University of Michigan
Hitters Celebration of
Jewish Arts
presents:

The newest books — by Jewish authors, about Jewish subjects or of interest to
Jewish readers.

'Radio Priest

Donald Warren; Free Press; $27.50

Nimoy

"Spock In the Diaspora"

Wednesclay, January 29, 1997
8:00 pm, Hill Auditorium
University of Michigan

Tickets: Hillel & Ticketmaster $10 (students, $5)
Call (313)763-TKTS or (313)769-0500
to charge by phone.
Call (313)769-0500 for more information

Spine Tingling
Ghost Story

"Guaranteed to
chill the blood!"

7-Year Hit
in London's
West End!

"A real thrill
of horror"

London
Sunday Times

London Evening
Standard

BLACK

THE WOMA.N

Cr)
UJ

by Stephen Mallatratt

w

For tickets call

Ca

94

Meadow Brook
Box Office
(810) 377-3300
Ticketmaster
(810) 645-6666

Hudson's
Harmony House and
Blockbuster Music

Meadow
Brook
Theatre

Oakland University's
Professional Theatre

t is both fitting and ironic that lished Shrine of the Lit-
Father Charles Coughlin tle Flower at 12 Mile
should end up (if he is men- and Woodward in Roy-
tioned at all) as a footnote fig- al Oak, he was able to
ure in the average history promote his ideology;
textbook. Fitting because he of- he saw in broad-casting
fered little to society save shrill an expedient means to
rhetoric -- and that during a draw attention (and
decade that was drowning in it funds) to his parish.
His earliest talks
— and ironic because at one time
he could boast a following second were little more than
only to President Franklin De- homilies directed at
children, in the weekly
lano Roosevelt.
Nevertheless, footnote figures broadcast known pop-
are often more illuminating than ularly as "The Chil-
CHARLES COUGHLIN
their more famous contempo- dren's Hour." The
THE FATHER OF HATE RAD
raries. Donald Warren, profes- gradual change from
sor of sociology at Oakland sermonette to political
University, has written a defin- harangue, however,
soon
trans-
itive account of noted —
formed the ob- The rise to fame of notorious anti-Semite Charles
and vociferous — anti-
REVIEW
scure cleric into Coughlin is chronicled in Radio Priest.
Semite Coughlin's life
a
national
and career in Radio Priest:
Semitism or his open collabora-
Charles Coughlin, the Father of celebrity.
Overnight, Coughlin became tion with the crypto-fascist move-
Hate Radio.
Warren captures not only his a lightning rod for controversy. ments that were gaining
subject's mercurial personality His words reached out to a mul- insidious momentum in this
but also the tumultuous period titude of disaffected men and country prior to Pearl Harbor. He
in which he rose to fame. Fur- women who were eager to blame also includes strong evidence that
ther, he draws parallels between someone or something for the cat- Nazi Germany may have subsi-
Coughlin's disturbing hold on the astrophe of the Depression. dized the priest's activities with
public of his day and the influ- Coughlin attacked those he saw cash and support when both the
ential voices that now hold sway as the true villains of political and Church and the government be-
economic chaos — the Wall gan a belated campaign to get
on the nation's airwaves.
A naturalized American citi- Street money changers who had him off the airwaves.
This chapter of our history
zen, the Canadian-born Cough- engineered the crash of 1929, the
lin was originally drawn to radio Communists who were seeping serves as both a lesson and a
for the most apolitical of reasons: into government and high places, warning. • It may open wounds
a press that was aiding and abet- that have only just healed, but
money.
ting
moral anarchy, and, most that is the price one pays for
As pastor of the newly estab-
important in his eyes, the Jews. opening eyes and minds.
Robed del Valle leads Borders'
Warren pulls no punches in
Jewish Book Group.
— Robert del Valle
detailing Coughlin's rabid anti-

I

FICTION

THE THIRTEENTH HOUR
By Barbara Sofe77 Dutton; $23.95.
Two Israeli women —
strangers — are caught up in a
web of terror and intrigue involv-
ing the murder of four Jewish
women. For a thriller set in the
Middle East, this novel is sur-
prisingly upbeat.

TIM WED NG

Lon:

MarriagO

David C. & Esther R. Gross

NEW IN PAPERBACK

ENVISIONING ISRAEL: THE
CHANGING IDEALS AND
IMAGES OF NORTH AMER-
ICAN JEWS

NONFICTION

Supported
by the

mc'
aca

michigan
council
for arks
and
cultural
affairs

AT HIS SIDE: THE LAST
YEARS OF ISAAC BABEL
By A N Pirozhkova; Steerforth;
$22.
Called "a great writer who re-
fused to discuss writing," Isaac
Babel's last years under Stalin in
the 1930s were spent with
Pirozhkova, who now writes this
still optimistic memoir.

is a look at Judaism's wide range
of customs, ceremonies, traditions
and practices. Included topics are
marriage in biblical, medieval and
modern times; the legal aspects
of the ceremony, and marriage-
focused Jewish legends and folk-
tales.

Under the Wedding Canopy is the product
of 50 years of marital collaboration and
"research."

UNDER THE WEDDING
CANOPY: LOVE AND MAR-
RIAGE IN JUDAISM

By David C. and Esther R.
Gross; Hippocrene Books; $22.50.
This carefully researched book

Edited by Allon Gal; Wayne State
Univ. Press; $26.95.
Professor Gal examines —
through the use of a collection of
essays — the historical relation-
ship between American Jewry
and the Jewish community in Is-
rael, and the Jewish settlement
in Palestine from the 1880s until
1948.

— Compiled by Lynne Konstantin