Cover Story

Myra Wolfgang: Labor Leader, Tireless Fighter

ALAN KANDEL

was elected secretary-treasurer and
chief executive officer of Local 24.

Special to the Jewish News

T

he auto industry has
made Detroit world
famous as the "Motor
City." But significant as
well is the city's role in the rise of
organized labor.
Members of the Jewish community
were involved in the trade union
movement from its early beginnings,
but only a few reached high leadership
levels. Myra Kamaroff Wolfgang was
one of those few.
Wolfgang came to Detroit from
Canada as a young girl in 1917. Her
aim was to study art in Pittsburgh, but
the Depression curtailed her plans.
Instead, she sought a job as a waitress
and wound up working for Louis
Koenig, Local 707, which later
became Local 24 of the Hotel and
Restaurant Employees Union.
In the 1930s, she helped organize
soup kitchens for striking autoworkers.
She also led an eight-day sit-down
strike against the F.W. Woolworth
Company and helped win a contract
for the workers.
Working her way through the
union, she became recording secre-
tary and a union organizer. In 1953,
she became an international vice
president with responsibilities over a
six-state area. Finally, in 1960, she

st)b .5

Fighting For Rights

fee
soo.,

Throughout her career, she fought for
women's rights, child care and job train-
ing for mothers. She was a sparkplug
working for the enactment of Michigan's
1966 minimum wage law. She also
served with former First Lady Eleanor
Roosevelt on the Kennedy Commission
on the status of women in 1952.
In the early 1960s, Wolfgang headed
a savvy public relations campaign on
behalf of Playboy Club "Bunnies" in
Detroit, who received no wages for
their waitressing, only tips. The cam-
paign attacked the Playboy philosophy
as "a gross perpetuation of the idea
that women should be obscene and
not heard" and lauded the Playboy
Bunnies bold enough to "bite back."
They won their first contract with the
Detroit club in 1964.
In less provocative waters, Wolfgang
was involved in such civic organiza-
tions as the Coalition of Labor Union
Women, the Mayor's Commission on
Community Relations, the Board of
the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, Detroit
Institute of Arts and WDET public
radio.
In 1954, the Detroit Common
Council presented her with a
Recognition Award. In 1975, Wolfgang

,

s7-'4. 414,

Myra Wolfgang
(walking with
striking hotel
workers, 1970.

SIDNEY BOLKOSKY
Special to the Jewish News

R

s
EliroPe-
is is the key to advancing the international exposure and reputa-
tion of Detroit's distinguished orchestra and its conductor. Davidson is
also a backer of the "Greening of Detroit," a project - to place parks in
the city, and he serves on marry charities and boards as an active
William
Detroit community leader.
Davidson
Davidson is president and chairman of the board of Auburn Hills-
based Guardian Industries Corp. and majority owner-of the Detroit
Pistons and the Palace of Auburn Hills arena.
Detroit-born and educated in Michigan, he has received numerous distinguished
honors, from the Jewish community locally and internationally as well as from the
University of Michigan, where he endowed the William Davidson Institute at the
School of Business Administration.
In recent years, Davidson has donated about $85 million to projects like the
Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel; the Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology in Haifa; and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York.

- ,

7/20
2001

❑

— Judy Levin Cantor

Max
Fisher

aised in a rural Ohio
town, with little Jewish
education, Max Fisher has
become known as the
"Dean of American Jewry" with a
"highly developed Jewish conscious-
ness."
That Jewish consciousness
began during the Depression,
when, as a struggling business-
man beginning his career, he
pledged $5 to the American
Jewish Campaign. The career
and the Jewish awareness grew
legendary.
Two former presidents,
George Bush and Gerald Ford; a
former Secretary of State, Henry
Kissinger; and then-Speaker of
the House of Representatives
Newt Gingrich, attended his 90th
birthday celebration in Detroit.
That event was feted in Israel as
well, where then-Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu called Fisher
"one of the great Jewish patriots of
our time." Former Prime Minister
Shimon Peres noted that Fisher had

