Friday, April 11, 1958—THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS-32

Dr. Schick Pediatricians' Dean

By DR. SAMUEL WOLFF

(Standard Feature Syndicate)

—AJP Photos

Baltasar Laureano Ramirez, spiritual
leader of a community of 50,000 Mexi-
can Israelites, holds a 17th century Torah

(right) ; while pictured at the left is a
front view of the Israelites' synagogue
situated on the outskirts of Mexico City.

Community of Mexican Israelites Number
50,000; Trace Descendancy to Sephardim

(From an Article by
David Horowitz)

An AJP Feature

A group of Mexican Israelites,
who have been mistakenly re-
ferred to as "Indian Jews," ex-
ists scattered throughout the
entire country of Mexico.
Seldom heard of, the group
claims to be descendants of the

Sephardim, the first Jews in
"New Spain." As such there was
mingling with Mexicans of the
north and some intermarriage
with Indians.
Leader of the community is
Baltasar Laureano Ramirez, of
Mexico City, where the Mexican
Israelite Synagoguge is located.
A lawyer by profession, Ramirez

In Moses Leavitt, Jewry Lost an
Engineer But Gained a Statesman

,

By MIRIAM SPITZ

XCopyright, 1958, JTA, Inc.)

If things had been better for
consulting engineers back in
1923, a top social service exec-
utive would not today be cele-
brating the 35th year of a dis-
tinguished career.
But in those days, when engi-
neering clients were hard to get,
a friend of a friend happened
to know about a job with the
United Hebrew Charities of
New York.
So Moses A. Leavitt, a for-
mer chemical engineer, but at
this point a man in need of eat-
ing-money, went up and got the
job.
When Moe Leavitt became
supervisor of the Self-Support
Department of what later be-
came the Jew-
ish Family
Social Service
Assoc i ation
(and after
that the Jew-
ish Family
Service Asso-
ciation), he
had no social
service train-
ing.
Leavitt
It was only
later, as he found himself more
and more absorbed in the prob-
lem of the people with whom he
was dealing, that he took time
off to go to the New York
School of Social Work.
When the Joint Distribution
Committee some years back un-
dertook its Malben program on
behalf of aged, ill and handi-
capped newcomers to Israel,
Leavitt noted with some sur-
prise:
"You know, it has just oc-
curred to me that I am doing
the same thing in Israel that I
was doing years ago when I
started out in social work. Then
1 was rehabilitating handicapped
Jewish wage-earners in New
York City, and now I am doing
the identical thing for victims
of Nazism."

His talents in social service
took him to the Joint Distribu-
tion Committee for the first
time in 1929 as assistant secre-
tary. In 1933 he became vice-
president and secretary of the
Palestine Economic Corpora-
tion, and it was only in .1940
that he returned to JDC. Since
1947 he has been JDC's execu-
tive vice chairman, as well as
secretary.
During the years he came to
be recognized as an authority
in the field of assistance and
welfare. Mayor James Walker
in 1929 named him to a com-
mission to investigate the open-
air markets of New York City,
and little more than a year ago
he was appointed by President
Eisenhower to the President's
Committee for Hungarian Refu-
gee Relief, and served during
the entire life of that commit-
tee.
A tribute from professional
colleagues was his election at
the beginning of 1954 as chair-
man of the American Council of
Voluntary Agencies, and his re-
election to that office, year
after year.
Perhaps the single appoint-
ment of which he is proudest is
one which came to him in 1952.
It was not astonishing to any-
one but Moe Leavitt to find
himself on the way to The
Hague for the negotiations on
restitution as chairman of the
delegation of the Conference on
Jewish Material Claims Against
Germany.
"I was looking for a first-
class lawyer to head the dele-
gation,, which figured to be long,
arduous and in many respects
highly technical," he recalls.
"But despite my feeling that a
different kind of specialist was
needed, a number of people—
including then Jewish Agency
treasurer Giora Josephthal—in-
sisted that I take over the dele-
gation. So I did, somewhat
against my better judgment.

also is rabbi, mohel, teacher and
chaZan, and in his latter duties
he works on a purely voluntary
basis.
He bemoans the fact that
though Mexico has many
wealthy Jews, there is no sup-
port for his synagogue, which is
in particular need of a ceme-
tery.
Since the Israelites are spread
throughout the country, a n d
there is no cemetery for them,
they must be buried, as Rabbi
Ramirez says, "under the bitter
shadow of the cross," even
though they live "under the
altar of the Torah."
A 1 t h ough religious services
are held each sabbath, they are
attended by only the few dozen
adherents who reside in the im-
mediate vicinity; however, they
come in droves during the major
holidays.
Hundreds of American tour-
ists visit this unique temple
yearly, and in a little office off
the corridor as one enters there
is a huge visitor's book contain-
ing thousands of signatures that
have been accumulated during
the past few decades.

Motto: "It is within the
power of civilized man to
cause the infectious diseases
to disappear from the earth."
—Louis Pasteur.
Jews have been renowned
physicians from antiquity on.
Their important contributions
to medicine have greatly ad-
vanced this science in its re-
lentless battle against lethal dis-
eases.
Dr. Bela Schick is a leader
among them.
He was born in Boglar,
Hungary, in 1877, and obtained
his M.D. degree in 1900 from
the University of Graz. From
there, the young physician
went to the world-renowned
Vienna Medical Faculty to con-
tinue his studies. He became
an assistant to and collaborator
with the famous Dr. Pirquet
with whom he published his
first book in Vienna (1905).
Together the two physicians
studied the principles of im-
munization which led to the
practical discoveries of the
Schick Test for immunity to
diphtheria. In 1918, he was ap-
pointed professor of pediatrics.
But in 1923, when the first
great waves of anti-Semitism
swept over a truncated Austria,
Dr. Schick packed his trunks
and gratefully accepted an in-
vitation as Harvey lecturer in
the United States. When he was
a few years later offered a
position as pediatrician-in-chief
to Mount Sinai Hospital in New
York City, he remained in the
U. S. and became a lecturer on
children's diseases at Columbia
University.
Dr. Schick's outstanding
contribution to pediatrics is
his epoch-making discovery
(1909-1913) of the method for
determining susceptibility to
diphtheria, a dangerous ill-
ness that had become the
scourge of mankind. It can be
found among the case histor-
ies of Hippocrates, who lived
in the fourth century B.C.E.
The Babylonian Talmud men-
tions it; in the Middle Ages
it was defined as the "throat
sickness" or "throat pestil-
ence." Diphtheria raged
among the first and worst
epidemics that ravaged the
New England colonists;
The Schick Test, for the first
time, made it possible to sep-
arate immune and susceptible
children, which meant a main
step in conquering this dread-
ed disease. Aided by this test,

DR. BELA SCHICK

the City of New York won an
overwhelming victory in pre-
ventive medicine.
Another important contribu-
tion is Dr. Schick's monography
on scarlet fever, which has be-
come a classic. The New York
Academy of Medicine awarded
him their Gold Medal for his
outstanding work, so did the
Midwest Forum on Allergy in
Indianapolis, which conferred
the Addingham Gold Medal to
him. In 1954, he was given the
coveted John Howland Medal.
In 1942, Dr. Schick's grateful
pupils, associates and friends
raised $2,000 for the establish-
ment of a lectureship at Mount
Sinai Hospital known as the
"Bela Schick Lectures."
Dr. Schick also waged a
relentless war against de-
structive tuberculosis; he
brought out the BBC vaccina-
tion which is being given to
millions of children all over
the world as a preventive
measure.
Although he recently cele-
brated his 80th birthday, he is
still full of ideas and working
relentlessly.
Dr. Schick is married and
owns an estate in Garrison, N.Y.
"Pediatrics is my life!" he ry
used to say. The Schick Test
has become as much a part of
modern life as the measure-
ment of voltage and the pas-
teurization of food.
Dr. Schick's relentless cam-
paign against diphtheria will re-
main as an eternal monument
to his genius and constitutes
one of the most far-reaching
and important Jewish contribu-
tions to the science of medicine
and human welfare.

Israeli Tank Defends Position in Huleh Region

—International Photo

Israelis have been working for more than seven years to reclaim the swampy
area in the Huleh region (shown in circled area in lower photo). An attack by
Syrian troops temporarily halted this work, but it was resumed when the UN sur-
veyors' report was accepted by Israel and the United Arab Republic. The upper
photo shows an Israeli tank making a direct hit on Syrian troops, in an effort to
silence a Syrian bunker position during the attacks that resulted in much damage
to Kibbutz Halatha.