2 Women Writers on Israel to Speak
at Book Fair in Jewish Center Nov. 11
Boris Smolar's
•
'Between You
... and Me'
(Copyright 1968, JTA Inc.)
MEET YOUR LEADER: Max N. Fisher, the Jewish leader who
has been elected. chairman of the United Israel Appeal—the body
which allocates funds for Israel raised by the United Jewish Appeal—
is not a Zionist. However, he is a most dedicated friend of Israel.
Of his contributions last year totalling $1,000,000, the largest part
was given by him to the UJA and the Israel Emergency Fund.
Known for his devotion to Jewish and humanitarian causes, Fisher
is considered "the Jewish Communal Leader Number One" in this
country, and rightly' so. In addition to succeeding Dewey Stone—the
prominent Jetvish philanthropist—as top leader of the UIA, Fisher
is president of the United Jewish Appeal, chairman of the executive
board of the American Jewish Committee, a leader in the Joint Dis-
tribution Committee and vice president of the Council of Jewish
Federations and Welfare Funds
His leadership in these national Jewish organizations testifies to
his devotion to Jewish communal life in this country, to his deep
interest in the welfare of Israel, his concern for the well-being of
Jews everywhere. His philosophy is: "Leaders must give like leaders
and work like leaders." He believes that "each of us has a responsi-
bility to give something back for all we receive." And he is living
up to this responsibility.
The son of Jewish immigrant parents from Russia, he was born
in Pittsburgh 60 years ago, raised in Salem, O., and settled in Detroit
after graduating from Ohio State University in 1930. He had to work
hard to earn his tuition by doing .many odd jobs. In Detroit, he started
by selling oil products, and soon found himself a pioneer in developing
Michigan's oil industry and in introducing new oil-refining processes.
While rising in business, gradually be became a leader of the
Detroit Jewish community, and of the general community as well.
He was campaign chairman of the Detroit Jewish Welfare Fund
and is a veteran -leader of its annual Allied Jewish Campaign. In
1961, he led the annual Torch Drive—a nonsectarian campaign from
which 200 institutions in the city benefit.
In 1965 he was simultaneously general chairman of the national
UJA and president of Detroit's United Foundation, the nation's largest
Community Chest organization.
.
•
MAN OF INFLUENCE: Max Fisher is highly respected in non-
Jewish circles as he is among Jews. He is an active member of the
Republican Party. Richard M. Nixon, the Republican Presidential
candidate, appointed him as his special adviser on urban and com-
munity affairs. In knowledgeable circles, this is interpreted to mean
Fisher has been appointed as Nixon's chief adviser, among other
things, on the American Jewish community an_d matters relating to
Israel.
Fisher's active interest in the 'affairs of the Republican Party
proves best that there is no such thing as "a Jewish vote" in political
elections, and that each Jewish voter follows his individual political
sentiments when it comes to casting his vote.
In addition to becoming Nixon's right-hand man on Jewish and
urban problems, Fisher—who has long been interested in urban affairs
—also became chairman of New Detroit, Inc., the nation's most suc-
cessful and most powerful urban coalition group seeking to solve inner
city problems. New Detroit was formed after the July, riots in the city
last year—the worst riots this country has experienced in five years
of similar racial disturbances.
Fisher refuses to believe that he has just taken on "Mission
Impossible" as some of his acquaintances call it. He feels keenly that
every American—every individual and _certainly every Jew—has an
obligation to contribute toward solving this greatest social crisis of
our times. As new chairman, he is determined to cement racial peace
and harmony in the troubled automobile capital of the world: In this,
he is assured of help by the 39 members—of which New Detroit is
composed—representing those in power and those who speak for the
Negroes.
*
LOVER OF ISRAEL: I met Fisher for the first time on his first
trip to Israel, in 1954, when he traveled as a member of the first
annual Study Mission of the United Jewish Appeal. Since then, he
has been a member—or leader—of 13 successive UJA Study Missions,
in addition to making- many trips on his own. He averages three trips
a year to Israel, many at the request of Israel's top leaders. For more
than a decade now, he has been principal adviser to Israel's govern-
ment leaders on the country's economic development. His name in Israel
is a synonym for all that is best in American Jewry. Although he was
raised in Salem at a time when there was no organized Jewish com-
munity life there—not even a synagogue—he is a strong believer in
Jewish heritage. This goes back to his student days, when at the age
of 20 he joined the Bnai Brith Hillel student organization.
His first gift to the Jewish Appeal in Detroit was made in 1932
and was $5. "Fortunately, I am able to do a little better now than
when I started," he says with a smile. He is today among the largest
givers to the UJA and other causes: He gives and inspires others to
give. From 1965 through 1967, as general chairman of the UJA, he
led some of the most successful fund-raising efforts in UJA's 30-year
history. This included the campaign last year for the Israel Emergency
Fund, during the critical Six-Day War period in Israel, when in 30
days, three times as much was raised in the United States as UJA had
been raising in a year. In Detroit, he and his wife Marjorie, made a
gift of $500,000 to the Sinai Hospital where a wing and a surgical
pavilion bear the Fisher name.
American writer Ruth Gruber,
who will speak 8 p.m. Nov. 11 at
the Jewish Book Fair, stands
with the high priest. of the Shorn-
ronim (Samaritans) in Shechem,
Israel. Mrs. Gruber has inter-
viewed all strata of Israel's in-
habitants, both Jews and Arabs.
MRS. EDELMAN
Many hundreds of books will be 4
on exhibit during the Book Fair.
As in past years, Yiddish and Hebrew Corner
.
Hebrew programs will be featured, I
there will be special events for the I 6sir, Perform
Three of American Jewry's most children and the Center Theater I
outstanding writers are among the is arranging a series of plays for
speakers who will be featured at that period.
It was eleven o'clock in the
a Mitzva'
Novel Reveals Aspects of Black
Market, Homosexuals in Nazi Era
To the collected literature of
fiction about the Holocaust, which
inevitably also adds to the truth-
ful evaluation of the events of the
1940s, has been appended an un-
usually interesting story which
deals with the homosexual thesis.
In "Middle Ground," published
by Lippincott, Ursula Zilinsky in-
troduces the theme of a love affair
between the very young chief char-
acter of this novel and a Nazi
general who has participated in
the plot of July 20, 1944, to assas-
sinate Hitler. He is himself in-
jured, in the course of the abort-
ive a attempt on the life of the
fuehrer by the generals who dis-
approve of the war, and he is
assigned to be in charge of a.con-
centration- camp in which he finds
the very youthful Tyl-von Pankow
and consorts with him.
General Johannes von Svestrom
had, earlier, had an affair with
Tyl's favorite uncle Gabriel who
died while in Rommel's army. Son
of a Christian father and a Jewish
mother, Tyl is jailed in spite of
the fact that his Jewish - grandpar-
ents, the Elies, had themselves al-
ready turned Catholic.
The vastness of the theme in
the Zilinsky novel is its treatment
not only of the homosexual aspects
of a general's relations with an in-
mate of a concentration camp but
also the life in the camp, the
brutality of the Nazis—before the
arrival of the compassionate Gen-
eral von Svestrom, and the in-
mates' reactions, their plans to re-
bel, their sufferings.
It is thanks to the general's love
affair with Tyl that there is a new
attitude in the camp, with the gen-
eral providing better food, reject-
ing brutality, treating the sick
properly.
And because of the beneficial
role attained by Tyl, he is at
first looked upon with suspicion,
and the title of the novel stems
froni the declaration that Tyl
(who tells the story in the first
person) "had taken possession
of the one place which no one
may claim in time of war: the
middle ground between oppos-
ing forces."
After the war the true role of
Jewish Child Agency Opens Mental Health Youth Home
NEW YORK (JTA)—A residential psychiatric supervision, consulta-
mental health facility for young tion and therapy for the young
men and women 16 to 22 years of residents. It will also provide an
age who need community-based educational and vocational program
therapeutic services will be opened for young people who are tem-
in Manhattan next month by the porarily unable to cope with out-
Jewish Child Care Association of side schooling or employment. He
New York. added that the facility had been
Norman Rosow, JCCA president, planned in consultation with lead-
said the new Youth Residence Cen- ing child psychiatrists and other
ter will offer intensive casework, professionals in the field and that it
40 Friday. October 4. 1968
—
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
the Jewish Book Fair Nov. 9-17 at
the Jewish Center.
They are Ruth Gruber, author
of "Israel on the Seventh Day,"
and Lily Edelman, director of the
commission on adult Jewish educa-
tion of Bnai Brith and co-editor of
"May I Have a Word With You?",
the book of sermons by the late
Rabbi Morris Adler.
Mrs. Gruber will speak 8 p.m.
Nov. 11 under the auspices of the
Michigan Region, Women's Ameri-
can ORT.
Mrs. Edelman, who has author-
ed "Israel: New People in an Old
Land," will appear for Bnai Brith
Women 10 a.m. Nov. 11. Her sub-
ject will be Jewish books.
bli ll c. lectures are free to the
puA
was one of the few community
mental health facilities serving
both young men and women in a
residential setting. He said also
that expert opinion held that the
experience of daily living with con-
temporaries of both sexes in a com-
munity-based environment made
possible a more realistic growing-
up experience.
von Svestrom is presented, in a
factual _statement, but the anti-
Nazi German general does not even
offer to defend himself.
And after .the war Tyl goes to
Vienna, reclaims the home of the
Elies by ousting the Nazis who
occupied it, finds vast stores of
food and liquor there, enters the
black market operations and
thrives on the new conditions, even
reverting to a normal sex life.
Thus we have an effective de-
scription of the manner in which a
young boy — he is 18 after the
four years in the Heilingendorf
camp (escaping Dachau and the
more dangerous camps)—conducts
his love experience with an older
man; and the forms the black
market takes.
Mrs. Zilinsky's is an effective
narrative, revealing in its many
aspects, well, written, frank in its
approaches and illuminating in its
revelations of occurences under
Nazism.
morn-
ing. Many people had gone up to
Mount Zion. Tourists and visitors had
come to see the wall of the Old City
in Jerusalem. David, too, from Tel
Aviv, was among them. Suddenly
there appeared a bearded Jew, and
said, "Sir, perform a Mitzva!" David
put his hand into his pocket. He
brought out a coin and wanted to
give it to- the old man. "I don't want
money," said the man. "only a Mitzva."
David stood still and did not under-
stand.
The Jew took a skull-cap and put it
on David's head. He brought out Te-
fillin and bound them on the arm
and head of David.
The last time David had laid Te-
Mtn was on the day of his Bar
Mitzva. Today he is an engineer in
Tel-Aviv and far removed from re-
ligion.
"Nu, now say the prayer," said the
old Jew.
"I don't know it." answered David.
But the man on Mount Zion cried,
"Repeat after me!" David repeated
after him word for word the prayer.
When he had finished, the Jew said,
"Now you will prosper and have much
luck!"
Before the Tel Avlvian went on his
way, he asked the Jew, "Who are you
and where have you come 'from?"
"I am a Jew and I came from
Russia 10 years ago," the man said.
"I lived in concentration camps and
there I made a vow: if I should re-
main alive, I would go to Israel. I
would live in Jerusalem, the holy city,
and bring Jews back to Judaism.'
—Translation of Hebrew Column
Published by the Brit Tern,
Jerusalem
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