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

MsT.

5„.1Am

Landsmanshaftn (groups formed by

people from the same hometown) began

14
0
PE

•

to proliferate, a reflection of the immi-

grants' homesickness, or loneliness, or

just their need for a place to speak

. ..

'..ie: 1 ,...

„

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.

....,

:

......, ..

.....

. ...,.. d.

Abe Hertzberg and his taxicab company
on Broadway Avenue, circa 1912.

.

n .

.