PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor Emeritus
Bar-Ilan's Detroit Roots: Our Cultural Achievement
F
rom the earliest years
of this century, our
community shared in
the advancement of Israel's
major cultural tasks. Technion
was among the first with a
direct involvement in the for-
mation of the Detroit Zionist
Engineering Society.
Then, with the Hebrew
University's initial years, star-
ting in 1925, the local involve-
ment kept growing.
The most impressive record
is with Bar-Ilan University.
When the 35th anniversary
will be celebrated here on Oct.
2, the Detroit Jewish com-
munity will have rightful
pride in calling attention to its
founding by dedicated local
and national leaders.
The leaders of the Mizrachi
Organization, Religious
Zionist Movement, were mov-
ed to pay honor to Rabbi Meir
Berlin, who adopted the Bar-
Ilan name The aim came in-
to being with the formation of
a task force organized in 1957
soon to establish the universi-
ty in his name in Ramat Gan,
Israel.
The late Rabbi Isaac
Stollman, the elder of the com-
munity's active Stollman
family, who rose to Mizrachi
leadership as president of the
Pinkhos Churgin, who was to
become the first president of
Bar-Ilan University in 1955;
Dr. Joseph Lookstein, who
was to succeed him in 1957 as
Bar-Ban Chancellor, and other
national leaders. Thus Detroit
was the founding place for
Bar-Ilan. The Nusbanms and
Stollmans have their names
engraved as Bar-Ilan founders.
At the outset, anxiety was
expressed whether a
religiously-motivated project
could succeed. Bar-Ilan
University's achievements in
the sciences and academics at-
test to its greatness which
dispelled such hesitations.
Gershon Winer
American section, became the
leader of the movement to
organize the new university.
He drew into it many
associates in Detroit, where
he was among the eminent
Orthodox rabbis. Abraham
Nusbaum, one of his chief
associates here, became host
at the initial meeting. The
Stollmans — Phillip, Max and
Frieda — and several world
Mizrachi leaders embraced
the project. Subsequent
meetings at the Nusbaum
home were attended by
Now a new duty commences
for this university. With tens
of thousands of our fellow
Jews arriving or due to arrive
in Israel from Russia, there is
the need to assist the integra-
tion of settlers who have a
need for Yiddish as a contact
language. This is where the
Bar-Ilan Yiddish Program
fulfills a major obligation.
Bar-Ilan Dean Gershon
Winer has an important ex-
planation regarding his
University's role in this
respect.
Given the current Israeli
emphasis on the priority of
absorbing Russian Jews, it
is noteworthy that the Yid-
dish Chair of Bar-Ilan
University is the pioneer in
that historic mission. We
have already absorbed five
young Soviet students and
their families by providing
them with full tuition and
maintenance scholarships
and assuring their eventual
employment as researchers
and lecturers in our Yid-
dish program.
These students — two
from Moscow, one from
Vilna and one from
Moldavia, are enrolled in
post-graduate Yiddish
studies. They are of the
highest caliber and I am
looking forward to them as
future faculty members.
We are now processing a
number of other applicants,
including two from Birabi-
jan in order to accept them
in our Yiddish Department
and we are preparing to in-
crease their number to
about 10.
This is made possible by
scholarships subsidized by
Friends of the Yiddish
Chair throughout the
North American continent
— each scholarship requir-
ing about $10,000.
I use the term "absorp-
tion" because all these
students are married and
have brought their families
with them even though
most of them are in their
twenties.
Some of them are enroll-
ed in the Moshe and Sarah
Friedman Chair for Yid-
dish teacher training.
If the Yiddish Chair
could undertake such a
responsibility and secure
the necessary funds, I sug-
gest that the University as
a whole, as well as other in-
stitutions of higher learn-
ing in Israel, should follow
our example. It is a historic
opportunity, a national
challenge, and for us in the
Yiddish Department, the
fulfilling of a mission.
These are academic
responsibilities that add to
the values of Bar-Ilan in time
of need.
Our community will join the
the 35th anniversary celebra-
tion as proudly pioneering
founders.
It is understandable that
the traditional honoree at the
anniversary dinner on Oct. 2
should be the Detroit Jewish
community.
❑
A Prize For Marcus And A U-M Hillel Memo
A
prize for Jacob Rader
Marcus is not new in
the career and
literary achievements of the
distinguished scholar and
teacher. The numerous
honorary degrees and the
scores of citations attest to
creative life of this teacher
and guide of rabbinical
students whose History of the
Jews in America is now being
published by Wayne State
University Press.
He has just been awarded a
$10,000 prize by the Bernard
Heller Foundation. The
especially welcome interest in
this new honor is a reminder
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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Vol. XCVII No. 18 June 29, 1990
2
FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 1990
for University of Michigan
students about Bernard
Heller who was among the
first directors of the Univer-
sity of Michigan Hillel
Foundation.
Dr. Marcus, ordained at
Hebrew Union College, Cin-
cinnati, and a member of the
faculty for more than half a
century, has now been chosen
by the college to inaugurate
the Heller prizes. The citation
states:
Hebrew Union College —
Jewish Institute of
Religion hereby confers
the inaugural Dr. Bernard
Heller prize upon Jacob
Rader Marcus.
Distinguished historian
and founding father and
director of the American
Jewish Archives.
Wise and trusted
counselor to generations of
rabbis, scholars, educators
and students. His in-
imitable blend of historical
scholarship, wit and world-
ly wisdom is as fresh as
ever and has enthralled
countless audiences
throughout the country.
His leading role in
establishing American
Jewish history as an
academic discipline has
been widely acclaimed, for
his frame of mind is not
reminiscent but anti-
cipatory.
He is a person who
evokes love and apprecia-
tion; a scholar who
sacrifices no single ele-
ment of his demanding
standards while seeing
Bernard Heller
something of value in
everything; a teacher who
conveys a sense of the
drama and tragedy and
mystery and zest of history;
an American who loves his
country and who believes
in its destiny; a Jew who is
committed to God and
loves everything about His
people's life and ex-
perience, the greatness as
well as the pain and
pathos; a Reform Jew who
maintains the conviction
that a liberal interpreta-
tion of his historic heritage
will help Western civiliza-
tion as well as the Jews to
survive.
It is in the Bernard Heller
connection that we have the
compelling U-M Hillel
reminder. Heller was a native
of Kishinev, Russia, where he
was born in 1897. His
biography is filled with many
notable achievements. He
was ordained by the Reform
Hebrew Union College and
much can be said about his
devotion in the last 30 years
of his life. That's when he
spent most of his time at the
Conservative New York
Jewish Theological Seminary.
The tallit and tefillin then
became part of his life and his
daily religious service.
In his years as U-M Hillel
director, 1930-40, he was
active in Jewish movements.
He was author of a number of
important books, including
Dawn or Dusk, an analysis of
Jacob Marcus
German responsibilities for
the Holocaust. Therefore
there is special importance in
his relationship to that era
which is described in the
following Hebrew Union Col-
lege statement about the
Heller prizes:
After ordination, Rabbi
Heller served in Scranton,
Pa., from 1920-1930, and
became widely known for
his religious, civic and
communal work. From the
Scranton pulpit, he was
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