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46
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1991
Editor Emeritus
N
o one, individual or
community, is im-
mune to anti-Jewish
bias. Much of the proof is in
the long line of bigoted
leadership in hate
movements in our own city
and state.
No one is immune from the
duty of resisting prejudice.
When young boys organize
for such a responsibility, it
becomes an inerasable
guide for the generations.
Such a lesson is the
remarkable story preserved
for Detroit history in The
Philomathic Debating Club,
1898-1950 by Ralph A.
Raimi.
The author, a native
Detroiter whose family was
very prominent here, is on
the faculty of the University
of Rochester in Rochester,
N.Y. In the publication,
Prof. Raimi emerges as an
excellent story teller and an
able researcher of facts
which he preserves for Jew-
ish history with great em-
phasis on Detroit. He traces
activities in our educational
system and deals especially
with Central High School. In
1893 an organization model-
ed after the U.S. House of
Representatives was formed
for debating purposes at
Central. It was presided over
by a speaker and a clerk in
the Washingtonian form.
But Jewish students were
not admitted to membership.
That's when vigilance by
Jewish youths became de-
fiance and resistance. It was
in 1898 when the Jewish
group was formed and Prof.
Raimi gives an account with
the name of the organizers:
In 1898 the Philomathic
Debating Club was
founded by a group of
twelve Jewish boys:
Meyer Cohen, Spencer S.
Fishbaine, Ira
Friedenberg, Jacob Gor-
don, Saul Hartz, Nathan
P. Levin, Samuel M.
Levin, Saul H. Meister,
Benjamin Salzstein, Louis
Smilansky, Morris
Smilansky, and Louis
Wine. They were all of
high school age, and tra-
dition has it that they
were all students at Cen-
tral, but it is possible that
one or two were not, for
even among Jewish boys
not all attended high
school. A notable exam-
ple, though of a later era,
was Reuben S. Levine,
who attended Detroit
High School of Commerce
for two years and then
went to work. He became
Clerk of Philomathic in
1917 and Speaker in 1920.
There is much that is
historically revealing and
will prove fascinating to the
many who will connect a se-
rious youth action with per-
sonalities who became im-
pressive activists in our
community. In the 52-year
Philomathic history, scores
of youths gained pro-
minence. A veritable en-
cyclopedia of leadership
evidence could supplement
Prof. Raimi's historiography.
Numerous factors of im-
portance would provide in-
terest for discussion in rela-
tion to this volume. It is
noteworthy to learn about
the many synagogues in
No one is immune
from the duty of
resisting prejudice.
which Philomathic held its
meetings, conducting their
debates there; many spon-
sored functions with guest
speakers. Here is the list of
meeting places, many of
them undoubtedly already
forgotten:
It was not at school, but
at the United Jewish
Charities headquarters at
Brush and Montcalm
Streets, that Philomathic
was organized, though it
held only a few meetings
there before securing a
room at the Talmud Torah
building at 47 Division
Street, where it met for
the next twenty-one years.
Later homes (not in
chronological order; the
record is confused) were :
the Farnsworth Talmud
Torah (1921), the Shaarey
Zedek Synagogue on
Brush Street at Willis
Avenue, a Talmud Torah
on Twelfth Street and
Atkinson, the Kirby
Center of the United Heb-
rew Schools, on Kirby at
St. Antoine (1920-1924?),
the Byron Center (in late
1924, at least), the
Y.W.H.A. Club Rooms at
89 Rowena Street (in 1926-
27 or more), the Shaarey
Zedek temporary home at
9125 Twelfth Street, near
Clairmont, in 1928, while
the new building was be-
ing built on Lawton and
Chicago Boulevard, then
for the most of the rest of
its history the Lawton
Shaarey Zedek, except
that for a time, about 1940,
it met at the United Heb-
rew Schools building on
Holmur and Tuxedo.
Sometimes the club was
reduced to meeting at .a
private home, or did so by
choice ... but it never met
at a public school or had
any formal connection
with one ...
This is history of unusual
interest not only for Detroit
Jewry but for the city of
Detroit on a cumulative
basis.
One other factor in Dr.
Raimi's historiography must
not be ignored. Dr. Raimi
calls attention to an effort
that was made in 1896 by
the Detroit Board of Edu-
cation to introduce Bible
readings in the schools. It
began with the purchase of
2000 copies of a book titled
Readings from the Bible. It
led to debates and threaten-
ed public actions by
adherents to the church-
state separation principle. It
was a bitter, 10-year
struggle and the books then
landed in a Board of Edu-
cation storeroom.
In the American records,
Dr. Raimi adds a valuable
experience to be re-
membered. That's how his
Philomathic Debating Club
attains historic interest. ❑
N EWS
Neo-Nazis
In Netherlands
Amsterdam (JTA) — Neo-
Nazis from Holland, Britain
and Germany were filmed by
a television crew last week
at a meeting in an opulent
villa near the Dutch city of
Arnhem.
They were shown under a
portrait of Adolf Hitler.
Ray Edmonds, represent-
ing the British National
Party, denied that 6 million
Jews were killed by the
Nazis. "If any Jews were -(
killed, they were killed as
spies, and rightly so, just as
in Britain spies were killed
during the war," Mr. Ed-
monds claimed.
The meeting was the most
recent neo-Nazi gathering
hosted by Flora Rost van
Tonningen, widow of a
notorious Dutch Nazi
collaborator.