"THE-I rittili JEWISH NEWS
64 Friday, June 13, 1975
Vision, Voice, Rehabilitation Problems Aided at Sinai
More than one million to improve their ability to
and are also due to such fac-
Americans are considered
see through the resources tors as diabetes and the ag-
"legally blind." That term
of a modern low vision ing, process.
does not mean that those
clinic and the expertise of
Another matter of inter-
people have suffered a total a qualified ophthalmolo- est at Sinai is teflon, the
loss of sight. Seventy per- gist or optometrist inter- homemaker's boon, that has
cent of the persons consid- ested in low vision . . . an important medical appli-
ered legally blind do have But in the entire United cation. It is being used by
some partial sight.
States, there are not more two doctors at Sinai in an
For every one of those than 50 low vision clinics. operation to restore the
million known "legally One of the largest is lo- voices of persons who have
blind," it is estimated that cated in the Shiffman sustained injuries to the
there is an unknown person
Clinic at Sinai Hospital. nerves of their vocal cords.
who could be placed in that
More than 50 operations
Sinai's low vision clinic
same status. This repre-
have been performed at
treated approximately 350
sents nearly 1c% of the na-
Sinai in which teflon —
tional population, involving patients last year. It is combined with a glycerine
staffed
by
a
team
of
one
persons ranging in age from
ophthalmologist and two base — is injected into the
the early months of life,
optometrists,
who volunteer vocal cords. The opera-
through the most advanced
their time at the clinic. tions have greatly im-
years.
proved and sometimes
Most of those two mil-
Low vision problems are
completely restored the
lion people can be helped genetic in many instances
voices of those patients.
The paralysis involved
occurs in certain cases of
neck and chest trauma and
terminal cancer. The pa-
tient is left voiceless, or
near-voiceless, experiencing
great difficulty with speech.
In a simple 10 to
15-minute operation using a
"teflon gun," Drs. Eugene
and Michael Rontal position
the teflon as a "weight"
against the paralyzed vocal
cords, forcing the cords into
a near-normal position, al-
lowing them to properly vi-
brate when speech is at-
tempted.
The Rontal brothers first
performed the operation
here in 1972. The patient
had been virtually voiceless
for 13 years. Within a few
`Jewish Radicals' in London's Ghettos
The revealing story of the
Jewish radical movement in
London between the 1870s
and the First World War is
authoritatively and refresh-
ingly told in "Jewish Radi-
cals, From Czarist Stetl to
London Ghetto," written by
William J. Fishman and
published by Pantheon
Books.
Part one of Fishman's
revealing work deals with
the terrible life of the Rus-
sian Jews under the heavy
yoke of the Czars, the immi-
gration to London's White-
chapel area, and the terrible
living and working condi-
tions that were found in the
new ghetto of Britain.
The second section deals
with the growth of the rad-
ical movement among the
Jews of London, spurred
on by Russian Jewish in-
tellengentsia who fled the
pogroms and the Czars'
police. Fishman concludes
with the growth of the
Jewish anarchist move-
ment under the German
gentile Rudolf Rocker, the
success the small move-
ment had in leading the
embryo Jewish labor
movement against the
sweat shops, and the Jew-
ish establishment, and the
causes of the group's ulti-
mate demise.
Born and raised in Lon-
don's East End, the son of
an immigrant tailor, Fish-
man has been a visiting
professor of history at Col-
umbia and the University of
Wisconsin, and is now a re-
search fellow in labor stud-
ies at the University of Lon-
don.
Although heavily docu-
mented and footnoted, Fish-
man's "Jewish Radicals" is
easily read. His extensive
list of sources includes nu-
International Working-lien's Educational Club
Under the auspices of the above a
HASS MEETING
WILL BR MELD ON
Saturday Afternoon, Nov. 1st, 1890 1
AT THE
(MEAT ASSEELT BAIL
MILE END, E.
To Protest against the Inhuman
Treatment and
Persecution of Jews in Russia,
THE CHAIR WILL BE TAKEN BY
"Mr. JAS. BEAL, L.C.C.
- --Ir11•
■■■■■••■ •rn
The following have been invited, and are expected to address the Meeting—
Adolph Smith Corrie Grant, John Burns, L.C.C., Prof.
Stuart, M.P., Rt. Hon, C. T. Ritchie, M.P., Sydney C.
Buxton, M.P , Felix Volkhovsky, S. Stepniak, Prince
Kropotkin, Mrs. Eleanor Marx Aveling, Cunning-hame
Graham, M.P., William Morris, Dr. Spence Watson,
Robert Buchanan, Michael Davitt, Bep-netz W. Neilson
S. Yanovsky, R. W. Burnie, and several others.
lig- COME EARLY & SECURE SEATS.
Doors Open at 8 p.m.
Chair taken at 3-30 prompt.
Communications respecting this meeting to be addressed to the Sea, W. WIS.%
Iat Working•Men's Club, 40, Berner Street, Commercial Road, R.
ifirker', Prism! Printing Office, 40, Berner Street, Corn eercial Road, R.
A poster announces a protest meeting by the radical
International Working-Men's Educational Club in Lon-
don at the height of the Jewish radical and trade union
movements in England. •
weeks of the operation the
patient regained — and has
since continued to enjoy — a
near-normal voice.
Meanwhile, six of the
1,000 doctors certified in
physical medicine and re-
habilitation in the U.S. are
associated with Sinai Hos-
pital of Detroit: Dr. Jo-
seph Honet, chairman of
the Department of Rehabi-
litation, and his associate,
Dr. James A. Raikes, and
four other certified spe-
cialists. Daily, they see an
average of 130 patients to
teach their bodies to re-
spond again to the com-
mands of the brain.
Physical medicine deals
with problems of pain and
motion, such as disc disease,
shoulder pain and nerve in-
juries, while rehabilitation
medicine is care of chronic
diseases, such as the after
effect of stroke which leaves
limbs paralyzed.
Thermal therapy, exer-
cise, rubber balls and looms
are used. In-patients at
Sinai are treated at the
main rehabilitation center
in the hospital, while outpa-
tients go to the new facility
in the Blumberg Profes-
sional Building on th.!-" -:
Nichols Road side
hospital.
The department began
operating at Sinai eight
years ago, and the demand
for rehabilitation medicine
has quadrupled during that
time.
Mordecai Noah's Dream
for U.S. Jewish Settlement
merous British government Bund, the Social Demo-
documents, biographical crats, the Anarchists all
materials, all of the Yiddish tried various programs,
radical newspapers, the es- and ultimately it was the
By DAVID SCHWARTZ
tablished Yiddish press, and
establishing an ark for the
Anarchists who served as
(Copyright 1975, JTA, Inc.)
Jews fleeing from the
the London Jewish Chroni- catalysts for the Yiddish-
cle. speaking immigrants who
The digging of the Erie floods of oppression. In
Early in the book Fish- jammed London's dilapi- Canal was a turning point in character, Mordecai Man-
man describes the heavy- dated sweat-shops.
American history — it uel Noah was something
handed Russian bureauc-
started the great tide of like the Noah of the Bible.
racy and the unfailing atti-
Starting with Aron Lie- population westward which He was very able, but he
tude of successive czars to
berman, the socialist pro- was to convert bare land had his faults. He fought
extract as much as possible phet, who formed the
into great states. It is not duels. He was a newspa-
from the Jews:
`Agudah
Hasozialistim surprising that it should perman. President John
"Any lull in persecution Chaverim' — the first He-
have led to an American Jew Quincy Adams thought
proved short-lived. Anti- brew Socialist Union in
conceiving a project for a him the best newspaper
Semitic action . . . re- 1876, Fishman takes the great flow of Jewish immi- writer in the country. He
ceived top sanction by the reader through the prob-
was a politician. He was
gration.
bureaucracy . . . The lems of the various groups,
It was the area around American Consul to Tunis.
street pogroms were fol- their aims, factionalism,
He was a sheriff, and was
Buffalo, the site of the Erie
lowed by administrative self-defeating tirades
Canal, that Mordecai Man- bitterly criticized when one
pogroms . . . Battalions of against Orthodox Judaism, uel Noah conceived as a ha- time he let all the prisoners
police . . . moved in to and battles against the
ven of Jewish refuge. There go free. Small pox had bro-
oust all Jews 'illegally' 'masters', the rabbis, and was one other factor in- ken out in the jail and he
resident in the cities and the threatened Jewish es-
volved in the idea — his feared they would all get it,
overnight expulsion of the tablishment, British anti- name.
but he was attacked for let-
`criminals' took place, by semitism and anti-alien
Mordecai Manuel Noah ting loose the criminals.
thousands, with all the measures.
couldn't help thinking of
He was probably the best
attendant horrors."
popular playwright of his
The famous names that
The only thing that would
day, but his enemies con-
r
ring
through the chapters
save the Jews temporarily
spired to hamper the pro-
include
the
newspapers
,
"Die
in any district of Russia
duction of his plays.
Polishe Yidl' and "Arbeter
during the last half of the
•
With all his faults, he had
Fraint" which were in the
1800s would be local offi-
'.:
imagination. The first Noah
forefront
of
the
Anarchists'
cials recognizing that an
had built an ark for human-
upheval of the Jews would movement to unionize the
ity, which after the subsid-
“ and the forerunner
drive up prices within the lo- masses,
ence of the flood, landed at
of
the
"Workers'
Circle,"
cal economy.
Ararat. Mordecai Manuel
Berner Street Club, the Ju-
The persecutions drove
Noah.called the project near
hillee Street Club, and the
many to leave Russia for the
Buffalo by the name of Ar-
leaders: Winchevsky, Ya-
shores of 'free' England,
arat.
novsky, Kropotkin, Rocker,
where they worked in the
He invited the Jews of the
sweat shops "from 7 a.m. to Frumkin, Wess.
world to come there. The
1:30 a.m. . . . The once
"Jewish Radicals" con-
area was sparsely settled.
splendid three-storeyed
eludes with a brief review of
There were a good many
MORDECAI
NOAH
dwelling of Hugenot silk why the movement died
Indians, but they would not
merchants had been subdi-
the man in the Bible who object. In fact, Noah be-
shortly after it flourished.
vided into lodging-rooms
had the name of Noah. The lieved the Indians were the
Ultimately, the rise of the
and/or workshops, all re- trade union movement they
Bible says of Noah that he lost tribes of Israel and he
duced to a condition where
helped to create, the ortho-
was "a righteous man in proposed to reunite them
decay and foul sanitation
his generation." The Bibl- with the rest of the Jews.
doxy of their Jewish broth-
were commonplace."
ers, the communist revolu-
ical commentators say this
A company of state
means that had he lived at tia marched to give of.
Fishman describes how
tion in Russia which drew
other times, he might not status to the ceremony.
the "greeners" were fleeced away many of the radicals
of every valuable during — many to their deaths —
have been considered so The exercises were opened
righteous.
their long journey to Lon- and Zionism all contributed
by a prayer by a Christian
don, and upon arrival, and to the passing of the Jewish _
He had his faults. Accord- minister.
how the influx of masses of radicals.
ing to the Biblical account,
The only Jew present was
cheap labor made the long
Noah got drunk and he also
Fishman
writes,
"Today,
Mordecai Manuel Noah him-
hours, low-pay sweat sys-
a handful of survivors, old cursed. At the same time, he self, unless you count the
tem self-perpetuate despite
men and women, at the evidently had a social con- Indian chief, Red Jacket,
any rare sympathy that
Workers'
Circle
. . recall science.
who Nvas present and who,
could be found in the own- with reverence
the . memory
The world of his day, ac- as we have said, Noah con-
ers. And few were sympa- of a teacher who helped res- cording to the Bible, was sidered to he a Jew.
thetic: higher pay, shorter
tore their dignity and self- full of evil and Noah was
Unfortunately for Noah,
hours and better conditions
respect after their debase- sure the Lord would not to- nothing became of his pro-
would have forced even the ment under Tsarist barba-
lerate it. But concluding ject for Jewish settlement at
richest out of business.
rism. Rocker would have that the World would come Ararat. No Jewish leaders
The Jewish radicals of none of that. The years of
to an end, he didn't .E2- ive way gave him any help. But his
to inertia.
the day strove mightily to achievement were but a con-
project did focus much at-
change the system, but of- sumation of the work of his
When the Erie Canal tention on the plight of the
ten wound up fighting predecessors."
came along, Mordecai Jews in many countries of
against themselves. The
— A.H. Manuel Noah decided on the world.