12
Friday, November 11, 1983
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Hebrew Free Loan Retains Tradition of Help
A communal concern in-
spires traditional interest
in a major Jewish obligation
to those who are currently
economically affected and
are in need of assistance to
pull them through the cur-
rent crisis or to provide tui-
tion for students and even to
aid newlyweds to establish
themselves in their new
homes.
Therefore, the Hebrew
Free Loan Association, re-
jecting dormancy under any
circumstances, invites the
community's attention to
the increased services it is
prepared to offer, and calls
attention to numerous
means of providing the
available services.
There are many human
interest stories showing the
extent and effect of the
utilization of the Gemilut
Hassodim — Hebrew Free
Loan — services.
In a single day at the He-
brew Free Loan office in
Southfield, more than
$10,000 in loans can be ap-
proved for those in need for
anything from beginning a
business to a new set of false
teeth.
The "customers" and the
officers and board of the He-
brew Free Loan (HFL) are
dressed informally. The set-
ting is informal but the
service a customer gets is
far better than any bank in
town.
Mrs. B. wanted to send
her daughter in Texas a few
hundred dollars to help her
get started in a new apart-
ment. "I don't want any-
body to know . . . and I
really don't want charity
. . . and I don't want my lit-
tle girl to think I can't give
her what she needs. But I
don't have the reserves to
meet these kinds of
emergencies."
Unable to get the loan
from a bank because she has
other debts, she went to the
HFL. "Not only did they
give me what I needed but
someone arranged for my
daughter to meet nice
people down there who
made her feel right at home
. . . and an accountant
from the Free Loan helped
me straighten out my finan-
cial life."
Russian immigrants,
fresh from Leningrad or
Kiev, need enough money to
buy a used car or just to pay
for the shipment of the few
belongings they are allowed
to take out of the USSR.
One of the HFL board
members remembers the
Russian manicurist who
wanted to start her own
shop. She turned a $1,500
loan into a fortune.
Another board member
tells the story of the divor-
cee who just needed a few
house payments to get back
on her feet and was given
not just the money for the
mortgage but got a job
through one of the HFL con-
tacts. And no one forgets the
classic story of the Russian
immigrant father who
needed a loan for his daugh-
ter's wedding and returned
after contracting for all the
services needed and asked
for an additional few dollars
to pay the rabbi.
Sensing more of a prob-
lem than just a rabbi's hon-
orarium, an HFL official
queried, "When's the wed-
ding?" The impatient father
answered, "Today . . . in
two hours." Incredulously,
the man asked, "Who's the
rabbi?" The father of the
bride looked blankly and -
said, "I don't know . . . we
haven't looked yet!" It
seemed no one thought that
in a country where there is
such religious freedom that
there would be a problem
finding a rabbi in the mid-
dle of June on a Sunday.
Within 20 minutes a
rabbi who served on the
board was contacted. Di-
rectly after his third wed-
ding of the day he performed
his fourth with the Russian
couple and the HFL officials
who were invited to join in
the festivities.
The laws about free loans
date back thousands of
years — perhaps even be-
fore the quote from Exodus
Chapter 22, "If you lend
money to any of My People,
especially the poor with
you, you shall not be to him
as a creditor; neither shall
you lay upon him interest."
The rabbinic scholars of
the Talmud believed a loan
was more meritorious than
an outright gift because it
permitted the borrower to
retain his pride. According
to the Rambam (Rabbi
Moses Ben-Maimon), the
highest form of righteous-
ness was giving a loan with-
out interest, or finding a
person a job.
In Detroit on Sunday
mornings, the streams of
people who come to the He-.
brew Free Loan through the
back door of the United He-
brew School building per-
haps get far more than they
even bargained for: both
givers and receivers get a
new lease on life.
.
The cases and the modern
day stories abound. But the
one most typical is perhaps
the most direct and
simplest. A widow, whose
children had no longer been
in contact with her, came to
the Hebrew Free Loan office
needing immediate help.
Her refrigerator had broken
down that night and all of
her food that she had bought
with her Social Security
check for that month was
ruined and she didn't know
where to turn.
She would not go on wel-
fare and she would not take
"charity." She had worked
all of her life and had paid
all of her debts. The bank
wouldn't give her money be-
cause she had no credit
rating so she went to the
Hebrew Free Loan.
The people from HFL who
heard her story understood
because they had dozens
like her. They went to work
calling every friend who
sold appliances to find the
right refrigerator.
Finally, they discovered a
beauty that the retailer said
he would donate. The
_
woman
wouldn't take. it.
"That's charity," she said.
"I'll pay for it!" For 52 weeks
she took a few dollars to pay
the agreed upon
"wholesale" price of the re-
frigerator.
(Editor's note: The He-
brew Free Loan is open 9
a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesdays and
Fridays, and 9 a.m. to
noon Sundays in the
United Hebrew Schools
Building, 21550 W. 12 Mile
Rd., Southfield. For an
appointment, call Ruth
Marcus at HFL, 356-
5292.)
Old Synagogue Marks Ancient Jewish Presence in Germany
By RABBI ALLAN
BLUSTEIN
Chaplain, Sinai Hospital
Kitzingen, capital of the
wine trade of Franconia and
situated on the Main River
United Synagogue to Discuss
Admitting Women Rabbis
NEW YORK --- The his-
toric decision of the Jewish
Theological Seminary to
admit women to its rabbini-
cal studies program and to
ordain them as rabbis will
be the subject of the closing
plenary session of the bi-
ennial convention of the
United Synagogue of
America on Nov. 17.
The five-day convention,
which marks the 70th an-
niversary of the largest
Jewish organized religious
body in the world, will begin
Nov. 13 and will be held at
the Concord Hotel in
Kiamesha Lake, N.J.
Lay and rabbinical lead-
ers who will speak on the
new rabbinical role of
women in Conservative
Judaism include Ernest
Greenwald, financial secre-
tary of the United
Synagogue of America; Max
Goldberg, president of the
Seaboard Region of the
United Synagogue and past
president of the Federation
of Jewish Men's Clubs;
Rabbi Kassel E. Abelson,
Beth El Synagogue, Min-
neapolis, Minn.; Rabbi
David Novak, Bayswater
Jewish Center-Cong. Dar-
chay Noam, Far Rockaway,
N.Y.
Rabbis Abelson and
Novak are both members
of the Committee of
Jewish Law and
Standards of the Rabbin-
ical Assembly. Rabbi
Novak has been in the
forefront of those who
have opposed the desig-
nation of women as‘Con-
servative rabbis. Rabbi
Adelson has welcomed
the ordination of women.
In a related development,
Rabbi Gilbert Klaperman,
president of the Rabbinical
Council of America, the
largest Orthodox rabbinic
group in the world, said,
"The Rabbinical Council of
America deplores the action
taken by the faculty of the
Jewish Theological Semi-
nary sanctioning the ad-
mission of women to their
rabbinical program."
in Germany, was founded in
750 CE and celebrated its
1,200th year in 1951.
Legend has it that the
Countess of Schwannberg,
while standing on the walls
of her castle, dropped her
jeweled scarf and vowed to
build a cloister on the site
where the scarf landed. A
shepherd named Kitz found
it. Thus the village that
grew up around the cloister
was called Kitzingen.
Undoubtedly, there were
Jews living in that village
from its inception since it is
known that Jewish artisans
and traders accompanied
the Romans during their
invasion of ancient Ger-
many.
Some of the very old
The region around the
Main Riv
er is attractive and
logically held much allure
for Jews who'd been prohib-
ited from almost every trade
except commerce. This is
the reason perhaps for the
construction of the magnifi-
cent Orthodox synagogue
which still stands at
Number 1 Land-
wehrstrasse, not far from
the river.
The plaque on the wall
states that is was viciously
despoiled and desecrated on
Nov. 10, 1938 (Krystall-
nacht). The Nazi barbarians
failed to burn it down for
fear the flames would
engulf surrounding build-
ings, because it was tightly
wedged in between them.
From the looks of it, it
housed at least 200 wor-
shippers easily during its
lifetime from 1883 until
1938.
The final bit of proof that
the pre-war, 500-strong
community of Jews were
once prominent in and
around Kitzingen is the
large Alte Juddische
Friedhof (the Old Jewish
cemetery) just outside the
nearby village of Rodelsee.
The gravestones date back
to the year 1635, although
it's now impossible to read
any of the weather-beaten,
fading Hebrew letters.
There - are also modern
tombstones up to the year
1939.
3 Scholars Are Optimistic About U.S. Jewry
By DAVID FRIEDMAN
(Copyright 1983, JTA, Inc.)
WASHINGTON — There
is so much pessimism about
the Jewish future in Jewish
periodicals and public
forums that it was pleasant
to hear some optimistic
assessments at the October
monthly public affairs
forum of Bnai Brith Inter-
NEW YORK (JTA) — national. The topic, "Is
The Jewish federations, of There a Future for Jewish
Albany, N.Y. and Nashville Life?" was selected as part
have been announced as of the celebration of Bnai
winners of the 1983 "Out- Brith's 140th anniversary.
The panelists, two Wash-
standing Achievement in
Public Relations" award ington , rabbis and a
presented by the Council of sociologist, gave a more
realistic picture than is
Jewish Federations.
Award Winners
timbered houses have
vague impressions on the
doorposts where were
once affixed mezuzot.
Additionally, we know
from the Rindfleisch
massacres which de-
molished no less than 140
Jewish communities of
Franconia at the close of
the 13th Century (22 Jews
of the town of Rottingen
had been accused of
stabbing a picture of the
Virgin Mary until it bled,
thus inciting the rabble),
the Arm-Leder pogroms
30 years later and of
course the chaos of the
Black Death in 1348, that
Jews were in the area
taking it on the chin but
always bouncing back.
usually painted to Jewish
audiences. Rabbi Stanley
Rabinowitz, spiritual leader
of Adas Israel Congregation
and former president of the
Rabbinical Assembly, said
that American Jews had for
too long been fed on an idea
of "gloom and doom."
He maintained that
Jewish life in the U.S. "is no
less Jewish" than the
Jewish life that existed in
the East European shtetl.
He said Jews in the U.S.
have achieved an equality
that existed no where else
and despite their small
number Jews are consid-
ered as one-third, along
with Protestants and
Catholics, in the cultural
makeup of the country.
Rabbi Eugene Lipman,
spiritual leader of the
Sinai, said
Temple
Judaism has a future be-
cause "so many Jews
have not tried it yet and
are beginning to." He ex-
plained that after two
generations when most
Jews were just minimally
Jews more Jews are tak-
ing an active role cultur-
ally and religiously.
Lipman noted that a few
years ago there were only
seven departments of
Jewish studies in American
colleges and today there are
more than 400. "Somebody
is taking all those courses"
and they are being taught
by "well-trained, well-
credentialed, mostly young,
Jewish scholars," he said.
Rabinowitz pointed out that
more students are studying
Hebrew in universities than
Latin and Greek.
The two rabbis were un-
concerned by the predic-
tions of a declining Jewish
population, which
Rabinowitz blamed more on
birth control than inter-
marriage or assimilation.
Rabinowitz also stressed
that while in the shtetl in-
termarriage meant assimi-
lation this is not necessarily
true in the U.S., where, he
said, some 20,000 non-Jews
convert to Judaism each
year.
A more general view was
given by the sociologist on
the panel, Amitai Etzioni,
university professor at
George Washington Uni-
versity and director of the
Center for Policy Research.
American "society is chang-
ing and it is changing in our
favor," he said.
Etzioni explained that
after years of coming apart
and concern with self there
is a "gradual" return to
commitment, to family, to
the community, all tradi-
tional Jewish values. He
also said that while the old
coalition to which Jews had
been a part had split, Jews
would not grow closer to
many of the groups they had
formally been close to and
would make alliances with
new groups such as the
environmentalists.