The Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit
1-.
Presents as Part of the "Hot Topics Series,. , "
GANG
Peace & Conflict
in the Family:
Are we one
Jewish People?
Phil Jacobs
Editor of Detroit Jewish News Will Moderate
Thursday, September 25, 1997 • 7:30 p.m.
Jewish Community Center Maple/Drake Building
This program is co-sponsored by
the Jewish Community Council & The Jewish News
Rabbi Harold Loss
Temple Israel
Professor Alan Schenk
TChiyah
Rabbi Efry Spectre
Adat Shalom
Rabbi Sherwin Wine
Birmingham Temple
• Panel of Local Rabbis
• Tolerance versus Understanding
• Perspectives and Solutions
• Recent World Events and Their Impact On Our Communi -y
There is no charge for this program.
Refreshments will be served.
Call (248) 661-7649 to pre-register for the lecture.
DETROIT JEWISH BMWS
10
J'N
from page 8
want to embarrass those whose ances-
tors may have been associated with
such criminal acts."
Sandy Feldman sees no cause for
embarrassment. That her uncle was a
Purple Gang member was neither cele-
brated nor denied in her family, she
said.
In fact, Feldman is a member of the
program committee planning the
"Jewish Detroit in the 1920s and '30s"
exhibit. She said she would not have
participated in a project whose sole
focus was glorifying the Purple Gang.
"But this happened, it was part of his-
tory," she said.
Even those who oppose Rosman's
decision to include the Purple Gang
admire his previous exhibits,
"Michigan Jews Remember: World
War II" and "It's All Relative: Piecing
Together Your Family History," the
latter which in one evening more than
doubled the Jewish Genealogical
Society's membership, Rosman said.
Rosman pretty much dedicates his
life to the programs he organizes. He
can be accommodating when he has
to, though usually it's full speed ahead.
This tenacity doesn't always wash well
with the mild-mannered, but it has
helped Rosman secure a remarkable
collection of photos, many of which
had spent their lives blanketed in
dusty files.
"Look at this," he says, pulling out
one of his many notebooks filled with
photos. It's a picture of a Purple Gang
member, shot dead in Boesky's
Restaurant. There are some from the
infamous Collingwood Massacre —
nothing too gruesome. They show a
bare apartment with a few obligatory
pieces of furniture and corpses face
down on the floor.
Rosman also has secured a lot of
never-before-seen mug shots and a
photo of a car bombing, meant for
one Purple Gang member, which
ended up killing a valet instead.
Rosman said it was never his goal
to embarrass anyone. But he believes
in telling the truth about history.
"I want to give an accurate reflec-
tion of the '20s and the '30s, and to
do so you have to tell the story of pro-
hibition, and if you're going to do that
it's impossible not to mention the
Purple Gang," he said.
Rosman spent hour after hour, day
after day, month after month waiting
for various Jewish groups and individ-
uals to decide whether they would
participate. The problem was always
the same: the inclusion of the Purple
Gang.
Some organizations waffled. Some
said they had "received a lot of calls
from concerned parties," though the
event hadn't even been publicized.
Some initially agreed, then pulled out.
Rosman's first, and most severe
confrontation came with the Jewish
Historical Society of Michigan, of
which he is a board member. The JHS
eventually chose not to sponsor the
program, though it had been a partner
to a previous Rosman presentation.
This Hastings Street restaurant was ounded by the Lash brothers in 1900.
Rabbi Steven Well
Young Israel
9/19
1997
E'CDTFQ
FT4