62 Friday, October 5, 1919 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 53—ENTERTAINMENT Blind Former Detroiter Writes on' Michigan at War SINGING guitarist, violinist plus Disco tapes. 398-2462. A new book from the Uni- died and hundreds were in- versity of Michigan Press, jured or arrested. President "State of War: Michigan in Roosevelt called out federal Enhance your Simcha (Happy World War II" by former troops to quell the distur- Occasion), by listening to the Detroiter Alan Clive, tells bance, but the aftermath melodious voice of an Israeli and the story of the home front brought no great improve- English folk guitarist. Reason- able rates. in America's "arsenal of ment in race relations. Economically, the war democracy." It is a story of Please call 399-0079 people and institutions con- remade Michigan. An un- fronting a supreme crisis — employment rate of 15 per- cent in 1940 fell to less than the challenge of total war. BAND Michigan played a key 0.5 percent by 1943. Wages role in the battle of soared as the basis for post- Excellent Music machines. The automobile war consumer prosperity For All Social industry converted com- was firmly laid. Socially, Occasions pletely to the production of however, even the demands guns, ships, planes and of war could not alter in- 731.6081 tanks. By dollar value, De- grained presumptions or troit did more war work prejudices. Although thousands of than any other American Newest Arab city. The mile-long Willow Posies faithfully riveted for Newspaper Open Run bomber plant turned victory, no fundamental out more than 8,000 B-24 change in women's second- to Israeli Writers Liberator bombers between class status resulted from JERUSALEM — "Al 1942 and 1945. World War II. Many of the Usbua al Jadeed" (The New With manpower short, issues raised during the war Week), only the second thousands of women, blacks years, such as civil rights, Arab newspaper to appear and other minorities were left to a later era for in East Jerusalem since the streamed into the war resolution. Six-Day War, made its plants to replace those Alan Clive, the author of debut last month. bound for the fighting "State of War," was born in The paper has opened its fronts. Colorado but has lived most pages to Israeli writers, the The war placed enormous of his life in Michigan. He only current Palestinian burdens on the production attended elementary and journal to do so. centers. As workers flocked secondary schools in De- The publication is part of to Detroit, Muskegon and troit. While nt- a recent emergence of sev- other Michivanpitis,.....1,,,, obate University in the ted. early 1960s he became 2 eral new in the iously theal most exclusive strained recreation and AZA branch of the Bnai preserve of the three East health facilities to the limit. Brith Youth Organization. Jerusalem dailies, "Al Theaters and bowling alleys His parents, now retired Quds," "Al Fajar" and "Al remained open far into the and living in Royal Oak, Sha'ab." night to accommodate attend Temple Beth El. swing-shifters. After graduation from "State of War" evokes Wayne State in 1969 with a Nobel Winner memories of ration stamps, master's degree in history, at Tel Aviv U. cans of kitchen grease and Clive entered the Univer- TEL AVIV --f Prof. Nor- flattened tin cans. But Clive sity of Michigan to pursue a man Ernest Borlaug, win- does not intend his book to doctorate in American his- ner of the Nobel Peace Prize* be another sentimental tory. He received his PhD in as one of the fathers of the tribute to the "good old 1976 and accepted a teach- ing position at Northeast- "green revolution," recently days." "Many people see the war ern University in Boston. visited the Tel Aviv Univer- sity campus to deliver a lec- years through a nostalgic He has also taught at the ture on "Food for Tomor- haze," he told The Jewish University of Massachu- row's Generation" and to News. "They recall those setts in Amherst. He is presently working exchange professional in- years as a time when people formation with Tel Aviv worked together for a com- on his next book under a mon goal, as they don't seem grant from the National University experts. Prof. Borlaug's work on to be doing today. But that Endowment for the development of new crop memory of unity is correct Humanities. only up to a point. In reality, In June 1966, only two strains has been instrumen- tal in substantially increas- Michigan society was riven weeks after he graduated with conflict both before from Wayne State's Mon- ing world food supplies. and after Pearl Harbor." teith College with a Examples of wartime con- bachelor of arts degree, Noshrim Policy? flict abound. Despite a Clive unexpectedly began to JERUSALEM (ZINS) — labor-management pledge lose his vision. By April Israeli authorities, un- of no strikes or lockouts for 1967, he had becon* totally happy with the number of the duration, hundreds of * blind. Soviet Jews who go to West- wildcat walkouts occurred Clive had suffered a de- ern countries rather than in Michigan. Rival AFL and tachment of the retina in his Israel, are expected to pro- CIO unions fought each right eye. pose that "noshrim" be other across the state, some- Two operations failed to aided by Jewish organiza- times disrupting vital war correct the problem and in tions only if they have close production. the spring of 1967, the r -si Alves in the country of Race presented the most retina in Clive's left eye de- tneir choice or if they go to explosive area of conflicts. tached. Such "sympathetic" Israel. The manpower shortage led reaction from the other eye widened job and housing is not uncommon. Again, Losing Noshrim? to opportunities for blacks. surgery could not repair the TEL AVIV (ZINS) — Ac- But white resistance to damage. cording to a report in the black progress by employers "At first, you think the newspaper Maariv, quoting and workers alike stiffened. world is over," Clive said of Detroit Max Fisher, chair- In February 1942 an inter- his early reaction to blind- man of the Jewish Agency, racial brawl broke out in ness. "My medical history 94 percent of the Soviet northeast Detroit when indicated a slight chance of Jews receiving assistance blacks attempted to move such a thing happening, but from the Jewish community into a new housing project. a chance so slight that no Blacks demanded milit- one ever told me, which I of Los Angeles have no con- tact with that community or antly that the war against guess was a good thing. I fascism abroad be trans- had always considered my- any Jewish institution. formed into a crusade self part of the sighted To be a Jew is to be a against racism at home. majority. When I became friend to mankind, to be a Growing tension culmi- blind, I thought it would be proclaimer of liberty and nated in the terrible Detroit impossible to continue my race riot of June 20-21, interest in teaching and peace. —Ludwig Lewisohn 1943, in which 34 persons writing history." - ALAN CLIVE But with the aid of the Michigan Office of Services for the Blind and a number of volunteer organizations, Clive found the resources to continue his career: "I found that being blind is nowhere as difficult as sighted people make it out to be," he commented. "Be- cause they can't imagine a life without sight, they often can't believe that a blind person can function successfully. In some ways, being blind is no picnic. But I can truthfully say that, ex- cept that it has taken me a little longer, becoming blind did not fundamentally Clive devised a special system to enable him to write his doctoral disserta- tion, a shortened version of which was to become "State of War." Readers tape recorded needed books and magazine articles at various organiza- tions or at a taping "studio" in Clive's Ann Arbor apartment. He worked with other readers, recording notes on newspaper stories and from documents in arc- hives scattered throughout Michigan and in Washing- ton, D.C. Each note on tape had its counterpart in an index card coded in Braille. A three-digit number gave the precise location of the note on its particular tape, and the remainder of the card held a brief description of the material. The taped notes were scattered at ran- dom on three dozen tapes, but the index cards were filed in an increasingly sophisticated alphabetical and topical sequence. "When everything was down on tape and in the Braille index, I could work alone," Clive said. "That was my goal. You can't get readers at four in the morn- ing, and sometimes I felt like working then. With this systein, I could." To write the book, Clive simply listened to the taped notes in the order prescribed by the index cards, transferring the in- formation to a final tape in precisely the order re- quired. He typed all rough drafts alone on a standard keyboard typewriter, later editing with a reader. This editing process continued throughout the various stages of the manuscript to publication. Clive uses much the same method in preparing lec- tures for courses in Ameri- can history, although he re- lies on Braille outlines, rather than memorized manuscripts. To grade exams, he listens to the stu- dents' essays or gives multiple-choice tests that can be easily corrected by an assistant. Mobility is always a con- sideration. "I can't just go into a new area like a sighted person can," he commented. "Orientation takes time and Nark. You have to figure ourroutes to the specific places you want to go to, noting the obsta- cles, the twists and turns, and so on. But it can be done." Clive usually does his orientation work with a mobility instructor from a state. commission or with his wife Mary. He became proficient enough within the maze of tunnels beneath Northeastern University that he was able to give di- rections to a lost sighted student. Clive's latest project, for which he has received fed- eral funding, is a study of three great floods that de- vastated Johnstown, Pa., in g 22.,ysitu,-„AILWA work grows directly out of the previous research. "State of War" deals with a community's reaction to disaster — total war — and the Johnstown project will trace the impact of and reac- tion to natural disaster on a single community. He is using the same basic tape-and-card system that proved successful in writing his volume on wartime Michigan. "Sighted people should not regard me as somebody special because I have pub- lished a book," Clive said. "Blind people are just like anybody else, except that they can't see. That is a problem, but there are other problemi. Thousands of people are agoraphobic, and dread leaving their homes. I don't. Some people have physical handicaps, some have emotional handicaps. - "Blind people would make pretty bum surgeons, but then, so would a person who couldn't stand the sight of blood. By the same token, blind people can make ex- cellent teachers, resear- chers, mechanics, adminis- trators, and even politicans. "I wrote 'State 5f War' not because I'm blind, but be- cause the subject of war- time Michigan interested me and no one had worked on it before. If people buy the book — and I hope they do — they should do so be- cause it's a good book, not Exempt Women Carter Urged NEW YORK — Agudath Israel of America has asked President Carter to reject any attempt to register women if the selective serv- ice system for the armed forces is reinstated. The House of Representa- tives recently voted 259-155 against re-establishment of the draft. because of who or what I am. "Actually, the blind will have won their own victory over stereotypes when arti- cles like this one are no longer needed. If I can speed up that V-J Day for the blind, I'll have done my bit." Robert Lewiston - Robert R. Lewiston, an attorney with offices in Southfield, died Sept. 30 at age 70. A native Detroit& dr. Lewiston was graduated in 1930 from the Detroit Col- lege of Law. He was a member of the Michigan Bar Association and the A- K eidan Lodge of Bnai Brith. He leaves his wife, Pat- ricia; three sons, Michael B., Richard M. and David M.; a brother, Irving Levin; a sister, Mrs. Marvin (Rae?=, Laker; and six grandchildren. Seymour Jacobs Seymour Jacobs, a retired attorney, died Oct. 1 at age Col- of Law. He resided at 14261 Hart, Oak Park. He leaves a son, Lawr- ence of New York; a daugh- ter, Mrs. Bertram (Janet) Feldman; a brother, , Dr. Clarence; a sister, Mrs. Isa- dore (Beryl) Winkelman; and three grandchildren. - lege Albert E. Kahn GLEN ELLEN, Calif. — Albert E. Kahn, nephew of the famed architect and an author and publisher, died Sept. 15 at age 67. A former Detroiter, Mr. Kahn was an authority on the McCarthy era and in 1953 co-founded a firm to publish the works of writers blacklisted for alleged Communist sympathies. In- terested in politics, he often identified himself as a Mar- xist without party affilia- tion. Harold Ziv, 76 Harold E. Ziv, retired chairman of the board of Ziv Wire and Steel, died Sept. 28 at age 76. Born in Chicago, Mr. Ziv was a member of Temple Beth El, Franklin Hills Country Club, Bnai Brith, Engineers Society of Detroit and was a former board member of the Masons. He leaves his wife, Viv: ian; a son, Alvin; a gh- ter, Mrs. Melvin ty) Rosenhaus; and tnree grandchildren. James Aftel, 74 James Aftel, a hardware manufacturer's representa- tive, died Sept. 28 at age 74. Born in Toledo, Ohio, Mr. Aftel was a member of Knollwood Country Club, Bnai Biith, the Shriners, ce: Temple Israel and the Standard Club. He leaves his wife, Ruth; two daughters, Mrs. Ken- - neth (Frances) Eisenberg and Mandy of Berkeley, C al i f. ; and three grandchildren.