14—Friday, Hersonber 3, 196$
TIE DETROIT JEWISH HEWS
Strike Paralyzes East Jerusalem
Dr. Frederick L. Hirschman--First WS U Jewish Graduate
By IRVING I. KATZ
Executive Secretary. of
Temple Beth El
Since Wayne State University
opened the doors of its school of
medicine 100 years ago, WSU's
growth has expanded to include 10
colleges and schools. It now ranks
as the nation's 20th largest uni-
versity.
The first Jewish student to have
entered into and graduated from
the Detroit Col '
lege of Medicine
(now the School
o f Medicine o f
Wayne State Uni-
versity) was
Frederick L.
Hirschman. H i s
father, Louis J.
Hirschman, w a s
a native of
Fuerth, Bavaria,
Germany, where Dr. Hirschman
he married Fanny, daughter of
Cablephoto
Israel border police take lap positions atop a building during Isaac and Sarah Duenkelsbueler,
a general business strike which paralyzed East Jerusalem. in 1840. Because of his participa-
tion in the 1848 revolution in Ger-
many, Louis, like many other Ger-
mans, was forced to flee from his
Essays by Camus Include Comment native
land to America, leaving
his wife and children until their
on Church, Theology and Kafka
passage could be arranged.
In "Lyrical and Critical Essays," torture them by allegory until they
After a voyage of 33 days, as a
published by Knopf, the philosophic show evidence of divine inspira- steerage passenger, Louis arrived
works of Albert Camus, his com- tion."
in New York and proceeded to
ments on plays and books and on
authors, his evaluative analyses of
numerous issues are presented.
These essays, translated from the
French by Ellen Conroy Kennedy,
were edited and annotated by
Philip Thody.
Of special interest is the essay,
published in 1943, "Portrait of a
Chosen Man," about Father de M.
Pouget, from which the following
is worth quoting:
"Father Pouget's whole effort
seems to have been devoted to find-
ing a middle way between blind
faith that knows its reasons. He
did not wish to maintain ideas that
are indefensible, to justify ambi-
tions that the Bible never had.
Father Pouget made concessions.
He considered everything in the
Bible inspired, but did not see
everything as necessarily sacred.
A choice had to be made. From the
point of view of rigid orthodoxy,
such an attitude was dangerous.
As a matter of fact, this proved to
be the case, for it appears that
Father Pouget suffered from offi-
cial disapproval. He made his
peace by striving after serenity
and putting forward a postulate:
'The Church is not infallible ,be-
cause of the proofs that she ad-
vances, but because of the divine
authority with which she teaches.'
This said, the problem was to cut
his losses, to establish an irre-
proachable minimum in the bibli-
cal texts, and to show that this
minimum was enough to prove the
truths of faith. Father Pouget
pointed out, for example, that we
require the Gospels to possess a
degree of historical accuracy that
no one would have thought of re-
quiring from the historians of
classical antiquity or the Middle
Ages. Allowances must nevertheless
be made for the mentality peculiar
to each historical period, and for
the rapid variations in moral cli-
mate from one century to another.
And we have to make a clear dis-
tinction in the Bible between what
is attributable to divine inspiration
and what results from the mental-
ity peculiar to a historical period.
Thus, for a long time, the Bible in-
discriminately cast both the sinners
and the righteous into the same
hell. Ecclesiastes, for example,
clearly states that 'the dead know
not anything neither have they any
more a reward' (EXX. IX, 5). This
is because the idea of moral re-
wards was foreign to primitive
Jewish thought. Consequently, it is
impossible to defend these texts, or
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It is in a sense a Christological
comment but it has interesting
merit as a view by an eminent
author on scriptural writing and
thinking.
In this essay, Camus also wrote,
pursuing the theme about Father
Pouget: "Monsieur Guitton had
considerable justification for reply-
ing to critics that: 'What is remark-
Syracuse to join his brother. His
wife and children, including Fred-
erick who was born in Fuerth in
1848 joined him in 1853. The fami-
ly moved later to Toledo, and after
a brief sojourn there moved to De-
troit in the early 1860s. The Hirsch-
mans had six children: Jacob,
Frederick, Regina (Mrs. Samuel
Bendit), Ida (Mrs. Ludwig Her-
able is not that Judeo-Christianity man), Minnie (Mrs. Herman
should be clothed in particular Heineman), and Sabina (Mrs.
mental attitudes, but that it should George Heyn.)
transcend them.' " And Camus
A master weaver in Germany,
proceeds to state that the Church, Louis was in ill health upon his
giving liberty to her theologians, arrival in Detroit, and the family
"rejects only those theories which was supported by his wife who
threaten the existence of the faith opened a millinery store. Both be-
in their time."
came active members of Temple
This provides much material for Beth EL When the Ladies' Society
theologic discussion and for pur- for the Support of Hebrew Widows
suant study of religious liberties as and Orphans in the State of Michi-
recorded in history and as evalu- gan, Detroit's first Jewish women's
ated by Camus.
organization, was organized in
Reproduced in this volume also 1863, Louis Hirschman was elect-
are interviews that were given by ed its first president. He served in
Camus, and in answer to one ques- this capacity for a few months
tion he replied:
only, when the ladies felt ready to
"I look upon Kafka as a very assume the management.. He was
great story teller. But it would be succeeded in the presidency of the
wrong to say that he has influenced society on their own. He was suc-
me. If a painter of the Absurd has ceeded in the presidency of the
played a role in my idea of liter- society by his wife, Fanny. Louis
ary art, it is the author of the and Fanny Hirschman died in De-
admirable `Moby Dick,' the Ameri- troit, the former in 1881 and the
can, Melville .. ."
latter in 1887, and were buried in
Temple Beth El's Woodmere
Yiddish Paper of Red Unit Cemetery.
Raps Russian, Polish Bias
TORONTO (JTA)—The Yiddish
organ of the pro-Communist United
Jewish Peoples Order has taken a
sharply critical view of Soviet
Russia's pro-Arab policies and
especially of anti-Semitic develop-
ments in Poland.
The paper, Vochenblatt, reported
the departure of prominent Polish-
Jewish writers and editors from
Poland for Israel and commented
that the movement cannot be call-
ed an "exodus" but is in reality an
"expulsion."
A Vochenblatt columnist also took
to task Northern Neighbor, a peri-
odical promoting Canadian-Soviet
friendship, for a "display of un-
Socialist ethnic labeling and his-
torical ignorance."
A recent article in that publica-
tion charged that the records of
Czechs and Jews were "stained"
with respect to the Soviet Union
and alleged that "in 1918, 40,000
Czech troops invaded the young
Soviet Union to overthrow it" and
"Jews played a big part in fight-
ing against Lenin and the Revolu-
tion."
Moses Labold, a Talmudic scholar.
and Sarah Rosenfeld, and brought
his bride to Republic. They had
five children—Dr. Louis J., Jesse
F., Irving L., Sadie H. and Fred-
ericka H. In 1883, Dr. Hirschman
and his family moved to Norway,
Mich., where he was in charge of
the Penn Iron Mining Co. Hospital
until his passing on Jan. 19, 1886.
The funeral was held in Detroit on
Jan. 22, from the home of his
mother on 20 Division St., with
Rabbi Louis Grossmann of Temple
Beth El officiating.
The Current, the weekly news-
paper of Norway, in its issue of
Jan. 28, 1886, carried a lengthy
eulogy for Dr. Hirschman, among
which was stated: "It is im-
possible to speak of the doctor's
professional ability without men-
tioning his social popularity. To
suffering humanity he was at once
a physician and a friend ... were
we at liberty we could account as
to the many instances of his gen-
erosity and prompt attention to
calls where he would receive no
renumeration for his service.
"The remains were accompanied
to the depot Wednesday afternoon
by almost the entire community
and the Masonic Fraternity of the
Range as a body, and were met at
Powers by a delegation from the
lodge at Ishpeming of which the
doctor was a member, who will
accompany the body to Detroit,
where burial will take place on
Friday with Masonic honors."
I am indebted to Dr. Irving L
Edgar, president of the Jewish
Historical Society of Michigan, for
some of the information in the
above article.
Government, like dress, is the
badge of lost innocence.—Thomas
Paine.
&al.!
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,s a a
Frederick Hirschman spent his
early years at the home and busi-
ness of his parents on Jefferson
Avenue, near downtown Detroit.
He received his early schooling at
the German-American Seminary
and entered the Detroit College of
Medicine in 1871, two years after
its establishment. During his two
years as a medical student, Drs.
H. 0. Walker and John Carsters
were his instructors. Upon gradu-
ation in 1873, Dr. Hirschman open-
ed his office at 123 Adams Avenue.
According to another source, Dr.
Hirschman became junior physi-
cian in the office of Dr. Theodore
A. McGraw, prominent physician
of the time and head of the Detroit
College of Medicine.
During the same year, a small-
pox epidemic raged in Negaunee,
Mich., and the health officer of
that locality, Dr. L. D. Cyr, issued
an urgent call for help to physi-
cians to combat the epidemic. Dr.
Hirschman was one of the Detroit
physicians who responded to the
call, giving valuable aid to the vic-
tims in Negaunee. When the epi-
demic subsided, Dr. Hirschman
decided to remain in the Upper
Peninsula. He settled in Republic,
where he soon became surgeon to
the Republic Mine Co. He was a
successful mine surgeon for 10
years.
s * *
In 1876, Frederick married Han-
nah Labold of Detroit, daughter of
MI 4-1930
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