Jewry's Role in
Human Affairs

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SOLOMON MAIMON
(1753-1800) b. Nieswiez, Polish Lithuania One
of the most celebrated German philosophers
flourished at the time a co-religionist, Dr.
Marcus Eliezer Bloch (1723 99), helped
establish the modern science of ichthyology.
Solomon Maimon achieved fame in a more
liberated atmosphere that permitted Jews such as
they to escape the ghetto. The child prodigy in
Talmudic studies had been married at age fourteen, became a father within
the year, and was ordained by the rabbinate.
His views often invited controversy--earning the wrath of Hasidim
at proposing a philosophical basis to the Kabbalah. Although he revered
Maimonides, an unconventional commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed
also gained the rancor of its readers. Meagerly supporting his family as a
tutor, Maimon moved to Germany, eking out a living as an itinerant beggar.
His fortunes changed upon meeting and impressing Moses
Mendelssohn with his erudition, and being introduced into the master's
intellectual circle in Berlin. Their relationship dimmed and Maimon
moved on. But by 1789-90, his rank as a leading theorist came suddenly
by way of a skeptical critique of several of Immanuel Kant's key
philosophical principles. Despite disagreements, Kant graciously accepted
the appraisal and named its author his "most perceptive critic," a
compliment that assured his career.
Maimon went on to produce major writings including the
Philosophical Dictionary (I 791), On the Progresses of Philosophy (1792)
and Critical Investigations of the Human Spirit (1797). An acclaimed and
widely read autobiography, published in 1793 and translated into English,
is regarded as a lustrous work in Jewish literature. He stood memorably
alongside the handful of free and inquiring minds of his time and place..
-Saul Stadtmauer

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3/12
1999

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12 Detroit Jewish News

From `Jewish/
To `White'

o by Bill Hansen

LITERARY ICONS OF THEIR TIMES
The European molders of thought in the late 18th and early 19th centuries
included poets, philosophers and writers who helped set the bedrock of
modern Western culture. Among them was Heinrich Heine whose stature
approached that of Goethe and Schiller, and Solomon Ben Joshua who
adopted the name Maimon in acknowledgement of Moses Maimonides.
HEINRICH HEINE
Ow\
(1797-1856) b. Dusseldorf, Prussia "The greatest
task of our times is not merely the emancipation
of Irishmen, Greeks, Frankfurt Jews, West Indian
Negroes...but the emancipation of the whole
world that has now found tongue and breaks the
iron reins of Privilege." These eloquent words
were spoken by one of history's finest and most
prolific German lyric poets, by a socially astute
immortal of classical literature. Although he converted, he also composed
some of the most powerful Jewish verse written in his native language.
A trained lawyer, essayist and literary critic as well, the sensitive
and complex romantic fought, through his words, against the oppressive
values of the 18th century as embodied in his homeland. Heine addressed
the freedom and dignity of man—as idealized by the French revolution. He
resettled in Paris in 1831 where he lived until his death from a long and
painful spinal disease. During these trying years, the stoical humanist
authored political tracts, satires and lyric masterpieces which gained
immense popularity; virtually all of his works were translated into English.
Held in high esteem by contemporary composers, some 3,000 of
Heine's bittersweet lyrics were adapted for songs by Brahms, Schubert,
Schumann and others. Among the best known, "On Wings of Song" and
"Lorelei", endure to this day. But what also endured was the anti-Semitic
hostility of German governments toward his stand against their autocratic
rule. Plans to erect posthumous monuments to him by German citizens and
admirers were crushed. Forced by public pressure to anthologize his
poetry, the Nazis conceded but marked the source of each as "poet
unknown." It was said that on his deathbed, while dictating lines of a love
poem, the last word Heine uttered was schreiben, to "write."

Profissor Thomas .1.'Sugrue, left,
and Kenneth Waltzer swap ideas
during a conference 1.7-eak.

Symposium speakers trace
changes in Detroit Jewish identity.

JONATHAN FRIENDLY and
ROBERT A. SKLAR
News Editor and Editor

A

t the turn of the century, a
few thousand immigrants
from Eastern Europe lived
in a ghetto centered on
Hastings Street and identified them-
selves as Jews. Now 100,000 Jews are
scattered throughout the Detroit met-
ropolitan area and they chiefly identify
themselves as "white."
That description of how a commu-
nity changed its self-image and its
geographic center was offered last
week at a Wayne State
University/Cohn-Haddow Center for
Judaic Studies symposium examining
"Jews and the Urban Experience."
During the two-day conference,
which drew 84 registrants, panelists
said that Detroit's experience paral-

leled that of other American cities
where Jews struggled, and continue to
struggle, with a pull toward assimila

tion and a counter pull toward assert-
ing a special religious and cultural
identity. But they said some specifics,
such as the lack of a large Jewish
working class and the ease of using a
car, made Detroit unique.
In a keynote address Sunday night,
Nathan Glazer, an author and
Harvard University sociologist, noted

that Jews in America were once heavi-
ly tied to the inner cities but by the
1970s the urban experience was
mostly over for Jews in the North."
They retain business connections
and have ties to cultural and athletic
institutions because, he said, "we're
historically urban and still feel a con-
nection to the areas where our Jewish
life was spawned."

But nostalgia will not persuade Jews
today to send their children to urban

schools, many of which once were
heavily Jewish, when they believe they
are better educated in suburban and
Jewish day schools, Glazer told the
audience at Temple Beth El, in subur-
ban Bloomfield Township.
At the Monday afternoon session,
Michigan State University professor
Kenneth Waltzer noted that the early
history of Detroit Jewry is poorly
chronicled — unlike the history of
New York's Lower East Side, an excep-
tional setting that has been so often
recounted that it has come to seem
the norm for city Jews at the turn of
the 20th century.
He said the Hastings ghetto was
both a place for Jews to live and trade
with each other and also a staging area
for city-wide commerce. By 1910, half
its 35,000 residents had found clerical
or white-collar work. It lacked a large
working class, as Jews either did not

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