of a group
of 150 American youths studying here.
At Kfar Blum, in northern Galilee, less than
three miles from the Syrian border, Marshall
Rubin, Lionel Maslowski and Norman Shiffman
have enrolled with 10 other Americans for an
11-month work-and-study program here. They are
getting training in agriculture, are learning He-
brew and they share the colony's labors in a col-

Continued on Page 26

Friday, November 1, 1957—T HE DETR OIT JEWIS H NEWS-44

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