A Century of Jewish Detroit

1900-1910

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• 1900-1910: The "reluctant melting
pot" characterized these years. As the
Great Migration of eastern European

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immigrants continued, the question of

Americanization, with the threat of

losing Jewish identity, loomed large. It

was a decade of organization and

reorganization as the United Jewish

Charities spoke on behalf of the Jews

of Detroit, yet without appreciation of

the difficulties of merging immigrant
Jews into a "melting pot" with earlier

Temple Beth El on Woodward Avenue and Eliot
Street, where it remained from 1903-1922.

arrivals. As the UJC cooperated with

the Industrial Removal Office, the

Jews of Detroit subtly seemed to

acknowledge the potential anti-

semitism of middle America — even

as the automobile companies respond-

ed positively by providing jobs to the

new immigrants.

Rabbi Abraham Hershman and his
wife on their honeymoon in 1909. A
graduate of the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, he was Detroit's
first Conservative rabbi.

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