Fellowship Warms Hearts of Trenton's Jewish Community

(Continued from Page 1)
Munson.
Munson, a Unitarian, was tak-
ing his 15-year-old son to school
the day after the fire, and, as they
passed the fire-blackened building,
the boy asked: "What are we go-
ing to do about it?"
.As soon as Munson got to his
office, he began calling lawyer

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friends throughout the area. The
response w a s beyond belief.
Checks from many sources have
been rolling in. Even curiosity
seekers at the site pitched in with
donations. A $2,000 reward has
been posted by the city of Tren-
ton; ministers held up the charred
prayer books to illustrate their
sermons Sunday; and offers to re-
place the four destroyed Tora
scrolls have been received from
Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, a mem-
ber of Downtown Synagogue and
the prominent minister of a Negro
congregation in Chicago. Doctors
in the Downriver community have
taken up a collection to replace
the Tora they had bought when
the synagogue was first built.
Stanley Ellias, a spokesman for
the congregation, said that the
generosity has known no bounda-
ries, with contributions coming in
from as far away as Florida. "It's
almost embarrassing," he said.
"We don't want to capitalize on
this. We don't want to build a
larger building, and we feel we
can cover our own mortgage.
"What we would like to do,"
he added, "is channel some of the
funds into interfaith work. We sug-
gested to the Chicago minister that
his contribution be used instead for
a slide projector and screen, and
his response was so warm.
Ellias said that the congrega-
tion had owned but three Tora
scrolls; one other was owned by
a member, whose family had
handed it down for generations, -
and it was put into Beth Isaac's
ark for safe keeping.
Temple Israel has offered to re-
place this Tora, in addition to
one donated by the temple chil-
dren. (See below.)
"We're very grateful to all these
people," said Ellias. "At the same
time, we don't want to accept
more than we originally had."
In addition, the owner of a drap-
ery shop offered to provide all the
needed material for windows in a
rebuilt synagogue. Great Lakes
Steel said it would replace the
shattered stained glass windows.
The Wyandotte Community
Theater will hold a benefit fund
raising for the congregation in
May. The Bnai Brith Men's Coun-
cil of Metropolitan Detroit will
channel contributions from the
Jewish community into the growing
fund and has also pledged to re-
furbish the Beth Isaac library with
donations of Judaica from Detroit
area lodges. One lodge, Dov Fren-
kel, raised $100 among its mem-
bers. -
Irving Schmolka, president of
the Beth Isaac congregation,

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stressed that such expressions of
good will "show the true feeling
of the community. Out of our sor-
row has come brotherly love."
The fire received wide coverage
throughout the nation. Sabbath
services the Friday after were
attended by an overflow crowd,
among them television -newsmen
for the Huntley-Brinkley Report.
Rabbi Noah M. Gamze of
Downtown Synagogue officiated
at the services, held in the
lower-level social hall. Beth Isaac
does not have its own spiritual
leader and hopes to acquire a vol-
unteer rabbi by the time it again
holds services=-March 17.
Leaders of the congregation
wanted it understood that such
an incident was the act of a de-
ranged mind, that it was in no
way characteristic of the gen-
eral tenor of the community.
Isadore Mullias, a member of
the congregation, said: "I was
born and have been brought up
in this town and there has never
been any anti-Semitism."
An editorial in the Detroit Free
Press called it "the work of a sick
mind. It's a sickness which leaves
us dumfounded, disbelieving. What
kind of hate-driven madness could
motivate such an act? . . . The
charred Star of David in the Beth
Isaac Synagogue should weigh as
heavily on each of our hearts as it
does on the hearts of our fellow
Americans who revere it."
The word "Jeuden" — a mis-
spelling of the German word for
Jews — had been scrawled, along
with a crude swastika, on a base-
ment blackboard before the sanc-
tuary was set afire. There was
some conjecture that the vandal
was the same one who had defaced
the synagogue with anti-Semitic
scrawls last summer. Police from
Trenton sent materials from the
synagogue to the state police lab-
oratory in East Lansing for exam-
ination as possible clues.
(Police said there was no con-
nection between the arson and a
later swastika-painting incident
at the "Adler Memorial Highway"
sign not far from Cong. Shaarey
Zedek in Southfield. Rabbi Morris
Adler was memorialized with the
naming of the highway last year.
(A blue ski jacket with a burn
on one sleeve was found on the
rack of a Trenton department
store, and turned over to police
as a possible clue to the arson-
ist's identity. This was the only
clue to date.
(The police added that they did
not know if there was any con-
nection between the fire and anti-
Jewish hate leaflets distributed
throughout Trenton and other
areas, among them Wyandotte,
Huntington Woods and northwest
Detroit — in front of the Labor
Zionist Institute — Wednesday
night.
(The mimeographed leaflets,
"America Awake !," urged "white
gentiles" to "unite . . under the
swastika banner to sever the tenta-
cles of the Jewish-Marxist world
conspiracy."
(Reviving the Protocols of the

Frisco Police Piobe Cause
of Fire in Jewish School

SAN FRANCISCO (J TA) — Pol-
ice here were investigating the
cause of a fire that swept through
four classrooms in a complex ad-
joining Temple Rodef Sholom in
Santa Venetia near San Rafael
after it was learned that vandals
had forced open a door to the
building a short time before the
blaze was discovered.
Damage to the rooms and their
contents was estimated at $40,000.
The sanctuary itself, separated
from the classroom structure, was
not damaged. Rabbi Morton Hoff-
man, spiritual leader, said that
congregational activities have not
been interrupted.

Reasons
A man always has two reasons
for doing anything—a good reason
and the real reason. — J. P. Mor-
gan (1837-1913).

Elders of Zion forgeries, the leaf-
lets ridicule the figure of Six
Million Jews martyred under
Nazism. Ungrammatical and hand-
printed, the leaflets are signed by
the "Committee for German Re-
unification."
Such anti-Semitic acts, although
isolated, should not be disregarded,
the Michigan Civil Rights Com-
mission declared in a statement
after the fire.
The commission and the Detroit
Branch of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People voiced their indignation
over the incident and offered as-
sistance in apprehending those
responsible.
"This outrageous act of destruc-
tion of a holy place must not be
explained away as a unique act
of a sick person," the commission
said in a formal statement.
"Though the culprit may be ill and
the act senseless, such individuals
are encouraged by the anti-Semi-
tism and racism in our society."
"Only a thin line separates the
gentle people of prejudice from
the violent bigots," the commis-
sion added.
Robert Tinsdale, executive sec-
retary of the Detroit NAACP, de-
clared: "The burning of Beth
Isaac Synagogue, a sacred place
of worship, weighs heavily on our
hearts. This most dastardly act of
cowardice and hatred cannot be
tolerated in Trenton any more than
the inhumane taking of a Negro's
life in Natchez, Miss.
"We of this community, Negro
and white, Jew and Gentile, can-
not sit idly by and permit this and
other incidents of anti-Semitism
and racism in our community
without commending ourselves to
rid our community and country of
eery vestige and manifestation of
this sickness."
Ben Rose, a member of the
board of governors of Wayne
State University, a leader in the
Michigan Democratic Party and a
charter member of the Trenton
synagogue, expressed the view that
no matter how uncalled-for and
how tragic the occurrence, it points
to future neighborly relations.
"We may have been compla-
cent," he said. "We took good will
for granted. We believed all was
rosy. Now we know that under-
neath the surface there is pre-
judice, there is bigotry that needs
to be fought all the time. Now we
know there is need to work to-
gether. Now we know there is one
God for all peoples with the right
for each to worship as he pleases
— and now we must unite to pro-
tect such rights."
Addressing 10 0 Christian
youth in St. John Lutheran
Church in Wyandotte, Monday
night, Rose told them that boys
and girls are not born with ha-
treds and where prejudice exists
it is inherited. "Therefore," he
said, "you must help your par-
ents arrive at amicable relations
and they must learn from you
not to nourish hatreds, just as
you learn from them the better
things in life."
He added that he has been in
business in Wyandotte, which
borders on Trenton, for more than
25 years, and relationships with
neighbors have been most cordial,
friendly, cooperative.
The concern of children for the
plight of the congregation mani-
fested itself early. Rev. Saxman
said that soon after the incident
became known to the community,
a third grader from the church
school called him "and asked if
I knew that the Jewish church'
had burned. Then she asked:
" it be all right if they
have their Sunday school in our
church this week?' "
Trenton High School students of-
fered to replace the destroyed Ma-
gen David, to be constructed in
the school's workshop.
As part of its campaign in the
Detroit Jewish community, Bnai
Brith will encourage children of
the synagogue religious schools to
contribute to the fund.
The children of Temple Israel's
Religious School voluntarily under-
took to raise the sum of $1,000

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, March 10, 1967-5

and purchased a Tora for the Beth
Isaac Synagogue. They presented
it to Schmolka at a special cere-
mony at the temple Wednesday
afternoon.
(Related Pictures, Page 13)

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