WOMEN ON THE FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE
Women have fought long and hard to win rightful places in male dominated
professions such as the sciences--all the more so by Jewish women. Those
who overcame cultural sexism and prejudice during past years include
Nobel Laureate Gertrude Elion. Owing largely to shortages of male
biochemists during World War Two, she gained entry into research
programs that would eventually yield drugs to help cure some 80% of all
childhood anemia.
Biomedical investigator Rosalyn Yalow, another Nobelist, had
earlier learned shorthand for an optional secretarial career should all else
fail. The steno pad was abandoned when, on the strength of her academic
brilliance, she was admitted.to the laboratory and developed the medically
invaluable radioimmunoassay (RIA). Others like them succeeded in win-
ning high repute for their gifts to world society:

USE MEITNER
(1878-1968) b. Vienna, Austria Historians
speculate that Hitler's Germany could have
assembled an atomic arsenal before the war's end
had it not persecuted and driven out its physicists
of Jewish descent. Meitner was among them,
escaping the Austrian Anschluss and settling in
Sweden in 1938. The former student of Max
Planck (originator of the quantum theory) had
1\4\,
since co-discovered the isotope protactinium and studied particles emitted
by uranium under neutron bombardment. While employed at the Nobel
Institute in Stockholm, Meitner learned that two German colleagues she left
behind had split the uranium atom through such bombardment, releasing
enormous amounts of energy.
She instantly grasped the immensity of the discovery--that the
world was on the threshold of its atomic age. Consulting with her physicist
nephew, Otto Frisch, then working in Denmark under Niels Bohr, Meitner
was the first to explain and calculate the vast power of the nuclear reaction.
She also joined Frisch in coining the term "atomic fission," and provided
a theoretical foundation for designing the atomic bomb. The part time
resident of the U.S. and England, as well, was honored for her
achievements with the prestigious 1966 Enrico Fermi award accorded to
her by the American Atomic Energy Commission.

RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI
(1909-) b. Turin, Italy The daughter of an
engineer also suffered repression in her early
career as a medical researcher. Fascist rulings
forbade Jews to teach at Italian universities or
practice medicine. She sought safety in Belgium,
but was once again uprooted--this time by the
Nazi invasion which drove her back to Italy to
pursue research in her private Turin laboratory.
At the German takeover in 1943, the intrepid scientist fled to Florence
where she hid until the war's end.
Levi-Montalcini had long been drawn to the study of neurology,
intrigued with the anatomy of nerve cells and what influences their
function. Resuming her investigations in Turin and then at Washington
University in St. Louis (1946), she arrived at a landmark co-discovery
which led, in 1986, to a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine--the fourth
woman to win the award in that category. Levi-Montalcini had confirmed
that a constituent of mouse tumors implanted in chicken embryos
stimulated the growth of nerve tissue.
The "nerve growth factor," as it was named, plays a pivotal role in
spurring the growth of nerve cells and tissues in the peripheral nervous
system. In turn, her findings may in time further advance efforts to build
up the body's defenses against diseases of the nervous system such as
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The dual citizen of the U.S. and Italy also
received our nation's premier award in its field: The National Medal of
Science.
- Saul Stadtmauer

5/28
1999

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Irwin S. Field, Chairperson
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Visit many more notable Jews at our website: www.dorledor.org

12 Detroit Jewish News

Higher Calling

Temple Emanu-El boosts congregational
assessment to cover renovation.

elonging to Temple
Emanti-El just got pricier
to help pay for renovations
to the 42-year-old syna-
gogue that leaders say are necessary.
The Oak Park congregation recent-
ly assessed its 630 member families
$1,800, to be paid over five years.
That's in addition to membership
dues (officially $1,360, although after
adjustments, the average member
family pays $900), religious school
tuition (approximately $450 per year,
depending on the grade-level) and a
one-time $1,500 building fund.
Incoming members are exempt
from the new assessment but face a
$3,300 building fund.
According to an April 19 letter
sent to members from President
Glenn Liebowitz, the new assessment
and more-than-doubled building fund
are necessary to compensate for a
"minor shortfall" of $900,000 in the
temple's renovation budget.
Over the past two years, Emanu-El
has refurbished the foyer, sanctuary
and social hall and done other main-
tenance work on the building. These
changes were funded through the
temple's $1.5-million "Fund for Life"
campaign, to which 40 percent of
members contributed.
But, according to Liebowitz's letter,
additional projects necessary to bring
the building "up to acceptable stan-
dards" include landscaping, replacing
the roof, refurbishing the classrooms
and youth room and air conditioning
the education wing.
The assessment and building fund
will not be reduced for low-income
families, but they will be able to work
out a longer-term payment plan,
Liebowitz said.
"We really have to stand up for our
institutions and put them in order so
they can do the job they're designed
to do," he said. "All in all, the people
I've spoken to — including people
who've already made large contribu-
tions — feel like this is a good idea."
"Nobody likes to pay more money
but its like your house, you've got to
keep it up," said Huntington Woods
resident Meredith Weston-Band, a
member for 15 years. "It's important
to have a thriving temple, and to keep
it in good shape we need to put
money into it."

If it's got to be done, it's got to be
done," said Oak Park resident Ron
Padgett, a member for four years.
Liebowitz said he does not expect
the new charges to adversely affect
membership. "There's a lot of positive
feelings at our temple because of the
renovations we've done, but the reno-
vations have made obvious the areas
we didn't do yet, and everyone knows
it needs to be taken care of... People
feel good about the temple and like
being there, so hopefully they won't
mind paying for it."
The temple lost about 70 families
after Rabbi Lane Steinger left in
1996, but has gained 60 families since
hiring Rabbi Joseph Klein two years
ago, said Liebowitz.
Rabbi Elliott Kleinman, director
of the Northeast Lakes regional
office of the Reform Movement's
Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, said that assess-
ments, such as at Emanu-El, are not (—\
uncommon. As synagogue expenses
rise, congregations are seeking new
sources of revenue.
Kleinman attributes such rising
expenses to the building repairs and
renovations required by aging syna-
gogues and — with the ascendancy of
two-career households — having less
work being done by volunteers and
more by paid employees.
"Part of the rationale behind
assessments is not just raising money,
but ensuring that every member par-
ticipates and has a stake in the future
of the congregation," Kleinman said.
"I know of no congregation that
will turn people away who can't afford
dues," he said, "but often this is No.
42 on people's lists of priorities.
Synagogues are asking to be at the top
of that list, as they have been tradi-
tionally, and as they need to be if
they're going to play a larger role in
people's lives." LI

Correction

A caption on a photograph of
the first officers of the Jewish
Community Council of
Metropolitan Detroit last week
misspelled the name of the
president, Simon Shetzer.

