Left: Allan Nachman and Allan
Brenner aboard "Blain B."
Below: David Levin charts a
sailboat regatta.
T1 DES
a galley for light meals and facilities
for various social activities. "A club is
more than a place to keep a boat,"
Goodman said.
It's such a nice place, in fact, that
since accepting its first non-dewish
member in 1966, membership now is
only about 65 percent Jewish. Two of
the GLYC's last five commodores
have been non-Jews.
When we first started in this
club we expected it to be exclusively
Jewish," said Eve Kommel, 1983
commodore. "We didn't think anybody
else would want to join. But the
people came and saw our facilities. As
soon as we started sponsoring Detroit
River Yachting Association races
they saw our facilities and liked what
they saw .. .
"I was membership chairman for
many, many years and the first thing
I would say is, You know, we're
primarily a Jewish yacht club.' And
the answers I got were very interest-
ing. They would say things like, 'Well,
is it OK? Will I have to convert?' Or,
`Yeah, I know that. It doesn't make
any difference to me. Does it make
some difference to you?'
"So we went through a period of
adjusting. And that was a period
when some people became very con-
cerned. They thought all of a sudden
what happens if the Jews are again in
a minority and you get a majority of
non-Jews who'd forgotten what this
whole club was about and pretty soon-
they're not going to accept Jews any-
more.
As outlandish as that may seem,
for someone like me who is a refugee
from Germany, that isn't so outlan-
dish at all . . . We, in fact, explained
that concern to some of our non-
Jewish members and to the flag offi-
cers. It was absolutely unfathomable
to them that the non-Jewish members
here could ever act in that fashion.
But when you get fourth and fifth-
generation removed (you don't know
what might happen).
"It's a real paradox," Kommel
said. "What you're feeling is that
you're delighted other people like this
place so much they want to join. You
absolutely are totally enthusiastic be-
cause there are so many people who
are not anti-Semitic that you cer-
tainly don't ever want to discourage
people from joining.
By and large the people who sail
yachts are not different than in any-
thing else," said Gabriel Alexander,
GLYC's commodore in 1967. "There's
bigotry. If they're not making cracks
about the Jews they're making cracks
about blacks or they're making cracks
about women."
However, Alexander added,
"there's been a relaxation at other
clubs around the circuit. Those that
five years ago would not consider tak-
ing in a Jew now would."
Alexander is a past commodore of
the Detroit River Yachting Associa-
tion — one of two GLYC commodores
named to that position. The other was
Herb Reinheimer, GLYC commodore
in 1969. Richard Lootens, a non-JeW
who was Great Lakes commodore in
1982, stands to become DRYA com-
modore in 1988.
William B. Edelson, a West
Bloomfield dentist and former com-
modore of GLYC, recalled the dis-
crimination that existed before the
club was allowed to join the DRYA.
Great Lakes members couldn't par-
ticipate in DRYA races, he said, but
the North Star Yacht Club of Mount
Clemens would allow GLYC members
to compete under a North Star flag for
a $5 fee.
"DRYA was going to drop North
Star when they heard about it," Edel-
son said. We asked if we • could join
individually and they allowed it.
After a while, we said, 'Half our
members are DRYA members. Why
not let GLYC join?"
In 1961, the GLYC was admitted
into the association.
Joining any yacht club other than
GLYC was nearly impossible for a
Jew, Edelson said, because "you
couldn't request, joining. You had to
be invited to join."
There may have been a judge or
lawyer who was Jewish and belonged
to the Detroit Yacht Club or Detroit
Boat Club years ago ; Edelson specu-
lated, but it wasn't an opportunity
easily accorded Jews.
Today, though, "I think most of
the other yacht clubs have Jewish
members. I don't think there are rules
(against them). Oldtimers faded out
and young people who were more lib-
eral came in."
The Great Lakes Yacht Club was
incorporated May 13, 1952 under the
name of Island Boat Club. The five
founders were Melvin Rosenhaus,
Hugh Greenberg, Milton Levine, Ivan
Shalit and Avern Cohn. Originally it
was a club without facilities and lo-
cated on rented land several miles
from the Detroit River. After several
years, the club rented its current site
on Lake St. Clair, a former Walter
Burkemo golf driving range. Loans
from Max Fisher and Paul Zucker-
man enabled the GLYC to purchase
the property in the early 1960s.
Members now come from as far
away as Ann Arbor. Others are from
Grosse Pointe, Huntington Woods,
Southfield, Farmington, Farmington
Hills, Livonia and plenty of places in
between.
"There were so few Jewish
sailors," recalled Kommel, who with
husband Richard is a veteran of
numerous Port Hurton to Mackinac
races. "Sailing among Jews was not a
typical kind of activity. Most of them
were so busy scraping out a living, or
whatever, that sailing and skiing
were relatively rare for Jews."
But after World War II, she said,
people became more affluent and had
more leisure time. The desire to join
yacht clubs was a natural companion
to the new-found interest in boating.
Doors, though, were mostly closed
until the GLYC was founded.
Its five founders "were the kind of
people who were very successful in
whatever they did," Kommel said.
They had the kind of mentality that
said, 'Well, if we can't join them we
form our own.' "
"Probably the Detroit Boat Club
and Detroit Yacht Club were the first
to open up their memberships,"
Kommel said. "There was a kind of
prejudice that was underlying. It was
not overt. It was much more covert.
But there was no doubt about it that if
somebody wanted to join . . . he was
politely told he should not try to proc-
ess an application because it was not
prudent at this time to do so." Others
were told that sponsors were needed,
or no boat wells were available.
Even within the last seven or
eight years, she said, Jews weren't
exactly welcomed with open arms, but
"if you were an avid racer they might
overlook some of your other attributes
and allow you to become a member."
Today, Kommel believes,. prej-
udice seems most entrenched against
women. "The sailing fraternity, by
and large, is very traditional. None of
the clubs, except for the GLYC and
Lakeshore, which is a paper club —
they have no facilities — ever ac-
cepted women. At other clubs today
you cannot join as a woman. And at
some of the clubs, even if your family
has been a member for 20 years or 30
years or 40 years and there are four
Continued on next page
Leon Sears checks his boat box on the
dock.
15