PURELY COMMENTARY

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

•

Yahudim, Ost

Juden And Secularists: Pioneers Of Federation

Tracing the history of a community
demands a knowledge of the people who
compose it.
In this outstanding study of events
that marked the formation of the Jewish
Welfare Federation 60 years ago, it is
necessary to take into account the types
of people who were Detroit Jewry before
1926. It should lead us to an understand-
ing of the peoplehood that is forming the
Federation of today.

The organizers of the Welfare Fed-
eration six decades ago stemmed from an
inevitable conflict that develops in a con-
frontation of migrants to a new land
from diverse countries. Bavaria can't
possibly become an embracing partner in
community building with the Kasrilevke
of Sholom Aleichem or even the Pinsk of
Chaim Weizmann. That is why we had
the Yahudim of Germanic origin and the
Ost-Juden who came from Poland,
Romania and Russia.
Detroit Jewry didn't have the influ-
ence of massive Sephardic settlers, which
was the case in Philadelphia, to a degree
in New York and in some Southern
communities. We had the Bavarians and
the Russian-Polish, plus the others from
multiple German and East European
areas. They brought with them their
habits, their ways of life, and they did
not assimilate too quickly. If the forma-
tion of the Jewish Welfare Federation
was not an immediate, total merging of
these forces, it at least contributed

toward what is today the peoplehood of
our community attaining unity.
Meanwhile, introductory to the pre-
sent unity, we had three forces within
our single sphere: the Yahudim who re-
ferred to the East European counterpart
as Ost-Juden, and the secularists who
became a power here.
Resort to these designations was in
no sense accompanied by amity in the
respect encountered to each other. They
brought with them the prejudices of the
Old World. Yet, they proudly remained
Jews in name and identification. A divi-
siveness nevertheless created what could
be termed conflicting civilizations within
a single sphere.
The Yahudim had their Phoenix
Club. The Ost-Juden created a powerful
movement of Landsmanshaften.
Zedakah might have been a cen-
tral theme uniting them. But even when
World War I demanded such unity, there
was more than one war relief movement:
the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee attained its dominance in
World War II. In the earlier war there
was the People's Relief and perhaps even
then it was all attributable to the
Yahudim and Ost-Juden, failing to de-
velop mutuality.
The personalities who composed
these elements provide a chapter for
sociological and communal studies and
in the writing of the history of Detroit
Jewry the Yahudim and Ost-Juden must
be treated as the equal pioneers.

Dropsie U. To Close Its Doors

A sad note was struck in. Philadel-
phia with the announcement that
Dropsie University is now a legend.
One of its purposes will be perpetuated
as the Annenberg Research Institute
for Judaic and Near Eastern Studies
and plans are afoot to carry on a cul-
tural program under the direction of
Dr. Bernard Lewis, eminent scholar
who has been a member of the Prince-
ton Institute and was on the faculty of
Princeton University as professor of
Near Eastern studies. The long record
of a university where some of the most
prominent Jewish scholars were
enrolled in advanced Jewish studies in-
termingles hopes for a promising con-
tinuity with deep regret that the Drop-
sie name will no longer be associated
with it.
Dropsie University first was estab-
lished with the $1 million gift 79 years
ago of Moses Aaron Dropsie. It was a
very great monetary gift at the time. It
began under the name of Dropsie Col-
lege for Hebrew and Cognate Learning.
Some 29 years ago — the college had
already begun to suffer from economic
pressures — the name was changed to
Dropsie University.
'Now it will be re-established just
off Independence Hall and the National
Historical Park in Philadelphia. The
new institute will be named in honor of
Walter J. Annenberg, former U.S. Am-
bassador to Great Britain, whose pri-
vate foundation, the Annenberg Fund,
will finance the construction of the new
institute building. Construction will
begin soon, the cost being estimated at
about $3 million, and is to be com-
pleted by September 1987, in time for
the celebration of the Bicentennial of
the United States Constitution.
During the first decades of Dropsie
College functioning, it registered a ver-
itable biographical encyclopedia. Scores

2

Friday, August 15, 1986

Moses Dropsie

of the most distinguished scholars, rab-
bis and talmudists earned their docto-
rates from Dropsie. It was a mark of
distinction to have a Ph.D. from Drop-
sie.

Dr. Harry Orlinsky, one of the
most eminent Bible scholars in the
world, whose creative writings and ex-
tensive research included the Christian
as well as the Jewish historical records,
will attest to this recognition.

Dropsie College for Hebrew and
Cognate ,Learning had one of the great
Jewish scholars of this century as its
guide. Dr. Solomon Zeitlin was associ-
ated for decades with Dropsie. He was
the editor and the inspirer of most
eminent writers who shared in the
scholarship that was the Jewish Quar-
terly Review. Hopefully, this important

Continued on Page 22

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Zionists and the Zionist ideal had
their significance in the early confronta-
tions among the differing factions in the
community.
Rabbis Leo M. Franklin and A. M.
Hershman of Temple Beth El and
Shaarey Zedek respectively were the
spokesmen for the Reform and Conserva-
tive religious elements. Both gained na-
tional leadership in their ranks. There
were scores of Orthodox congregations
and among them were rabbis of emi-
nence, Rabbi Judah Levin, who shared
the pulpit with Shaarey Zedek which
had a strong Orthodox orientation, hav-
ing been revered as this community's
chief rabbi.
In the Orthodox ranks there were
Rabbi A. M. Ashinsky, who rose to world
leadership in the Mizrachi Orthodox
Zionist movement; Rabbi Ezekiel
Aishishkin and later Rabbi Isaac
Stollman, who also was selected for
world Mizrachi leadership.
Franklin and Hershman had their
disputes over religious interpretations.
Their chief conflict ideologically was the
Zionist idea. Rabbi Hershman had na-
tional recognition as an associate of Sup-
reme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis in
the Zionist Organization. Rabbi Franklin
for a number of years was considered a
leading anti-Zionist in the Reform
Jewish sphere. He later rejected that
label and, along with other "converts' to
the movement, he preferred being called
a non-Zionist American Council for
Judaism he earned the designation anti-.
To his credit it should be recorded that
he was among the first to abandon the
anti-Zionist Council. His son, Leo M.
Franklin Jr., often boasted to me, "My
father was the first to repudiate the
Council for Judaism."
The Landsmanshaften have an eras-
able place in our history. There may
have been close to 200 such groups. It is
a remarkable factor in our life that when
ten Jews assemble they form a kehillah,
a community, a congregation. That's how
Detroit Jewry came into being — when a
minyan became a factor to form Congre-
gation Beth El which was, in 1850, a
traditional Orthodox-oriented communal
reality. When a few Jews came here
from their shtetel overseas they formed a
landsmanshaft.
Whoever may undertake to write the
story of landsmanshaften in Detroit will
be compiling a most exciting record of
communal responsiveness, of realization
of the needs of the organized groups to
have special contacts and someone to
turn to in time of need.
They were the Yiddishists and
among them were great orators.
The secularists found haven ainolig
them, yet their loyalties were strictly
Jewish.
Would that the list of personalities
in these as well as in the Yahudim and
Ost-Juden, could be compiled for the re-
cord! They would be an encyclopedia
biographical treasury.
Many remarkable personalities and
contrasts will be recalled and if a ran-
dom couple can be selected, let's recall
the Enggass Jewelers. They were two
brothers, each noteworthy in his own
right. I recall the younger of the two,
Maurice, who was the more assimilated.
Like so many of his confrerees he was
saddened towards the end of his life by
intermarriage in his family.
The younger, 'Clarence H. Enggass,
was among our most favored. He always
boasted about two things: his Zionism
and the fact that he was the last bar
mitzvah in Temple Beth El towards the
end of the last century or the first year
in the 20th. The
o bar mitzvah observance

Rabbi Aaron Ashinsky

was restored to the Beth El ritual during
the administration, as president, of
Leonard N. Simons. Clarence Enggass
was a Beth El-nick who boasted about a
great tradition, his bar mitzvah, and
among the handful who defined his fel-
low congregants' anti-Zionism. He
earned the honors that were conferred
upon him by the Zionist Organization of
Detroit.
There still surely are those who re-
member Aaron Rosenberg the humorist,
Isaac Finkelstein the brilliant organizer
and linguist and the many more in these
ranks. A Yiddish bibliography would in
these ranks. A Yiddish bibliography
would surely emerge.
There were also the pioneering Heb-
raists. Bernard Isaacs was the unforgett-
able organizer of the United Hebrew
Schools who left an indelible mark as
co-founder of movements for the youth.
Aaron Markson was the man who
charmed his students and was the trans-
lator of Mark Twain into Hebrew.
Joseph Haggai was the impassioned
Zionist who had the glorious recognition
as one of the very great teachers of He-
brew and who at the same time was a
master of languages and an orator of
great magnitude.
I must resist the temptation to try
to recall other names among the early
builders of this community. One stands
out more than any other: that of Fred M.
Butzel whose noteworthy social, philan-
thropic and over-all communal work was
more responsible for a federated Detroit
Jewish community than any other ele-
ment on record. If any one person fused
the Yahudim, Ost — Juden, Landsman-
shaften, secularists, Zionists and anti-
Zionists into one great federated Detroit
Kehillah, it was Fred M. Butzel. He will
always be remembered.

The Record
From Detroit
Jewry's Centennial

A salute to the Detroit Jewish Wel-
fare Federation on its 60th anniversary
would be incomplete without a review of
the earlier chapters in the Detroit
Jewish chronology.
In 1950 I compiled an historical ac-
count. It received congressional recogni-
tion. Congressman George D. O'Brien of
Detroit inserted the complete story in
the Congressional Record of April 27,
1950 under the title "Detroit Jewish
Community Marks Centennial." Pages

Continued on page 22

