PURELY COMMENTARY_I'
TIME FOR MICKEY!
Harmonize Historiography
Respect For Dissent
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor Emeritus
W
ayn.e State Univer-
sity press con-
tributes significant-
ly to our annual Jewish
Book Fair as a literary fes-
tival by providing on its very
first day a new volume on
Detroit Jewish history.
There is importance in the
release of the volume Har-
Suggested Retail $75.00
The Walt Disney Co.
mony and Dissonance: Voice
of Jewish Identity in Detroit,
1914-1967. Dr. Sidney
With Mickey pointing out the hours and minutes, good times
are guaranteed. Colorful, decorative and dependably accurate
with its quartz movement, this whimsical pendulum clock
is sure to become a family favorite. Approx. 16" high.
Bolkosky, professor of histo-
ry, University of Michigan-
Dearborn, continues the
compilation of our commun-
ity's history which began
with the publication of Jews
SEIKO
THE FUTURE OF TIME IS IN OUR HANDS
of Detroit From the Beginn-
ing, 1762-1914 by Prof.
All merchandise is offered at outstanding discount prices.
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38
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1991
1
Robert A Rockaway of Tel
Aviv University.
The title of Dr. Bolkosky's
book prepares the reader to
acknowledge that criticism
cannot be avoided, that
discord and disagreement
are welcomed for an under-
standing of all that has
happened to us in the years
covered.
Publication of this work
was encouraged and fi-
nanced by the Jewish Fed-
eration and United Jewish
Charities.
Controversies with the
Jewish Community Council
are figured as communal ex-
periences. Confrontation
with anti-Semitism had its
measure of disunity and is
treated factually. The im-
mensity of the subjects
covered compels limitations
for thorough comment here.
It is to be anticipated that
a volume that commences
with 1967 will demand
knowledge and understan-
ding of activities in the
Zionist movement and the
pioneering of the State of
Israel. The Bolkosky volume
has shortcomings here.
There is a rich Detroit
Zionist history that does not
emerge sufficiently.
We should know the fullest
details about the United
Hebrew Schools and also the
numerous other schools
which were part of our expe-
rience. It is well to be in-
troduced again to Bernard
Isaacs, the original super-
intendent of UHS. His ap-
peals for maximum Jewish
education were constant as
indicated in these excerpts
from Dr. Bolkosky's book:
World War II affected the
UHS as it did every seg-
ment of Jewish life. Many
teachers joined the armed
services and some of the
women teachers left
Detroit to be with their
husbands. Other women
gave up teaching to take
better-paying jobs in war
industries. As changing
neighborhoods slowed
during the war, some of the
schools stabilized.
Rabbi Leizer Levin and
Joseph Cashdan taught
Talmud classes, and Meyer
Mathis kept up publication
of the Hebrew magazine
Hed Hakevutzah.
Abraham Twersky pub-
lished a book of his own
Yiddish poems under the
title Meschiach'n An-
tkegen,
which wove
Chasidic traditions with
Dr. Bolkosky's
book prepares the
reader to
acknowledge that
criticism cannot be
avoided.
hopes for tomorrow. As
dedicated to Jewish study
as ever, Bernard Isaacs
wrote an essay in May 1943
in which he criticized
schools that offered
students too much song
and dance and that sugar-
coated the Torah without
offering serious education.
A 1945 Federation study
by Israel R Rappaport and
Elias Picheny found that of
about 25,830 Jewish
children of school age in
Detroit, some 5,200 were at-
tending a Jewish school
and about 62 percent of
these were at a first-grade
level or below. Many of
these children went to
school only on Sundays.
The dropout rate was alar-
mingly high. Rappaport
and Picheny's recommen-
dations included more cen-
tral community encourage-
ment for Jewish schooling
and standardization of the
requirements for teacher
training. Adult programs
were also encouraged.
The work does not indicate
that Congregation Shaarey
Zedek was the first and only
of the very large houses of
worship in the country to
enroll the entire member-
ship as affiliated Zionists.
A special regret is that
Hadassah and all its com-
mendable achievements
were not treated more fully.
While there is much more
to be accounted for in studies
we encourage, we must not
overlook the fact that there
were many Yiddish schools
that were vital in our exis-
tence. There were occasional
considerations of creating a
unified school system and
while it never materialized,
it is important to know the
vast number of educational
appeals and the responses to
them as outlined by Dr.
Bolkosky in the following:
Population shifts
diminished the need for
the UHS branches at the
Delmar School in the
Oakland district and the
Parkside branch in the
Fenkell district. In the new
Dexter-Linwood area, UHS
had opened in 1928 at Tux-
edo an _ d Holmur (later
named after D.W. Simons),
and at MacCullough public
school on Buena Vista and
Wildemere in 1935. UHS in-
stilled a love of the land of
Palestine from the start,
and the 1931 graduation
class book included a
poem in honor of Lord
Balfour by student Ethel
Silverstein, entitled "A
Friend in Need," along
with several student essays
in Hebrew .. .
Although UHS tended to
attract public interest for
its innovations and for its
Federation sponsorship,
many synagogues, in-
cluding Beth El and
Shaarey Zedek, continued
to operate their own
schools. So, too, did the
secular groups like the
Workmen's Circle and the
Sholem Aleichem Institute.
Morris Kutnick and
Simon Richardson manag-
ed the Zionist Kadimah
school on Twelfth Street
and Lawton, and there was
a Carmel School as well.
Yeshiva Beth Yehudah„
guided by Rabbi Ashinsky
and later by Samuel Fine,
offered longer class hours
and a more Orthodox
course of study than the
UHS. About twenty-five of
its alumni studied at
yeshivas or Talmudic
schools in other cities in
the late thirties.
It is important to learn
from the disappearance of a
number of schools that func-
tioned here that they
pointed to a distressing
decline in learning and
adhering to Yiddish. It is one
of the sorrowful results of
the changes in the last ge-
neration.