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. All sales can be exchanged or refunded. Gift wrapping is free. 11T1%11-UAILJU ,11[144TILEIA "Sunset Strip" 29536 Northwestern Highway, Southfield, MI 48034 HOURS: M - F 10 - 5:15 Sat 10 - 5 PHONE. 357-4000 [CE 'gos.9) ( ) OPEN SUNDAYS 'til CHRISTMAS! Watch for our "Sunday Specials" This Sunday's Special: 50% OFF ALL. KELLY BAGS IB S 29815 Northwestern Highway In Applegate Square lit 357-1800 Open Thursday till 8 p.m. SAVE WHERE THE BUILDERS SAVE 4329 Normandy Court 9 Royal Oak, Ml 48073 • (313) 549.6300 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.