DETROIT
Fans Discover The World Of Oz
At A Convention In Michigan
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Assistant Editor
D
ear Scarecrow,
Cowardly Lion and
Tinman:
I can't wait to see you
again! I look forward to
December all year because I
know that's when I'll be
reunited with my Oz friends.
I packed my bags last night
— just a few things: some
dresses and a sweater, gifts
for the Munchkins and my
ruby slippers. Now all I have
to do is find room for the
sandwiches Auntie Em
handed me this morning.
(She's sure I'll get hungry on
the trip from Kansas to
Escanaba).
Toto is coming, of course,
though getting him on the
train is going to be tricky.
Will the Wizard be there?
See you soon —
Love, Dorothy
P.S. - My love to Glenda.
The auto industry. Big
cereal business. Upjohn.
And now, Oz.
Each year, fans of the
Wizard and his crew descend
on Michigan, where the talk
of the weekend is Oz, Oz and
more Oz. They are all part of
the Wizard of Oz Club, a na-
tional organization of some
2,500 members which holds
a convention every
December in Escanaba.
Among the club's members
— they call themselves Oz-
mopolitans — is Ruth Ber-
man, a Minneapolis resident
and director of research for
the Oz Club. She was among
the first to sign up with Oz.
"As a child, I always loved
the Oz books," Ms. Berman
said. "My sister read them to
me as I was growing up."
She began writing to Ruth
Plumly Thompson, who con-
tinued the series after Oz
originator L. Frank Baum
died. Ms. Thompson wrote
back. Their correspondence -
lasted 13 years.
In one of her letters, Ms.
Thompson told young- Ruth
about a Baum exhibit she
had just seen, which was
cataloged at length at
Columbia University. Look-
ing through the catalogs,
Ms. Thompson discovered
one of the major contributors
to the exhibit was a 12-year-
old named Justin Schiller.
Because they were about the
"Some people call
it escapism. I
prefer to see it as
an alternative
history of the
world."
Ruth Berman
same age and were both
devoted fans of Oz, Ruth
Berman decided to write
Justin. Later, she would
discover yet another connec-
tion: both are Jewish.
Ruth and Justin — today
an antiquarian bookseller in
New York — quickly became
friends through their letters.
Ruth was among the first to
learn of Justin's plan to
create an international Oz
club. It started with 12 Oz-
mopolitans and held its first
convention in 1961.
"It's a vivid world that
really brings the reader in,"
Ms. Berman said of the fas-
cination with Oz. "You're
invited to take part in a
whole different world."
Like Ms. Berman, Fred
Meyer was one of the first
members of the Oz Club. To-
day secretary-treasurer for
the group and a main force
behind its continued growth,
Mr. Meyer lives in
Escanaba.
Club activities include a
monthly newsletter, The
Baum Bugle, with articles on
lives of the various Oz au-
thors (Baum, Thompson and
a handful of others) and in-
formation about collecting
Oz books. The most in-
demand books are usually
hardbacks with color plates,
Ms. Berman said.
Newsletters also offer
what Ms. Berman termed a
"nit-picking creative re-
sponse" to small idiosyn-
crasies in the Oz books.
(Imagine, for example, that
Baum wrote that a group of
children carried no money,
then a few pages later said
they dropped some coins).
Writers of such articles do
their best to explain the in-
consistencies, producing
"something between literary
criticism and fiction, with
the pleasures of both," Ms.
Berman said.
Though she works profes-
sionally as a word processor,
Ms. Berman is a dedicated
reader and writer of fantasy
literature. She wrote her
Ph.D. dissertation on the de-
velopment of fantasy as a
literary genre and has had
short stories and poems ap-
pear in magazines including
Jewish Frontiers, Journal of
Reform Judaism, Jewish
Currents and Shofar. A re-
cent story she wrote about
Oz was in Amazing Science
Fiction.
Ms. Berman's own fantasy
Staff Writer
S
14
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1991
works do not, however,
parallel some of the more
frequent Oz writings — sen-
timental poems which usual-
ly focus on "why Dorothy
never got out from under the
rainbow."
Though Ms. Berman said
she "loved the The Wizard of
Oz, there's much more to Oz
than just the movie." L.
Frank Baum was the first
author to produce successful
artistic science fiction, she
said.
Ms. Berman said she con-
tinues to reread the Oz books
to this day, "and they
always retain my interest. I
never get tired of them. I can
always find new things." ❑
JDC Is Making A Difference
To The Jews Of Odessa
AMY J. MEHLER
Ruth Berman and Justin Schiller in 1961: Off to see the Wizard.
A mover carries chairs past a portrait of Fred M. Butzel as the
Jewish Federation moved last week from the Butzel Building in
Detroit to the new Max M. Fisher offices in Bloomfield Township.
tuart Saffer is conduc-
ting an experiment
with the Jewish com-
munity of Odessa.
If it works, Jewish associa-
tions in Odessa will learn to
program and coordinate
together, and a great many
of the city's 69,000 Jews will
gain exposure to Jewish
music, culture and Jewish
rituals.
Mr. Saffer, the first repre-
sentative of the American
Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee (JDC) to live in
the Soviet Union in 50 years,
moved from Israel to Odessa
10 months ago to set the ex-
periment in motion.
"If successful, similar ex-
periments • can start to take
root in other Jewish com-
munities across the Soviet
Union," said Mr. Saffer, in
Detroit last week.
The JDC, founded in 1914,
is the overseas arm of
American Jewry. It is active
in rescuing and
rehabilitating Jews in
distress around the world.:
The JDC was kicked out of
the Soviet Union in 1938.
"My purpose in Odessa is
to provide Jewish communal
outreach and help Jews
discover pride in their Jew-
ish identity," said Mr.
Saffer.
A guest last week of the
Jewish Community Coun-
cil's Committee on Soviet
Jewry, Mr. Saffer also works
as a consultant for the Jew-
ish community of Minsk,
sister city of Detroit.
"He's the man on the
scene," said Ellen Labes,
chairwoman of the Soviet
Jewry committee. "He
knows which people in the
city we need to be in con-