PURELY COMMENTARY

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

The Multiple Percentage Of Jews As Nobel Prize Awardees

Two eminent Jewish winners of
Nobel Prizes will be speakers next Wed-
nesday at a most unusual event whose
purpose invites fascinating attention.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, who received
the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature, and
Eliezer Wiesel, who will accept the 1986
Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, will
address the 60th anniversary convoca-
tion of the Jewish Academy of Arts and
Sciences at the New York Historical
Society, 170 Central Park West.
There is great significance in this
carefully planned event. Former U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg
will officiate. Prof. Abraham Katsh and
former Detroiter Joseph Handleman,
president and vice president respectively
of the sponsoring Jewish Academy, will
officiate at the presentation of the Albert
Einstein Commemorative Medals to 45
American Jewish Nobel Laureates.
Several factors of importance lend
significance to this event. An assembly
of eminent Nobel Laureates, all Ameri-
can Jews, is cause for acclaim for an im-
pressive record of honors accorded to the
most accomplished, on a world scale, who
stem from American Jewish ranks. The
list of those who have indicated ac-

ceptance of the proposed honor of receiv-
ing the Einstein Commemorative Medal
and who will be present at the Nov. 12
event are:
Kenneth Joseph Arrow
Julius Axelrod
David Baltimore
Saul Bellow
Baruj Benacerraf
Paul Berg
Hans Albrecht Bethe
Konrad Bloch
Baruch S. Blumberg
Herbert C. Brown
Michael S. Brown
Melvin Calvin
Leon Cooper
Gerald M. Edelman
Richard P. Feynman
Milton Friedman
Murray Gell-Mann
Walter Gilbert
Donald A. Glaser
Sheldon L. Glashow
Joseph L. Goldstein
Herbert G. Hauptman
Roald Hoffman
Robert Hofstadter
Henry A. Kissinger

Carmi Clears His Desk .. .
His Father Reminisces

A revolution has just taken place
in the office adjoining mine: Carmi
cleared his desk.
Simultaneously, in the larger quar-
ters adjoining his, the printers were
removing the importantly respected
name of Carmi M. Slomovitz from the
masthead. For the score or more who
worked with him in all departments —
editorial, advertising, composition,
bookkeeping, et. al. there is surely a
collective tear shedding. The executive
who topped the list on The Detroit
Jewish News masthead will now be a
memory.
It will be a blessed memory on a
vast communal basis, spilling over into
the larger sphere of American jour-
nalism wherein Carmi Slomovitz has
long been treated as a guide and inspi-
ration, because he contributed im-
mensely toward raising the standards
of Jewish journalism to the highest
levels. These standards now apply to Carmi Slomovitz
the newspaper he helped raise to lead-
a brief interruption in services. Now he
ership in all aspects of journalism:
has a professional approach to the
planting of seeds toward achieving the
editorial needs of a newspaper, is a
highest goals in Jewish communal
services and the dedication to the nob- master of advertising and the printers
value his guidance and admire his
lest aims in our American citizenship,
skill.
that will surely establish a glorious
Perhaps most significant in his
continuity for this newspaper and for
career is that he never abused anyone,
his successor in the chair he has just
associates on staff or in the community.
left.
Carmi's name was,Number Two on He treated the representatives of all
factions in our midst justly. Therefore
the masthead of this newspaper's edito-
rial page for more than 30 years. His they joined in admiring him with great
respect for the dignity he lent to jour-
association with The Detroit Jewish
News was much longer. He began his nalism as his profession, to citizenship
as an ennobling legacy.
career with me when he was not yet
Any wonder that father already
bar mitzvah. That's when he became
my chief associate. Even as a mere misses son as • his professional
neighbor?
youth he learned with perfection every
Carmi was a good executive, in his
requirement for every department on a
40 years of association with The Detroit
newspaper. He began by delivering the
bank deposits to the bank neighboring Jewish News, starting in his pre-
teenage years because:
the Penobscot Building when he was
He is a good husband and a good
12. There were no fears at the time
even for a mere lad with a bankbook father, a good son and a good brother.
To the glory of history-making in a
stuffed with checks and cash. He mas-
top role on this newspaper father says
tered the addressograph, learned to
about son:
read proofs of editorial copy, could sub-
He is a very good citizen!
stitute for bookkeeper when there was

Lawrence R. Klein
Arthur Kornberg
Joshua Lederberg
Salvador E. Luria
Franco Modigliani
Daniel Nathans
Marshall W. Nirenberg
Arno A. Penzias
Isador I. Rabi
Burton Richter
Paul A. Samuelson
Julian Schwinger
Emilio G. Segre
Herbert A. Simon
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Howard M. Temin
George Wald
Steven Weinberg
Eugene P. Wigner
Rosalyn S. Yalow
Does the forthcoming event and the
pride in 45 Jewish Nobel Laureates re-
present a boasting by the American
Jewish community? To obviate any criti-
cism of the event, it is necessary to know
the aims of the sponsoring Jewish
Academy. The invitation to some 200
prominent American Jews to participate
in next Wednesday's event carries an
explanatoriT statement From the Cradle
of the Jewish Academy of Arts and Sci-
ences," and its text is:

Founded in 1927, as an honor
society of Jews who have at-
tained distinction in the arts, sci-
ences, professions, and com-
munal endeavors, the Academy
encourages the advancement of
knowledge, stimulates schol-
arship, with particular reference

to Jewish life and thought; pro-
motes research and publications,
and maintains friendly relations
among its members and fellows;
and with academic institutions
and societies of learning
throughout the world.
A movement with such a purpose
renders' a service with an ingathering of
so large a group of prominent Jewish
scholars, scientists, socially-minded lead-
ers in many professions as well as in
politics. With an aim of encouraging our
youth to seek the highest standards in
American and Jewish identifications, the
oncoming event has an ennobling pur-
pose. That the 60th anniversary of the
Jewish Academy also should mark the
50th anniversary of the awarding of the
Nobel Prize to physicist Albert Einstein
also adds glory to the Nov. 12 event.
Albert Einstein was himself a fellow
of the Jewish Academy, thus adding jus-
tification for the sponsoring of the ap-
proaching event.
Of interest in the invitation mailed
for the Jewish Academy function was
this appended statement by Mark Twain:
If the statistics are right, the
Jews constitute but one percent
of the human race. It suggests a
nebulous dim puff of star dust
lost in the blaze of the milky way.
Properly, the Jew ought hardly
to be heard of; but he is heard of,
has always been heard of ... His
contributions to the world's list
of great names in literature, sci-
ence, art, music, finance,
medicine, and obtruse learning
are also very out of proportion to
the weakness of his numbers. He
has made a marvelous fight in
this world in all ages; and has
done it with his hands tied be-
hind him.
–Mark Twain,
"Harper's Magazine"
September 1897

The Jewish Academy justly takes
pride in the Nov. 12 event, and the
heads of the sponsoring movement, Prof.
Abraham I. Katsh and Joseph Handle-
man justifiably share in such pride. Most
important is the responsiveness to it of
the listed Jewish Nobel Laureates. An
endless Mazal Toy to all of them.

Litvin's `Mechitzah' Campaign

Baruch Litvin was an Orthodox
militant. He would not submit to permit-
ting the "Mechitzah" being abandoned in
his Mount Clemens, Mich., synagogue
and he won a sensational court case that
made him a hero in Orthodoxy.
The mechitzah is the prescribed par-
tition in the synagogue between the sec-
tions assigned for seating men and
women. The women are usually behind
the mechitzah in the rear of the
synagogue or in a balcony.
The story of the Litvin battle to re-
tain the mechitzah in the Beth Tefillat
Moses synagogue in Mt. Clemens was re-
lated in a volume entitled The Sanctity
of the Synagogue. Two editions of this
volume have already been absorbed. A
third printing has now been arranged by
Litvin's granddaughter, Jeanne Litvin. It
is due to come off the press in the corn-
ing months and will be available from
the Baruch Litvin Foundation, 559 N.
Laurel Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90048.
Details of the sensational case are
documented in the book Baruch Litvin

recorded in 1959, describing his victory
in the Michigan Supreme Court.
The court decision upheld the views
of Mr. Litvin for the retention of the
mechitzah, overruling the majority opin-
ion of the synagogue membership.
Jeanne Litvin, in the announcement
of the forthcoming appearance of the
new edition of her grandfather's book,
states that it has additional material on
the evolvement of the mechitzah in
America in the 35 years since the impor-
tant Michigan Supreme Court decision,
including articles from rabbinic and lay
leaders who were involved in their own
mechitzah battle.
Included in the new edition will be
responsa of HaRav Moshe Feinstein. Dr.
Lawrence Schiffman of New York Uni-
versity's Institute of Hebrew and Judaic
Studies wrote the introduction for the
new volume, giving his perspective of
the history and progress of Orthodox
Jewry in America during the last 100
years.

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