80 Friday, June 28, 1985

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

ORE THAN ARTIFACTS

Joseph Gutmann,
Wayne State
professor and
ordained rabbi,
has devoted a
lifetime to
studying biblical
and religious art.

BY VICTORIA DIAZ

Special to The Jewish News

Books and Jewish ceremonial art, two of
Dr. Gutmann's passions, fill his study.

Perhaps one of the best ways to get
popular lecturer, a husband, a father
to know Joseph Gutmann is to step
and a rabbi.
inside his study at his Huntington
A rabbi?
Woods home.
"I think I'm probably the only
There are some filing cabinets in a
rabbi in the world who's also an art
corner of the room, a brass Sabbath
historian," says the 62-year-old Gut-
lamp at the window, a large desk, and
mann, whose classes at Wayne reflect
a typewriter. Dominating the room,
yet another special field of interest:
however, are hundreds of books which
medieval Christian art. It is a field he
line the walls. With titles like Ancient
got into, he says, after being influ-
Israel, Jewish Art, Hebrew Amulets,
enced by two professors at New York
Wooden Synagogues, History of the
University, whose strong enthusiasm
Jews, Old Testament Illustrations,
for their subject "rubbed off." (With a
Purposes of Art, The Bible As History,
major in medieval Christian art, he
the books quickly reveal much about
received an M.A. from NYU in 1952.)
the driving forces in the life of this
"At one time, I had ambitions to
Wayne State University academician.
become a painter," says Gutmann,
The room itself, rather un- - who was born in Wurzburg, Germany,
adorned, looks almost exquisitely neat
and immigrated to Philadelphia with
and orderly. Two of Gutmann's many
his family at 13. "But, a long time ago
degrees hang on one wall. It seems a — when I realized I couldn't
be Re-
place in which a highly-organized, ef-
mbrandt — I decided to talk about (art)
ficient, and resolute person might and critique it instead."
work — a person who accomplishes,
His decision to become a rabbi
over a lifetime, a great deal.

A full-time art history professor at
Wayne State University since 1969,
Gutmann — amiable, talkative, and
impeccably dressed — is also an ad-
junct curator for the Detroit Institute
of Arts, a recognized authority on
Jewish ceremonial art, a writer (of 16
books in 20 years, and 160 articles), a

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began to take shape somewhat later,
when, as a private first class, he was
asked one Friday evening in 1943 to
conduct Jewish services at a U.S.
Army base in Pueblo, Colo. The base
had no rabbi.
"You seem to know quite a bit
about Judaism," the overworked Pro-
testant chaplain told the 20-year-old
Gutmann (who had been brought up in
a traditional, "super-Orthodox"
home). "Why don't you conduct serv-
ices? It's absolutely absurd that a Pro-
testant chaplain should be conducting
Jewish services."
"I told him I'd never gotten up in
front of an audience in my life, and I
didn't want to do it," says Gutmann.
The chaplain, howeVer, was a

major and, that night, Pfc. Gutmann
conducted services.
"I was sweating from top to toe,"
recalls Gutmann. "When I asked one of
the men afterwards how I did, he said,
'I really can't tell you — I couldn't hear
a word you were say'ng.' "
Several weeks later, a member of
the congregation — also a soldier —
came forw rd and offered to help Gut-
mann the services. Together, the
two co ucted services for about a year
— u it Gutmann was transferred to
Eur pe, where he served with Army
Intel igence until the end of the war.
ter, the two men ran into each
other gain in New York, where Gut-
mann as doing graduate work at
NYU. I s friend had enrolled in rab-
binic school.
"We'd have dinner together, and
he just couldn't see why I should be in
art history," Gutmann says. "What are
you wasting your time for?' he'd say.
"So, after a couple of years of his
prodding, I decided maybe it wouldn't
be such a bad idea to combine my art
history and rabbinic training. My
friend helped me get into rabbinical
school (at Hebrew Union College in
Cincinnati), and both of us eventually
became rabbis."
Gutmann was ordained a Reform
rabbi at HUC in 1959, and was
awarded a doctoral degree in medieval
Jewish history there a year later.
"I never had any real intention of
becoming a practicing rabbi, though,"
explains Gutmann. "It was always un-
derstood that when I went into the
rabbinate I would probably be on the
faculty (of HUC) -- which I was, from
1960 to 1969." He joined the Wayne

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