1910-1920
Cornerstone-laying ceremony for Congregation
Shaarey Zedek on Nov. 13, 1913. From right to
left in front row, Rabbi Abraham Hershman,
Rabbi Judah Levin and congregation president
David Simons.
• 1910-1920: Yiddish culture was
alive and well in Detroit in the first
David Simons: real estate
civic leader and member
nine-man city council.
decades of the century. Sholem Aleichem
visited the city as a guest of the
Progressive Literary Dramatic Club;
Rabbi Judah Levin: reli-
gious, communal and
Zionist leader; educator;
scholar; an organizer of
the United Orthodox
Rabbis of American;
other famous Yiddish writers and actors
followed. World War I raged in Europe
and, like other American Jews, those in
and inventor of an
adding machine.
Detroit turned their attention to it
many wondering about the impact on
their relatives still in Europe. One con-
sequence of such concerns was the col-
laborative formation of the American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
MESSENGMA x C A B CO
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Landsmanshaftn (groups formed by
people from the same hometown) began
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PE
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to proliferate, a reflection of the immi-
grants' homesickness, or loneliness, or
just their need for a place to speak
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Yiddish. Regardless of the degree of
Yiddishkeit, for Detroit Jews the 20s
seemed to be an era of organizational
beginnings — social as well as communal.
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Abe Hertzberg and his taxicab company
on Broadway Avenue, circa 1912.
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