10 Friday, December 14, 1919
Disco Parties by
IL
'
•
Dan Samittom
3153-601011
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Author Bill Broder. Reconstructs
Background as Native Detroiter
Israel Workers Conduct Strike
—
All municipal services in
Tel Aviv came to a halt
Sunday as 10.000 municipal
workers staged a 24-hour
warning strike for not re-
ceiving their November
salaries. Garbage was pil-
ing up fast in the city's
JERUSALEM (JTA
streets.
City hospitals and other
emergency services oper-
ated on a weekend and holi-
day basis. Mayor Shlomo
Lahat and Interfor Minister
Yosef Burg accused each
other for the financial diffi-
culti's of Tel Aviv.
"Meet the Author" is a
normal function frequently
sponsored by national pub-
lishers-in New York as
means of introducing a book
and its author, with the aim
of popularizing both.
In Detroit, Tuesday,
"Meet the Author" became a
nostalgic occasion for a na-
tive Detroiter who has
authored a volume that is
approaching best-seller
status.
Bill Broder, a native De-
troiter who now resides
with his immediate family
in Sausalito, Calif., was
here, at the reunion with
community and family, to
introduce his book "The
Sacred Hoop" (Sierra Club
Books), hailed by the pub-
lisher as "a unique experi-
ence in historical fiction
from the retelling of
'Genesis' to the saga of the
Steam God (Transcontinen-
tal Railroad) in 19th Cen-
tury'America."
A GOLDEN YEAR
We Invite Your Participation
in celebrating
Our 50th
Jubilee Campaign
1930-1980
Introduced by local
community leader, his
brother Brewster
Broder, the author's visit
was an occasion for a
family reunion.
At Our 50th
Annual Donor Tea
His father was the late Hy
Broder, who served as
president - of the Jewish
Community Center. His
mother was the former
Celia Meyers and her uncles
were the Keidans. Thus,
this event brought to the
scene the descendants of the
Meyers and Keidan
families, both having
ranked in top leadership.
Author Bill Broder there-
fore had an opportunity to
speak nostalgically about
the community into which
he was born and where he
had his interesting back-
ground — the late Joel
Cashdan having been his
Bar Mitzva teacher, Julius
Chajes having advised him
that he would not succeed at
the piano. -
The" former location of
Shaarey Zedek on Chicago
Blvd. was impressively de-
‘110- 411
--
12:00 Noon, Tuesday, January 8, 1980
Shaarey Zedek Synagogue
27375 Bell Road
Southfield, Michigan 48034
for information call:
JEWISH NATIONAL FUND, 27308 Southfield Road, Southfield, Michigan, 557-6644
Reba (Mrs. Irving) Bloom
President
Shirley (Mrs. Jules) Kraft
Fund Raising Chairwoman
Doris (Mrs. Joseph) Mark. I
Program Chairwoman
picted in Broder's speech at
the author luncheon at the
Jewish Community Center.
erArooe—store-wide
sale
featuring
reductions of •
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on his and her
CONTEMPORARY SPORTSWEAR
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orn
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•
Commenting on his fascina-
tion of the natural
phenomena. he thus spoke
about his book:
"'The Sacred Hoop,' is,
in part, about 'commu-
nity.' It is also about God
or gods, and about na-
ture.
"In a series of tales which
follow history from the be-
ginning to the present, the
book tells how we have be-
come separated from nature
and what that separation
has meant to our culture.
Each tale is about an ordi-
nary person struggling to
come to terms with the obs-
tacles which events have
posed to his or her reverence
for the earth. Although the
stories rest upon archeolog-
ical and historical evidence,
hopefully, each of my char-
acters lives to tell his or her
own tale.
"You will find here,
among others, a primitive
man hunting a closely re-
lated species, a Sumerian
irrigation administrator
who has been unjustly
stripped of his canal, a sac-
red prostitute and
prophetess who helps re-
form the Judaic Code, a
Greek father who se family
is threatened by nature
cults, a Roman road builder,
a Slavic slave girl working
in German iron mines, a
displaced English farmer
who becomes a landscape
architect, and a chinese la-
borer blasting the transcon-
tinental railway -through
the Sierra Mountains.
"By using these episoiles
of individual lives, I hope to
make a composite protrait
of our own present attitude
towards nature. Our minds
are not new-made with each
generation. We have inher-
ited a patchwork of beliefs
and impulses, some of which
go back to earliest man, _
others to cultures which
today s--e-em worlds re-
moved."
The way he got "mixed up
with nature" was part of
Broder's topic analyzing
"the wilderness into which I
was born."
This mix-up with na-
ture continued in
Broder's message to his
gathering here and he
quoted from his book:
"My people all but ig-
nored nature, except to
thank God fisa-its bounties.
Even though - my great-
grandparents in the Old
World sold fishing lines,
hooks and nets, and lived
under the same roof as their
goats and cows, their atten-
tion was focused on such
questions as: 'How should
we treat one another under
the constant gaze of a vigil-
ant God?' and 'What are our
duties to one another and to
that God?'
"I think the most they
asked of animals was
whether their hooves were
cloven, or how best, to slit
their throats and salt their
flesh so that God would not
be offended. If the Jews of
the Lithuanian Confeder-
acy had any feeling for ani-
mals or nature, it was all
but lost by the time my
great-uncle reached Detroit
and sent far the rest of the
family.
"It seemed almost as tithe
covenant which had made
them a people devoted to
justice and morality had
excluded them trim
e'
Meyers and Keidan
family names may have
been incidental to the - Meet
the Author" event at the
Center, but the honored
guest Bill Broder served an
interesting purpose: he re-
vived the highly respected
community interest in two
eminent families and made
the nostalgia somewhat his-
toric for Detroit Jewry.
— P.S.
Friendships can begin
with liking or gratitude:
roots that can be pulled up.
— George
Eliot
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