NISSAN 411111. NISSAN NISSAN NISSAN MOP" NOV NOBODY BEATS BA NISSAN NISSAN ■ 11/- PURELY COMMENTARY NI MI" ■ NISSA NISSAN N NEW PATHFINDER SE NEW MAXIMA SE Auto, leather, sport pkg., CD Auto, leather and much player, sunroof, much more, more. Central High Students Defied Prejudice PHILIP SLOMOVITZ WAS $24,815 WAS $23,725 $2800! NOW $21,990 NOW S19,990 $AVE $ 3735! 300 ZX TWIN TURBO NEW STANZA GXE Auto, sunroof, CD player, power windows. 57. WAS $37,020 NN $31,199 SAVE $5821! BARNETT PONTIAC•NISSAN 14505 MICHIGAN Conveniently located on Mich. Ave — 11••••••■ •rennma ---■104111 WAS $18,150 NOW $14,995 In! $3155! Y oH u o r t S L a iv n i e r 7 g s " 846•1122 ALL CARS SUBJECT TC PRIOR SALE PRICES ARE PLUS TAX AND TITLE Bet. Greenfield & Schaefer . ENTER THE NEW HOME OF AZAR'S • • The Center for Oriental. Rugs Welcome To The Spectacular New Birmingham Showroom FAMOUS OCTOBER SALE 670 S. Woodward Birmingham 644-7311 • 1-800-622-RUGS Leftover Moving Sale Continues At The Old Showroom 251 Merrill • Birmingham YOUR VINTAGE WRISTWATCH COULD BE WORTH $10,000 WE NEED THE FOLLOWING MEN'S WATCHES PATEK PHILIPPE INTERNATIONAL ROLEX MOVADO AUDEMARS CARTIER VACHERON GUBELIN LE COULTRE MOON PHASES UNIVERSAL CHRONOGRAPHS BREITLING MANY OTHERS! ABBOTTS-CO1NEX 1393 S. WOODWARD AVD, BIRM., MI 48009 BUYING OLD FOUNTAIN PENS To Sell A Watch Phone: (313) 644-8565 "SELL WHERE THE DEALERS SELL" Licensed Metro Dealer 35 Years, 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.