The Jewish Century

Jewry's Role in

Human Affairs

AT THE CROSSROADS OF GOVERNMENT

close to Alvin's life once again.
"My brother-in-law wanted to
build a house in Bloomfield Hills,
right next door ro the Kingsley Inn,
Alvin said. "He was a builder. People
wouldn't sell him the land at first
because he was Jewish. They tried to
stop him from building. He rook it to
court. Eventually, he built a beautiful
home on six acres of land. But he
didn't live to enjoy it."

))

The civil rights movement of the '60s
created new dynamics between the
Jewish and black communities.
The civil rights movement had an
unexpected impact on the following
three decades of Alvin's life.
"I was living in the St. Martin
Apartments on Meyers Road and
Seven Mile," Alvin began her story. "I
was visiting my sister ar her apartment
on 11 Mile. And we were watching
the TV news when they said Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinat-
ed. My sister said 'you better not go
home,' because Seven Mile had a lot
of problem kids hanging out there
then. I stayed overnight at my sister's.
"The next day I went home and
found my windows broken, glass
everywhere. Then the phone rang. It
was the manager of County Court
apartments on Greenfield in
Southfield. I had Hed out an applica-
tion there a while before. The manag-
er said there was an opening. I moved
in there less than a month later.
"That was 31 years ago, and I'm
still here in the same apartment."

Metro Detroit's Jewish com m unity
made a geographical swing to the
north and west. In 1975, the Jewish
Community Center made a 20-mile
leap to the northwest, moving from
Curtis and Meyers in Detroit to
Maple and Drake in West Bloomfield.
Alvin reflected on her own syna-
> gogues ' movements in those same
geographical directions.
She joined B'nai David when she
moved to Michigan. "It was on
Elmhurst near Linwood at the time.
Then they built the new one on
Chicago Boulevard. Then they built
the new one here, by Nine Mile."
B'nai David is now on Maple
Road in West Bloomfield and has
been looking for a new sire.

The Jewish community of metro Detroit
became active in the Russian resettlement
movement in the kite 70s and '80s,
eventually bringing thousands of former
Soviet Jewish families to metro Detroit.
Alvin found her thoughts and life

connected to the Russian Jews.
"Almost 30 years ago, when I
belonged to B'nai B'rith, I wrote a let-
ter to Ted Kennedy asking him to try
and help the Russians," Alvin reflected
as she pointed to a response from Sen.
Kennedy on her wall. "This was before
they were allowed ro come in. He
wrote back and he said he shared my
concern and would do all he could.
"The Russians starred coming to
America," she remembered. "Now we
have five families living here in this
.building. I do talk Yiddish, so I can
talk with them."

The opening of the 1-696 expressway
through parts of Oak Park and
Southfield at the end of the '80s served
to connect the east- and west-segmented
Jewish communities. Because ofJewish
community activism, the project also
included construction of three decks,
allowing people to cross the freeway to
travel by foot to their synagogue.
Alvin watched from her apart-
ment window on Greenfield as the
new highway was built.
"The expressway didn't bother me,"
remembered Alvin. " I enjoyed watch-
ing them build it. It was very interest-
ing to see how the machinery could do
the wonderful things they were doing.
"I remember the first day it opened
up, my children were coming here to
see me. They called to say they were on
their way, and they were here 10 min-
utes later. I said, 'How come you're
here so fast?' They said they took the
new expressway that had just Opened."

A Shared Regard

Over the decades and through the '90s,
both organized Judaism and Mabel
Alvin have seen a steady growth in secu-
lar Judaism.
Jewish leaders have documented an
unusually large number of secular Jewish
organizations throughout metro Detroit.
Alvin just watches it amongst her
family, which includes five grandchil-
dren and two great-grandchildren.
"A lot of them don't keep kosher,"
she reflected. 'A lot of the young gen-
erations start to give up on the tradi-
tions. But I make sure my house is
kosher. I bring my kosher hot dogs to
their barbecues and they make sure to
have some kosher foods there for me.
"We respect each other," Alvin
concluded.
And that's likely, she suspects, the
way the Jewish community of metro
Detroit will continue to thrive for the
next 100 years, in mutual affection
and respect. Ili

Whether in the corridors of government or on pathways to it, Jewish
leadership and political persuasiveness have helped shape the future of
nations.

GOLDA MEIR
(1898-1978) b. Kiev, Russia Founder and Fourth
Prime Minister of Israel She was born to an

impoverished family which emigrated to
Milwaukee, WI, in 1906, to improve its fortunes.
Although graduating as a teacher from what
would evolve into the University of Wisconsin,
she was diverted to political activism and the
Zionist movement. Married at age nineteen to
Morris Myerson, she and her sign painter husband resettled in Palestine in
1921--an event that became the defining moment of a life given to creating
a Jewish homeland and to its quest for survival.
Respected for her plainspoken sincerity, steadfast honesty and
political dexterity, Meir (her adopted Hebrew surname) forged her early
career with vital posts in the Jewish Agency, the key Jewish organization
in British controlled Palestine. During and after World War Two, she
forcefully argued the Zionist position with the English occupiers, and in
1946 served as the "acting prime minister" of the Yishuv (the Jewish
community). Two years later, Meir was a signatory of Israel's
independence proclamation, the only woman in the Jewish state's first
legislature, and Israel's first ambassador to the Soviet Union.
•
Step by deliberate step, she rose in her nation's hierarchy: as
minister of labor, minister of foreign affairs, and secretary general of the
Mapai party. Meir succeeded Prime Minister Levi Eshkol after his death
in 1969 and presided during the Yom Kippur War. In the stunned
aftermath of that conflict, she left office troubled by hardships in forming
an effective coalition government--although not before sowing the seeds
for the Egyptian peace pact. As a mark of her courage and strength, the
much beloved "team" leader had suffered leukemia during the last twelve
years of life.

BERNARD BARUCH

(1870 1965) b. Camden, SC Financier and
Confidant of Presidents
Opposite the White
House in Lafayette Square stands a park bench
which memorialized the most prominent and
esteemed unofficial presidential adviser in our
country's history. While seated on the tree-shaded
bench, Bernard Baruch would hold court and
confer with government officials on matters of
economic and political policy. His direct influence within the Oval Office,
as well, touched every administration from that of Woodrow Wilson
to that of John F. Kennedy.
Bernard's father, Simon (1840-1921), was equally distinguished in
his time and profession: as a doctor who served in the Confederate Army,
as author of a standard text on military surgery, and as the first to correctly
diagnose and successfully remove a ruptured appendix--a technique he
pioneered. But his son was drawn to another calling, humbly launching his
career as an office boy. While still young, he entered Wall Street brokerage
and amassed a personal fortune as a stock market analyst and speculator.
Baruch retired from finance to chair the War Industries Board
which mobilized America's economy to fight World War One. As an
advisor to the American Peace Commission meeting in Versailles, he also
counseled President Wilson on peace terms. His relationship with FDR
was enduring and fruitful. Baruch advanced plans for New Deal programs,
and again counseled on economic controls that helped win the second
world war.
In close collaboration with the Truman administration, he was said
to have framed the President's atomic energy control strategy. More than
any other American of his day, Baruch embodied the non-partisan integrity
and wisdom that earned the trust of presidents and high honor as the
nation's "elder statesman."

-

-Saul Stadtmauer

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Detroit Jewish News

6/11
1999

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