PHOTO BY DANIEL LIPPITT

Justin Ravitz:
Jews must
create new
bridges.

Finding The Best
Inte rests Of All

JULIE WIENER STAFF WRITER

As an attorney for Michigan Legal Services, Justin
Ravitz saw a part of Detroit's riots witnessed by few
other middle-class Jews: the lock-ups.
In the week of the disturbances, over 7,000 civilians
were arrested. While some had been looting or setting
fires, others were guilty only of being in the wrong place
at the wrong time. "People were calling who were vic-
tims of all sorts of outrageous police and military con-
duct," Ravitz recalled.
What Ravitz also recalls are the feelings the riots
generated among blacks.
`There was an enormous feeling of excitement and
empowerment. I remember visiting someone I knew
from beforehand — a middle class, relatively well-
educated black man. He embraced me and was sky
high. He said, 'I have never felt anything like it. We
were in control, however briefly."'
Although he thinks much of the rage directed at
store owners —many of whom were Jewish — was mis-
placed, Ravitz understands the roots of the conflict.
"When you have a situation where people in a mi-
nority and oppressed community lack the mobility to
shop in places of choice, then people are stuck eco-
nomically. When you have the poorest people paying
the highest price for the worst products, then how
can there not be resentment? There are bound to be
tensions, especially when store owners are not part
of the community or don't employ from the commu-
nity.,,
According to Ravitz, Detroit then needed — and still
needs — a program akin to the Marshall Plan. Gov-
ernment reports like the Report of the National Ad-
visory Commission on Civil Disorders (popularly known
as the Kerner Commission), which analyzed the caus-
es of the riots, recommended an array of social pro-
grams and investment. But the Vietnam War sucked
up federal funds, and the few recovery programs im-
plemented were merely "band-aids," said Ravitz.
"If you look objectively at the conditions that exist
30 years later — notwithstanding the fact that a black
middle class has emerged and there are black politi-
cians in many offices previously occupied by whites —
it has meant virtually nothing to the captive of the
ghetto," he said.
Now a lawyer with a private firm in Southfield,
Ravitz served as Detroit Recorders Court judge for 13
years and still lives in the city with his wife.
While he speaks highly of Mayor Dennis Archer,
Ravitz is not sure that enough substantial progress is
being made in Detroit.
"I would say that for the most part, [conditions in
Detroit] are not better [than in 1967]. How desperate
we must have become to now stake our future on casi-
no gambling and subsidizing billionaires who own
sports teams. I've supported those issues politically,
but that bespeaks to my mind a measure of despera-
tion," he said.
The post 1960's breakdown of black-Jewish relations
— along with other divisions among minorities — has
not helped matters, said Ravitz, who dates the decline
of the black-Jewish alliance to just before the riots,
with the rise of the militant and separatist Black Pow-
er movement.
"A lot of Jews who had done a lot in good faith felt
offended, betrayed, abandoned," he said. "It was an at-
titude that I think was lamentable, one stemming from
the weakness of paternalistic liberalism rather than
an awareness that it was important for the black strug-
gle to have black leadership."
Ravitz would like to see Jews make the first move
in bridging the gulf between the two communities.
"Too often I see Jews reacting to someone like Far-
rakhan," he said. "But how can we do something con-
structive to deservedly regain the sort of collegial spirit
that once existed? We've got to do it through good deeds,
in non-paternalistic ways, not just to help people, not
just to make ourselves feel better, but because it's right
and it's in the best interest of us all." O