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THE JEWISH NEWS COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE
.
In The Beginning
A major community newspaper is
born at a time of personal, national
and international adversity.
BY ALAN HITSKY
Associate Editor
I
t took a bit of dar-
ing to begin a news-
paper four months
after the onslaught
of Pearl Harbor.
Maybe it was necessity.
Maybe it was fate. But
Philip Slomovitz was forced
to launch his new Jewish
newspaper at one of the
bleakest times in history for
America and American
Jewry. Faced with a war in
Europe and in Asia, and
with news of the Holocaust
Philip Slomovitz:
Jewish News founder.
trickling out of Europe, Mr.
Slomovitz had his own bad
news to contend with:
dismissal from the Detroit
Jewish Chronicle after 20
years as editor.
Mr. Slomovitz rallied his
resources, rallied his corn-
munity and some of its big-
gest names behind a new
Jewish newspaper. Within
months of its inaugural
issue on March 27, 1942, The
Jewish News had out-
distanced its rival with a
total of 3,000 subscribers to
1,800 for the Chronicle.
But it wasn't easy. A major
backer withdrew his finan-
cial support within weeks of
the first publication, asking
the return of $10,000 from
the initial support of
$19,000. And the U.S. Post
Office created a major finan-
4
cial hardship by refusing to
issue second class mailing
privileges to the fledgling
publication.
Mr. Slomovitz drew upon
his national contacts to meet
with postal officials. U.S.
Senator Arthur H.
Vandenberg, who later
became the acting vice pres-
ident when Franklin Delano
Roosevelt died, arranged the
meeting.
An agreement with
Detroit's Jewish Federation
had blocked the second class
privilege. Mr. Slomovitz had
helped his brand new paper
by winning agreement from
Federation to pay for 12,000
Detroiters to receive the
paper monthly. This was in
addition to the 3,000 weekly
subscribers who paid $3 per
year.
Postal officials finally
agreed to award the money-
saving second class status
for the weekly subscribers, if
the monthly subscribers
were mailed separately.
"Two weeks after the deal,"
Mr. Slomovitz recalls, "we
got a check from the post of-
fice for a $2,200 refund.
From then on, we were in
the black."
The deal with Federation
only lasted a year. Mr.
Slomovitz asked Isidor
Sobeloff, Federation vice
president and Jewish News
board member, for an in-
crease in payment for the
monthly subscribers. When
Mr. Sobeloff refused to raise
the payment from 40 cents to
50 cents a year per
subscriber, the agreement
ended. The paper was on its
own.
In those early years, the
paper slowly grew. "My
guess," Mr. Slomovitz says,
"is that it went up
2,000-3,000 subscribers in
the first few years."
The first issue had 12
pages, but within a few mon-
ths the paper grew to 24
pages weekly.
With Yiddish still
predominant among the
adult Jewish community,
THE JEWISH NEWS COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE
From top:
The Jewish News
office on Seven
Mile; the 25th
anniversary party in
1967; Sharon,
Carmi, Anna and
Phil Slomovitz at
the Butzel Award
presentation to Mr.
Slomovitz in 1982.
English-language news-
papers were not yet in de-
mand. "Even Shaarey Zedek
people were Yiddish news-
paper readers," he says.
"The exception was Temple
Beth El."
Playing to that generation,
the Chronicle often printed
the weekly sermons of Beth
El's Dr. Leo Franklin as
major news. And The Jewish
News, during its first decade,
employed a society editor to
write about social events
and confirmations. "It was
not an overwhelming
column, but it played a big
part," he recalls.
The leading columns in the
paper were Mr. Slomovitz'
"Purely Commentary,"
which he has written weekly
in Detroit since the 1920s,
and Jewish Telegraphic
Agency editor Boris
Smolar's "Between You and
Me." Danny Raskin's
"Youth's Listening Post" —
with several name changes
— has been a highly popular
feature since that first Jew-
ish News issue in 1942.
The major emphasis of the
paper was on the World Jew-
ish Congresses —"most of
which I covered," Mr.
Slomovitz says — and the re-
birth of Israel and the battle
against anti-Semitism.
In the post-war years, the_
changing Jewish educa-
tional system was a central
focus. "When the curriculum
changed from five days to
three afternoons, and then it
dropped to two, it was the
greatest blow to Jewish ed-
ucation," Mr. Slomovitz
says.
As World War II conclud-
ed, he covered one of The
Jewish News' biggest
stories, the founding of the
United Nations in San Fran-
cisco. For six weeks in 1945,
Mr. Slomovitz attended the
meetings as a Zionist dele-
gate and associate of Zionist
leader Stephen Wise. But as
a working journalist, he
says, "I could get into ses-
sions with my press card
that other Zionist delegates
could not attend."
Through his 43 years as
publisher of The Jewish
News, Mr. Slomovitz saw no
drastic changes in the paper.
"Only within the last dozen
years or so did you have the
contending movements in
Israel," he says.
One of the mainstays of
the paper while Mr.
Slomovitz was actively at
the helm was his family.
Wife Anna served as
treasurer of the company
and helped with the early
classified advertisements.
Son Carmi learned how to
use the Addressograph
machine at the age of 12,
stamping out the address
labels with the noisy metal
plates.
Carmi joined the news-
paper full-time after his
military service during the
Korean War and was busi-
ness manager until the mid-
1980s. Carmi's wife, Sharon,
helped out in the office for
many years and her mother,
Pauline Max, continues to
help with the mail and other
office duties during the
warm-weather months. D
.
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