City Roots
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12 Detroit Jewish News
(248) 737-9059
avid Weinberg says Jews
who live in suburban
Detroit still have deep
roots within the city, they
just don't realize it.
"It might be direct, having grown
up in the city, or more general with
institutional activities," said the direc-
tor of the Wayne State University/
Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic
Studies. "My perspective would be
that the urban area has played a role
in their lives."
With that perspective, the Cohn-
Haddow Center organized "Jews and
the Urban Experience: A Historical
Assessment," a conference from March
7-8, which kicks off with a bus tour
of Jewish Detroit, visiting synagogues
and various institutions that were the
center of Jewish life 30 or 40 years
ago.
Nathan Glazer, professor emeritus
of Harvard University, will make the
keynote speech, "Jews and the Urban
Experience: A Historical Perspective,"
at the opening session on Sunday
evening, March 7 at Temple Beth El.
The bus tour, co-sponsored by the
Jewish Historical Society of Michigan,
will be 2:15-4 p.m. that afternoon.
To Glazer, Detroit is far from
anomalous in Jewish flight from the
city.
"I'm not surprised that it sort of fits
into the history of a lot of other com-
munities," he said. "The movement of
Jews out of the city of Detroit in corn-
parison with Cleveland was a little
slower, because I suppose they hit the
edge of the city moving northwest
later in Detroit than the Jews in
Cleveland moving southeast."
He said he is thinking his speech's
major theme might contrast the age of
Jewish urbanism and the "city without
Jews" issue.
"Most Jews lived in the city as
politically defined, the central cities as
described in all the novels and mem-
oirs and sociological studies, and now
they don't.
"I have some interesting points, but
I'm mulling over them, and I'm read-
ing and thinking."
Jeffrey Shandler of New York
University will end the conference at
Adat Shalom Monday evening,
March 8, with "The Urban Jewish
Landscape in Television: A
Multimedia Presentation."
Both the opening and closing ses-
sions will be free and open to the pub-
lic. A reception will follow each lec-
ture. Call the Cohn-Haddow Center,
now in its 10th year, for registration
information: (313) 577-2679.
The daytime session at Wayne State
University campus will feature eight
speakers in three sessions, comparing
Jewish urban life in Europe, Israel and
New York
City, dis-
cussing
Jews in
Greater
Detroit,
and relating
how the
urban
Jewish
experience
has been
represented
in arts and
architecture.
The speakers
include
Sidney
Bolkosky of
the
University of
Michigan-
Dearborn
("Holocaust
David Weinberg
Survivors - in
Detroit") and Kenneth Waltzer of
Michigan State University ("East
European Jewish Detroit in the Early
Twentieth Century"). The day session
will cost $35 alone, the bus tour
included will cost $50.
"The urban experience has been
central for the development of the
modern Jewish identity and modern
Jewish institutions and cultural life,"
Weinberg said. "It's very much been
embedded in the Jewish experience in
the past 200 years. Jews have played a
very major role in the development of
institutions and activities in urban life
across the world and we think it's kind
of a reciprocal kind of relationship
and one that needs to be addressed."
Weinberg said the Detroit urban
experience has not been investigated
in any depth in a conference or publi-
cation format. "It also dovetails with
the centennial celebration. Since the
central portion of the conference deals
with the Jews of Detroit, it seemed
perfect choice to do it this year." fl
Conference will
examine what
cities meant to
Jews and vice
versa.