Edwin Shifrin in the Workmen's Circle nursery: "Yiddish speakers represent the kind of Jewish culture we want to maintain."

Zionist and hostile to religion — was
imported from Eastern Europe in its
entirety, along with the Yiddish
tongue as the transmitter of culture.
"In Eastern Europe, Judaism was
a peoplehood," Shifrin continues.
"The attitude toward religion was
that it was an internal matter. It was
a separate issue!"
Workmen's Circle is organized on
a branch structure. The first local
branch, Number 156, was founded in
1907 by 16 people. By 1916 it was the
largest Workmen's Circle branch in
North America.
Today, the organization has 400
local members. Activities include
adult Yiddish classes, holiday celebra-
tions and Yiddish cultural events.
The organization still runs a Sunday
school for 30 children and offers them
a secular bar or bat mitzvah. The
Workmen's Circle nursery school has
an enrollment of 67.
In the Workmen's Circle building
in Oak Park, a window separates the
nursery from the office where Shifrin
and District Committee Chairman
Selma Goode sit. The two have a clear
view of the small children at play as
they describe the organization's
history since the days of their youth.
Despite an obvious softening on
religion — some members nowadays
are religious, Shifrin says, and holi-
day and life cycle celebrations certain-
ly represent a connection with the
religious past — Shifrin says the

organization hasn't changed since the
early days.
"We still believe in social action,
the maintenance of Yiddish culture
and we still offer benefits!" Workmen's
Circle offers its members a health
maintenance organization, a credit
union and legal services.
Yiddish is still very dear to
veteran members. The Zionists in
Israel sought to replace Yiddish with
Hebrew in order to create a new Jew
and a new Jewish attitude, Shifrin
says. "We stand for the old attitude:'
he adds resolutely. "To us, Yiddish
speakers represent the Jewish culture
we want to maintain!'
Shifrin and Goode say Workmen's
Circle set up soup lines during the
Depression, championed the cause of
Soviet Jews before it was fashionable
and was instrumental in founding the
Jewish Labor Committee to serve the
interests of trade unionists. They
credit the JLC with securing 2,500
U.S. visas for European Jews during
the Holocaust.
Goode, who does not speak Yid-
dish, believes that despite assimila-
tion and the Jewish community's
predominately middle-class character,
there is still a need for Workmen's
Circle."Social concerns have not
disappeared. The desire to identify
positively as a Jew has not disap-
peared!'
"Young people have tested the
mainstream and found it wanting in

terms of social concerns;' Shifrin
maintains.
David Hecker agrees: "Workmen's
Circle is a link between Judaism and
various progressive causes: between
Jews and the peace movement, the
women's movement, the labor move-
ment. Although Jews have moved out
of the sweatshops . . . Jews still work
for a living. They're still concerned
about issues of peace and issues of
civil rights!'
Hecker and fellow-member
Marilyn Lessem belong to Branch
1088, a group of 50 Jews in their 30s
and 40s, including ten "very active"
families, according to Lessem. The
group coalesced as an independent
chavurah about a year ago and only
later joined Workmen's Circle.
Branch 1088 members differ from
veteran Workmen's Circle members
in a number of ways: In addition to be-
ing significantly younger, Yiddish is
not central to the group's identity, nor
are all motivated by a strict,
ideological secularism. Some
members belong to synagogues,
Lessem says. For these members,
Workmen's Circle satisfies their social
conscience and the synagogue their
spiritual needs.
Lessem disagrees with older
secularists who say that many of her
generation are returning to the
synagogues because it's easier than
carving an independent niche. "For
people like us there isn't any other

place in the Jewish community. So
that's why we worked very hard to
create this chavurah."
So why affiliate with Workmen's
Circle instead of a more compatible
left-leaning group like New Jewish
Agenda? Nostalgia seems to have
played a strong part in Branch 1088's
decision, according to Lessem.
"Workmen's Circle has a long history
and there's a lot to admire. They're
still idealistic where others have lost
their [idealism]?'
Hecker, who also belongs to New
Jewish Agenda, maintains that
Branch 1088 can benefit greatly from
the veterans. Lessem isn't sure the
branch will be Workmen's Circle's
next generation, however. "The older
people see us as that;' she says. "I
don't think Workmen's Circle is as
central to us as it was to them!'
lb many of the founders of Yid-
dishist organizations like Workmen's
Circle and the Sholem Aleichem In-
stitute, anything which smacked of
traditional Judaism was anathema.
Yiddish culture was deemed suffi-
cient for a spiritual and intellectual
life. All institutionalized forms of
Judaism were taboo — including
celebrations of holidays, Shabbat and
b'nai mitzvah — and were discarded
completely.
May Day, however, was marked in
Jewish cultural schools, in keeping
with the founders' socialist creed. The
annual assemblies began with the

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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