I PURELY COMMENTARY

Israel's 40th

Continued from Page 2

The texts thus listed also have their
appeals to Arabs and Christians. The
constant plea for neighborly means of
establishing a tranquility in the Mid-
dle East are evidenced and emphasiz-
ed in them and the Holtzman journal
is a human gift to all who strive for
peace in defiance of the rifts that keep
arising.
"Irwin H. "Toby" Holtzman will
always be cheered with gratitude for his
literary achievements as a distinguish-
ed bibliophile.

To Arab Neighbors
The 40th anniversary of Israel sure-
ly has a message of good will to her
Arab citizens.
They began in that citizenship
when 150,000 would not leave Jewish
Palestine when Israel rose to
autonomous statehood. Now there are
some 700,000 of them within Israel.
They can render a measure of support
as an influence in creating stability and
understanding among the more
numerous kinfolk in Judea and
Samaria — West Bank — and Gaza. It
must commence with an agreement to
negotiate and the approach is with an
abandonment of rioting and the begin-
ning of face-to-face talk. On that basis
there. is a possibility of attaining
tranquility.
There is a more important com-
mencement of such cooperativeness.
There has arisen a concern that within
the Arab community there may arise a
fifth column. The rejection of such a
possibility is vital to the need of conti-
nuing a status among Israeli Arabs
that retains their labor-sharing in
Jewish Histadrut, marks dignity for
their children in Israeli schools, raises
their standard of living into the equali-
ty of citizenship. The message to them
is the retention of the best measure of
good will. What better message could
possibly be suggested to make good will
a reality?
To Islam ...
and Christians
They were not, and are not, all
enemies of Israel in Islam. Would that
those who share in a call for Shalom
and Salaam would make it a hopefully
active and positive approach!
In the Christian world our friends
are very numerous. They share in hopes
for fulfillment of prophecy. They have
been horrified by persecutions and the
-Holocaust. They desire justice for the
Jew.
There will always be gratitude to
the Christian Zionists and to the
spirited men who help carry on the
quest for fairness.
Israel and world Jewry treat with
pride the friendships that come from so
many spheres. The hope, especially on
Israel's 40th birthday, are for uninter-
ruption in these friendships.
Now ... The American
Jewish Community
American Jewry is an important
factor in all the Israeli celebrations. The
banner of freedom for Israel is always
held high and with pride by this com-
munity. It is especially important at
this time.
It is not philanthrophy alone,
necessary as it is, in the encouragement

Y AP I

of aliyah. There are the spiritual and
cultural aims, the advancement of the
highest goals in life based on the moral
codes. of attained legacies. There are the
universities, the policies of assuring
higher learning as aims of perpetuating
the legacies of our peoplehood.
The aims are to make life livable
and in the process to seek im-
provements, the research conducted by
our scientists, for the well-being of all
mankind.
The 40th anniversary of Israel is an
added commitment to the ideals that
are Israel's. This is the nation's greatest
source of strength and it is
imperishable.

that he was defeated for the presidency
of his class in Central High School
because he was a Jew.
This gave Prof. Johnson the oppor-
tunity to devote important space in his
biography of Sugar to the Detroit
Jewish community. He provides this
about early 20th Century Detroit
Jewry:
Detroit had its Jewish
neighborhood. Indeed, when
debating the location of the new
Central High building after its
original downtown site burned
down in 1893, the school board
rejected a location perilously
close to it, arguing that the
thrust of "better" Detroit was to
Radicalism
the north; hence, the semirural
site at Warren and Cass. Less
Continued from Page 2
than 3 percent of Detroit's total
population in 1900 was Jewish.
This still represented an im-
mense increase during the last
decade.
Detroit's original Jews were
German. They were rapidly out-
numbered by immigrants from
the vast world of the Pale. In
fact, 88 percent of all Russian
immigrants in Detroit were
Jews. The Detroit Sunday News-
Tribune delineated "the ghetto"
in a story published in
September 1896: "In a rectangle
formed by four streets, Monroe,
Watson, Bush, and Orleans, the
larger portion, by far, of all the
Jews in Detroit have made their
home. Of this whole district,
Hastings Street is the business
thoroughfare. Around that
street and those that adjoin it
pretty much all that is orthodox
and distinctive of the Jewish
race (sic) in Detroit clusters:'
Besides serving as a minor
document in the history of
racism, this quotation
Maurice Sugar
underlines the tendency toward
pioneering leadership. His tribute to
geographical concentration
Maurice Sugar is a valuable record of
among more recently arrived
ethnic groups.
labor's battles for the rights that were
eventually attained under great duress.
But the Sugars were not part
The reader learns from this valuable
of this process.
chapter of Michigan history about the
After this historical recording about
sit-down strike at the Flint GM plant,
the resistance to the Ford Motor Co., Jewish Detroit, Johnson delved into the
anti-labor rules and the destructive role Central High School incident in the life
of Harry Bennett, the forgotten Ford of Maurice Sugar. It is as a reference to
Massacre and the march of the anti-Semitism in the Sugar experiences
thousands who were turned back by the that Prof. Johnson relates the following:
water power of the Ford fire brigade.
In his last two years at Cen-
There were associates of Maurice
tral, Sugar became a prominent
Sugar who were prominent in the com-
figure. Good-looking, self-
munity. Lazarus Davidow had an in-
assured, and an outstanding
teresting share in the communal labor
student, he was also captain of
developments and he is accounted for in
the junior varsity football team,
many fashions in the Johnson story.
partner in the "model" debate
In the socialist aspect there was
duo with his brother Vic and
Julius Deutelbaum, the printer who
captain of the debate team, the
supervised and published a socialist
most articulate members of Cen-
magazine. What is not accounted for in
tral's mock legislature, and
this regard is Deutelbaum's later
coeditor of the school's famous
association with the B'nai B'rith, his
literary magazine. But he was
top leadership in Pisgah Lodge. I
not to be senior-class president.
believe he was one of its presidents and
He undertook an active cam-
was a close associate in the movement
paign for the office and engag-
with Adolph "Daddy" Freund and the
ed the services of Bob Vinton,
Pisgah leaders of the 1920s and 1930s.
star basketball player, as
While Maurice Sugar was not an in-
manager.
dentified Jew in the Deutelbaum sense,
"One day he came to me to
he was an undeniable Jew. So much so
report;' Sugar recalled, "show-

ing signs of mingled disappoint-
ment and indignation.
"The dirty crumbs!" he said.
"Who — what happened?"
Sugar asked.
"You know what those guys
are doing? They're going
around and telling everybody
not to vote for you because
you're a Jew. And a lot of guys
are telling me that they would
vote for you except for the fact
that you are a Jew:"
"They are? And what do you
say when they say that?"
"Oh," he said, "I tell them
that I'd rather vote for a good
Jew any day than a crummy
white man!" Sugar lost the elec-
tion by a wide margin.
I started by saying Maurice Sugar
was not Jewishly identifiable but never-
theless was inseparable. I was editor of
the then Detroit Jewish Chronicle when
he ran for judge and came to me for help
in the Jewish newspaper. That explain-
ed being inseparable from his
background.
Maurice Sugar's checkered career
had a large measure of disputes. He was
not a conformist. Just as he had refus-
ed to register for the draft in World War
I, he also rebelled in many other mat-
ters. Yet he made lasting friendships, as
in the instance of Frank Murphy who
battled in his behalf to have him
restored to active law practice. It took
several years' efforts for Murphy to ac-
complish it due to the hesitancy of
Judge Ira Jayne who headed the Bar
commission. But the task was
accomplished.
Sugar also confronted an antagonist
in the UAW where he had established
a good record as lawyer and labor
leader. He failed to retain the endorse-
ment of Walter Reuther to remain the
UAW attorney.
There is irony in the bitter fight
with Reuther. It is part of the militant-
ly dramatic UAW history. As Prof.
Johnson records it in his biography:
The final phase - of Sugar's
relationship with the UAW was
a personal tragedy as well.
There was no question that
Reuther would fire him once he
had captured the board. But the
recriminations and plain mean-
ness that accompanied his
dismissal established forever a
wall of hatred between Sugar,
his associates, and the entire old
Left community on one hand
and Walter Reuther and his
friends on the other. The irony
that the Walter and May
Reuther educational facility
would be located on Black Lake
directly adjacent to Sugar's
retirement home is multiplied
by the fact that the man who
was the main attorney for the
nation's largest union for the
first decade of its existence was
never invited to the Reuther do-
main nor, save when Sugar was
dying, did a single Reuther
union official or appointee ever
visit the Sugar place next door.
To read the board meeting
minutes for November 29, 1947 is
to understand why. This was the