THE DETROIT Friday, May 18, 1973 NEWS - George Pierrot, Who Outstrips Benjamin of Tudela as Traveler 11 By CHARLOTTE DUBIN Working E, Wife Entitled to Alimony There can't be a more familiar face on television: the round. bespectacled vis- age encircled by a wreath of white hair that belongs to George Pierrot, globe trotter, gourmand, lover of Detroit and all-round good fellow. But there is another side to Pierrot — to be sure, a brief moment in the chron- icle of this colorful chap who has brought the -world to thousands of armchair tra- velers via th,?, 40-year-old World Adventure Series and the daily TV show that bears his name. TEL AVIV (.JTA) — The stated that if the wife was Rabbinical Court in Haifa working the husband did not has ruled th7tt alimony must have to pay alimony. The court founds however, be paid by a husband in a divorce case even though that as more and more wo- men are now working, hus• the wife may- be working. The law had previously bands have been exploiting PASSPOR PHOTOS fors 95 POPOrreiglie 28635 Southfield 357-324;: Overnite Se ,vice INVITATIeNS 0% OR the law to exert Pressure on their wives. The ruling was made in a case involving a childless couple, both working aca- demicians. For over a year the husband had refused both to agree to a divorce and to pay alimony. The court ruled that pay- ment of alimony in a separa- tion starts as soon as the court approves a divorce, even though the husband does not agree immediately to the actual divorce. Pierrot has been to Israel once. Actually, it was to Palestine — in 1938, when he was on a year-long world trip for his syndicated col- umn, World Letters, Inc. Lowell Thomas got him the job. He remembers staying at the Austrian Hospice on the Via Dolorosa, within the walls of the Old City of Jeru- salem. He started out at the King David Hotel, "but that was outside the walls," and Pierrot preferred to be where the action was. He wasn't disappointed; t h e r e was GEORGE PIERROT shooting every night. "My Arab guide was terri- I During that year of travel, field I'd be taken for an Pierrot also witnessed the Englishman and be shot by terror that was engulfing Germany. He and his anti- an Arab," said Pierrot. Pierrot, who is marking his 75th birthday this year, was a Zionist long before Israel /became a state. Like * * * other/ Gentiles who formed the-'American Christian Pal- Holiday Brochure • estine Committee, Pierrot believed — as he said in an Issued by Pierrot George Pierrot's new 28- interview — "that the goals of Zionism could be achieved page, two-color 1973 fishing to the advantage of the and holiday brochure, avail- Foi Middle East without penal- able free to the public, is entitled, "My Detroit, My izing the Arabs." , LEASING ALL MAKE order your '73 NOW! YOU GET MORE WHEN YOU DEAL WITH ISHORE Chevrolet 12330 Jos. Campau 891-2360 891-0600 Although he admits the de- tails are hazy, he recalls at- tending the conference at Princeton University at which Da v id Ben-Gurion spoke on the need for estab- lishment of the Jewish state. Pierrot met many prominent Christian humanists there, among them Welthy Fisher, now in her 90s, whose hus- band was the Methodist bishop of India. She herself achieved some note in the promotion of ed u c a tion -among the Indians. HARI1 ABRAM Fleet Manager Res. LI. 8-4119 DON'T MAKE A COSTLY MISTAKE CALL US LAST Hitler German guide paid an unauthorized visit to the prison camp at Spandau and managed to get away with only a "Get the hell out of here" from the commandant, said Pierrot. But he could not write of it: "I once wrote Germany was a nation in uniform, and Michigan, My Algoma." they held my letter up for a In it, Pierrot tells why week." Detroit and Michigan are his Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Kuwait top choice as a place to live. and Morocco also have been He includes a complete index on his itinerary ("I was in of names, addresses and Kuwait when they brought in phone numbers of selected the first test tube of oil. camps, resorts, motels, ho- tels, restaurants, dude George Pierrot's World ranches, air and train serv- Adventure Series is shown ices and tourist attractions Sunday afternoons at the to help the reader plan his Detroit Institute of Arts. vacation. The George Pierrot tele- Free copies are available vision show appears at 5 at the 23 Detroit-area offices p.m. daily and 7 p.m. of Standard Federal Savings. Saturdays and Sundays on Channel 4. My Favorite Girl FILTS S Winston tastes good, when a cigarette should. SUPER KING OR KING Warning The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health. 019:3 SUPER KING 20 camel. If you'r ,. t.hinkin.r Of fry- an old nrne1 - 4r,surning it could be ko ,,:-IF!r-killed, of course — don't. Pierrot de- scribes it as a "beef-flavorFA hunk of carpet. You rnak‘: no progress chewing it." He portrays Helen. his wif ✓ of 38 years and mother of his four children, as "more con- ventional" in her tastes. Despite the circuitous route he has taken through life— from canning salmon in Alaska to earn his way through the University of Washington, to coal mining in West Virginia, to steering a ship through the Panama Canal while serving as deck hand from Norfolk, Va., to Seattle — Pierrot remains, at heart, a Detroiter. Fresh out of college, he landed here in 1922 to work for American Boy magazine, serving as its editor till 1936. Pierrot recalls that one of his first friends was Philip Slomovitz, editor and pub- lisher of The Jewish News, who at that time was editor of the Jewish Chronicle. With him and other writers for the ethnic press, Pierrot met regularly in the Society for the Occident and the Orient. He mourns the death of so rnany ethnic newspapers and the dwindling of com- munities they represented. To Pierrot, who guesses he's traveled the equivalent of to the moon and back, Detroit has much to recommend it, and the various nationality groups are high on that list. ing Now, the whole country's air- conditioned, it's so rich"), but for that matter so have more than 100 other lands. Benjamin of Tudela, the famous 12th Century Jewish traveler, was an amateur by comparison. On his television show, at age 25 the oldest travel-ad- venture program on the air, Pierrot presents about three Israel films a year, he said. There isn't as much material available on Lebanon and Jordan. Although he personally en- joys a good controversy, Pierrot said he tries to keep it out of his shows. Still, "we're not Pollyanna. If our guest knows his subject, he can inject politics. We take issue with governments, not with people." Pierrot admits that "We do get some abusive letters when we present the Arab or the Jewish side. The Arabs complain that we don't know what we're talking about; the Jewish side complains if the pictures aren't 'brand new.' " • how food it Middle East), walrus stom- ach ("hard to take"), alli- gator tail ("very good"), iguana and even an old R J 1,1,101. OS TOBACCO Co. Report FEB.'73. mg."tar",1.3 mg.nicotine,KING: 20 mg. tar",1.4 mg nicotine, av per cigarette, FTC He has great faith in people in general. "They all want the same things; the only difference is lack of op- portunity. If the governments in the Middle East, bursting with oil money, would re- store the irrigation system of the Tigris-Euphrates, they could take care of everybody. The only trouble is, the oil money goes to the wrong people." Nevertheless, Pierrot says he thinks that with time, Arabs and Jews will live in peace. Is there some place left, some untouched spot, that Pierrot yearns to visit? "The unconquered territory, the ultimate and unexplored territory," he said, "is your own self. We have an awful lot to do yet — a lot of space and a lot of sea to explore. But man's attempt to subdue himself will • provide the greatest adventure." ZOA Picks 215 Teens to Study in Israel NEW YORK (ZINS)—The Z i o n i s t Organization of America announced that 215 Pierrot says ne'll answer Jewish high school and col- a letter from "anyone, big lege students will participate or small, as long as it isn't in its study and travel pro- abusive." Even as he was grams this summer in Israel. The students, from 96 corn- speaking, a phone call came in with a request for infor- munities in 13 states and mation on the desirability o' Canada, were selected from eating horsemeat—a request among nearly 2,400 applica- that, to Pierrot, is not so un- tions for the seven-week camping, institute and lead- usual. This man who unpreten ership training programs, of Bernard M. Rifkin, chairman tiously drops names people and places at the rate of the ZOA's national youth of at least one per sentence, committee, reported. The programs are conduct- also is considered somewhat of an authority on food—any ed by Masada, n at i on al kind. On his travels he has youth m o v e m e n t of the eaten (partial listing): lion, 110,000-member ZOA. tiger, water buffalo milk, Energy and ;.‘ersistent 2 toasted termites, goat, ga- zelle (the latter two, plus I conquer all thin.—Benja- lamb, very popular in the i ruin Franklin.