1900-2000
S tart the new millennium la g
planning for gour future
Ask yourself the
following questions:
of attitudes regarding Palestine; and
the arrival and integration of
Holocaust survivors.
THE MAGNET: ISRAEL
• Are you 50 years
or older?
everywhere by the birth of Israel, and
for all the contributions survivors
brought to Detroit Jewish life, noth-
ing good came from the Holocaust.
Israel did not arise because of the
murder of the Jews — if it did, some
may argue, it was a bad bargain. And
survivors did not move from good to
bad to better —life was and is not so
simple. They participated in Jewish
life, became like other Jewish
Americans, but carried fragments of a
tragically lost Old World with them.
The remnants of that world remain
for the rest of us to accept or reject in
the next century.
The growth of Zionism had tend-
ed to divide further a fundamentally
divided people. Quite suddenly, with
the dramatic 33-13 United Nations
General Assembly vote on Nov. 29,
1947, approving the creation of the
state of Israel, this external source of
Jewish identity became primary.
Labor Zionists in Detroit grew
stronger, as did Histadrut, the social-
ist labor organization headed interna-
tionally by David Ben-Gurion. Next
to the labor-oriented constituency of
SIX DAY WAR AND BEYOND
Labor Zionism now stood business-
Israel galvanized the Jews of this
men who began to invest in Palestine.
country, if not in 1948, then in 1967.
These Detroit Jews seemed to be
The decade began with the trial of
preparing for the remarkable role
they would play in the future.
On May 16, 1948, some
22,000 exuberant participants in
Detroit celebrated the birth of
the state of Israel. Subsequent
generations have perceived the
state as a rebirth for the Jewish
people. As a post-Holocaust phe-
nomenon, the founding of Israel
has been linked to the new
lives" begun by survivors.
As the politics of Israel
unfolded, survivors of the Shoah
began to arrive in Detroit.
Mostly they remained shrouded
in silence, frequently discour-
aged from telling their stories
until the 1980s. Having experi-
enced massive psychic trauma in
various forms, they shared a
common phenomenon: loss.
They had lost families, ways of
life, security, certainty; some had
lost faith, others clung to it.
Morris Schaver and Ben Herold look over sup-
They were unquestionably mis-
plies being sent to the Israel Defense Forces by
understood in America — crea-
Central Overall Co. in the 1950s.
tures from another planet who
would, eventually, become "nor-
mal" like the rest of us.
Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, bringing
"It's not normal that we're so nor-
home to some the fragility of Jewish
mal," noted one survivor, a sentiment
existence. Six years after the trial, as her
intelligible only after oral history pro-
neighbors prepared to destroy Israel, the
jects and international survivor gath-
specter of the Holocaust loomed large
erings began in 1980. In Detroit, the
in the eyes of world Jewry.
Holocaust Memorial Center aided in
Detroit industrial magnate Max
that process, as did the University of
Fisher was called from holiday to sit
Michigan-Dearborn oral history pro-
in on a war council in Tel Aviv. He
ject. Dearborn, the home of Henry
heard the decision for war and
Ford, became a repository for
returned to his vacation with good
Holocaust testimonies, an irony
friend Henry Ford II. Ford gave
matched only by the recent dedica-
Fisher a $100,000 check, then Fisher
tion of a Sephardic Torah purchased
raced to Detroit where he and anoth-
by Henry Ford's great-grandson.
er friend, Paul Zuckerman, chairman
For all the joy brought to Jews
of the Israel Emergency Fund, led
• Do you have assets
you want to leave to your
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• Do you place a high
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• If we could show you a
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email: glrbase@aol.com
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12/31
1999
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