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- NEWS

THE

DIVAElk SPOTS AHEAD

20, Uri/

Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle i.oni mowing with the issne of July

Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers. Michigan Press Association. National Editorial Association.
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Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17515 \V. Nine Mile, Suite
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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

DREW LIEBERWITZ

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Advertising Manager

Business Manager

Man Ilitsky. News Editor . . . II4 icli Pre!..s. ksi,stattt Ni•1%, Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selcct ions

This Sabbath, the 29th day of Shevat, 5736, the following scriptural selections will be read in our
synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 21:1-24:18. Prophetical portion, Jeremiah 34:8-22.
Rosh Hodesh. Adar 1, Sunday and Monday, Num. 28:1-15.

Candle lighting, Friday, Jan. 30. 5:26 p.m.

VOL. LXVIIL I o. 21

Page Four

•

Friday, January 30, 1976

deration's Change of Guard

William Avrunin's retirement from the ma-
jor Jewish social service post in this community
and the selection of Sol Drachler as his succes-
sor is not only the major current news story. It
is an announcement that merits consideration of
the values of services rendered by dedicated
community career men and their accomplish-
ments.
Mr. Avrunin assumed the role of executive
vice president of the Jewish Welfare Federation
of Detroit in 1964, during a most critical period
in world Jewish history. The Middle East prob-
lem had not yet reached the present stage. It re-
quired the two wars, the Six-Day conflict and
the Yom Kippur•War, to bring it to its present
state of a deadly uncertainty in international
considerations. Many problems affecting Amer-
ican Jewry were emerging.
Chosen to succeed the very able Isidore So-
beloff, the new role was a challenge to Mr.
Avrunin's abilities. He met the challenge with
courage and dignity. He had to contend with se-
rious issues. The educational system was threat-
ened, there were problems affecting the aged
and the retardates in the community. He did not
shun his duties in tackling the many obstacles
that inevitably confront a social worker.
He rose to the many occasions involving phi-
lanthropy. In the year of his assumption of his
directional duties with the Federation, the Al-
lied Jewish Campaign raised less than $5,-
000,000. In the ensuing years this community
rose to the occasions necessitating vast sums to
assist in Israel's protective economic develop-
ments and in 1974, after the Yom Kippur trag-
edy of 1973, the Allied Jewish Campaign ex-
ceeded the $22,000,000 figure, and kept meeting
the challenge in 1975 with a total of more than
$18,000,000.

In attaining these goals, Mr. Avrunin had
the assistance of Sol Drachler, who, as cam-
paign director, showed his ability as a supervi-
sor of an army of volunteer workers and as a
guide to the thousands of solicitors. These skills
in directing leadership contributed to the appre-
ciation for his labors which has led to his being
selected for the high communal post in the Met-
ropolitan Detroit Jewish community.
Character-wise as well as by virtue of splen-
did backgrounds and training in the field of so-
cial services, both Messrs. Avrunin and Drachler
gained the respect the former retained during
his services in the past decade and the latter at-
tained by meriting elevation to this high post.
Noteworthy also in the transformation is
the naming of Samuel Cohen as associate direc-
Zion's redemption, Israel's upbuilding and the rededication of Je-
tor. Mr. Cohen, like his associates, has estab- rusalem as the capital of the Jewish state are interlinked with the
lished a valuable place in local communal affairs history of the Temple in its various stages.
with his services to Detroit Jewry.
Joan Comay, the wife of the former Israel ambassador to Canada
Mr. Avrunin succeeded a leader in the field
and the United Kingdom, herself a distinguished member of Israel's
of social service, Isidore Sobeloff, who had ablest representatives on the roster of emissaries to foreign lands, is
earned the designation of Dean of American highly qualified to describe these modern Israeli developments. Her
Jewish Social Workers. In the footsteps of an newest work, "The Temple of Jerusalem" (Holt, Rinehart & Winston)
ranks high as history and resultant research.
eminent authority, Mr. Avrunin performed his
It is natural for Mrs. Comay to have
.. .
tasks with distinction and with great devotion.
begun with the Tabernacle, with the
Now he, in turn, serves as a model for his succes-
Giving of the Law, with the wanderings
sor who labored with him in this community
in the desert and the acquisition of
during a decade of serious challenges.
statehood. Then came the promise of
A community with high standards, having
temple-building, the First Temple fash-
ioned by Solomon, the long history of
adhered to responsibilities with the utmost de-
worship followed by defeat and exile,
votion, had a number of distinguished executive
destruction of the sacred edifice, its re-
directors conducting the Detroit Jewish Welfare
building by Herod and then the many
Federation activities. Morris D. Waldman, Dr.
centuries of suffering and homelessness
John Slawson, Kurt Peiser, Isidore Sobeloff and
until redemption in what is now Israel.
William Avrunin represent an honor roll for
This is an all-too-rapid summation,
Detroit Jewry's social services and philanthro-
yet it defines the totality of a magnifi-
pies. The years ahead augur well under tested
cent work in which an able author de-
scribes the Temple as it was planned
direction.

Synagogues Unified in a Council

Jewish communities can ill afford to be natic handful of some 400 in Israel to address
themselves to the PLO as "friends" in an aim to
split on spiritual and cultural matters, regard-
destroy Israel, on the ground that a redeemed
less of Halakhic and other traditional differ-
Zion must rely on the messianic. The acts of
ences. Uniformity is strange to Jewry, as it is to
these extremists in Orthodoxy in Israel, a nd the
other religious and educational elements in a
few who are left among the Jewish bigots in
free society. But in Jewish ranks it is especially
anti-Zionist ranks in this country develop into a
urgent that there should be a measure of unity
challenge to the religious elements who must ex-
in striving for cooperation and mutual under-
ercise an ostracism of destructiveness.
standing of the faithful and the dedicated.
A vital factor not to be ignored is the lim-
Formation of the Detroit Synagogue Coun-
ited
response
to membership mobilization in the
cil is a natural outgrowth that has proven effec-
Synagogue
Council
which must already be
tive in fulfillment of a fraternity of spirit on a
viewed as an established fact. There are some 32
national scale. What has become acceptable in
congregations in Metropolitan Detroit but only
the total American Jewish community must be
14 have formally enrolled in the new council.
considered equally applicable to the local scene,
Missing from the announced membership
and the congregations in this metropolitan com-
mostly are the Orthodox. Unless all the
munity have displayed wisdom in the collabora-
branches of Judaism are represented in the new
tion that has become effective here.
council it will lack in total realism.
There were periods in American Jewish his-
This is a factor not to be ignored in unifica-
tory when divisiveness congregationally was
tion
of synagogues. And there is the major aim
routine. It was never normal, when theological
of assuring identification, of inspiring affilia-
differences caused rancor.
tion with the most important instrument for un-
If Conservative, Orthodox and Reform ad-
ity in Jewish life, the synagogue.
herents can work together in philanthrophy, is
Now it is to be hoped that Orthodox, Re-
there reason for a division in the ranks when
form
and Conservative will act as a unit in de-
congregational unity can also be a contributing
fense
of the basic Jewish needs in functioning
factor to creativity in behalf of Jewry's needs
communities.
The Synagogue Council formed
.
and adherence to faith and tradition?
here should serve that purpose of creating a
The unity now aspired to by the Metropoli-
common ground for action that must develop
tan Detroit synagogues could serve well in re-
into realistic services that will benefit Jewry.
jecting the type of extremism that permits a fa-

•

Jerusalem and the Temple:
Historic Roles Are Defined

and its history that was marked by both
glory and tragedy. The process of such
historicity, however, is especially signi-
JOAN COMAY
ficant because it covers the complete gamut of Israel's story. It is an-
cient Jewish history linked with the modern, finalizing in the triumph
of the Zionist ideal.
The remnant of the Herodian Temple, the surviving wall, attracts
hundreds of thousands of worshipers, visitors from many lands and
graelis, the devout and those who are historically attracted and at-
tached to the stones that are invested with sanctity. The chapter in
Mrs. Comay's "The Temple of Jerusalem" dealing with the story of
this remnant, under the title "The Western Wall," merits a book in
itself. It is the story of a devotion to the remains from the historic
sanctuary and the obstacles that were placed in preventing Jews with
an historic and religious sense from reciting their prayers there and
from placing appealing messages in the crevices between these stones
that have remained as a memory from ancestry that built the Temple.
It became known as the Wailing Wall. Actually it. is the Ha-Kotel
Ha-Maaravi, the Western Wall.
When the rules were set up for Great Britain as the Mandatory
Power over Palestine after World War I, guarantees were inscribed
for Jews to be able to worship at the Wall. But the Arab antagonism
commenced, obstacles were erected, the British yielded to the antago-
nisms and Jews were barred from bringing benches for comfort dur-
ing worship to the -Wall. Soon riots were instigated, the 1929 outrages
against the Jewish population, which included the horrors in Jerusa-
lem and the wholesale murder of theological students in Hebron, evi-
denced abandonment of legal rights and the beginning of a series of
anti-Jewish horrors that marked the Arab enmities.
Redemption came in 1967, when the Jewish defenders of Israel
regained Jerusalem and reunited the city that was occupied by Jordan
with the New Jerusalem. Once again Ha-Kotel Ha-Maaravi became
accessible to Jews, and the Temple site restored to Jewry.
Not only as history splendidly narrated but as a collection of the
best in available art related to the Temple, Israel and the Zionist aspi-
ration, JoanComay's book fascinates and fills a great need in current
learning of Jewish history.

