On the Bookshelf
RESTAURANT
MID-EASTERN, CHALDEAN
& AMERICAN
eery Ford And The Jews'
•Lambchops • Lamb Shish Kabob
• White Fish Curry • Tabouleh • Hommus
• Vegetarian Entrees • Fresh Catch
•Chicken Shawarma • Etc.
• Fresh Juice Bar • Cocktails and Wine
6123 HAGGERTY RD. OUST N. OF MAPLE)
BLOOMFIELD AVENUE SHOPS
WEST BLOOMFIELD
(248) 668-1800
27060 EVERGREEN (AT 11 MILE & EVERGREEN)
LATHRUP LANDING
LATHRUP VILLAGE
(248) 559-9099
COUPON GOOD AT BOTH LOCATIONS
150% OFF
Lunch or Dinner
I
With purchase of a second lunch or
dinner entree of equal or greater value
I • Dine In Only
• 1Coupon Per Couple'
• Not Valid With other Offers
• Expires 12/31/2001
L
=.1 .1
Catering For All Occasions
COMPAN
, o THE oc c
• Gift Baskets
• Sweet Trays
• Muffins
• Soups
• Cookies
Everythin,t; Made Fresh Daily
Try our Challah Bread!
$1.00 Off Any
Bread
Order
I coupon per order
Expires 11130/01
24-hour notice please on
specialty items
(some exceptions)
6879 Orchard Lake Rd.
in the Boardwalk Plaza
248-626-9110
jrN
DETROIT
rrr
i0
11/23
2001
72
=me NEWS
Classifieds
Re' sults!
(248) 354-5959
Obsessive anti-Semitism marred Detroit icon's career.
BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish News
following World War I, and how America's splintered Jewish
community attempted to cope with the tirade conducted for
91 consecutive weeks in Ford's personal newspaper, the
ne thing can be said for certain about Ford Motor
Dearborn Independent.
Company as it nears its 100th anniversary in
Baldwin, 54, who has a doctorate in English, is now execu-
2003: Compared to many stodgy companies on
tive director of the National Book Foundation, which gives
the worldwide business scene, Ford seems to
prestigious book awards each year. In the book's "Afterward"
always be in the limelight.
section, and in an interview from his Manhattan office, he
The company recently replaced CEO Jacques Nasser with
was a bit more charitable to Henry Ford than is apparent
family scion William Clay Ford Jr. — after months of major
from his documentation of the anti-Semitism.
headline-grabbing stories about tire recalls, quality problems,
He recognizes Ford's "immeasurable contribution to the
employee lawsuits, financial losses, dwindling stock value and
20th century gospel of progress," and is "impressed with
reduced dividends.
Ford's intuitive, if autocratic, mana-
But in previous years, there were
gerial drive and underlying faith in
triumphs such as Henry Ford's first
one product. However, Baldwin said,
car (the Quadricycle) in 1896, the
Ford "had an irrational, emotional
launch of the moving assembly line,
makeup. He didn't like Jews because
the popular Model T, the $5-a-day
he believed they were warmongering,
wage, the enduring Thunderbird
manipulative and alien."
The international dew:
and Mustang — as well as the ongo-
Readers of Henry Ford and the Jews
ing philanthropic endeavors of the
who had heard vague stories about
company and the family.
Ford's anti-Semitism, and even those
Yet despite all of these limelight-
familiar with Ford Motor Company
stealing events, Ford Motor is
and its history who thought they
remembered by many for the vicious
knew everything about the "crackpot
anti-Semitism of its founder Henry
genius," will be somewhat shocked
Ford — actions that caused a public
and even disgusted by his obsessive
relations nightmare for the company
anti-Semitism.
in the Jewish community.
"I spent a lot of time on documen-
Ford's relentless attack on Jews is
tation because I wanted to be totally
documented in Henry Ford and the
in command of the material,"
Jews: The Mass Production of Hate by
Baldwin explained. "When you're
Jewish author Neil Baldwin
writing about a person as famous as
(PublicAffairs; $27.50). Published
Henry Ford, it must be done in a
this month, the book is a revealing
clear, impeccable manner."
examination of one of America's
The book describes how Ford
most notorious anti-Semites.
developed a hatred for Jews while
Ford was an enigma — the quin-
growing up in Springwells Township
tessential American folk hero and
(near Dearborn) and studying the
pioneering industrialist — the man
old McGuffey Reader, which con-
whose mass-production techniques
_
tained Shakespeare's The Merchant of
made cars affordable and "put the nation on wheels." Fortune
Venice, containing the character of Shylock, the Jewish mon-
magazine named him the greatest businessman of the 20th
eylender. "Ford took Shylock literally," said Baldwin.
century.
Ford also was influenced later by a complex book called A
But Ford, called "Crazy Henry" by many of his associates,
Short View of Great Questions, which claimed, among other
also devoted immense financial resources to wacky schemes,
things, that "Judaism discredited the immortality of the soul."
along with anti-Semitic pursuits and other biases. Baldwin, a
fourth-generation New Yorker, said writing Henry Ford and
Jewish Relationships
the Jews sent him into intellectual shock as he "became famil-
iar with as much of the documented record of [2,000 years]
Leo Franklin, head rabbi at Temple Beth El from 1899-1941,
of Jew-hatred as I could stomach. Describing anti-Semitism
was one of several Jews with whom Ford carried on puzzling
undermined my faith in behavioral logic. Certain aspects of
love-hate relationships over the years.
my research about anti-Semitism and Henry Ford had me
Rabbi Franklin organized a national lobbying effort to
saying to myself, 'This just can't be true.'"
eliminate the teaching of The Merchant of Venice in public
Baldwin used meticulous research in writing the 330-page
schools, recognizing that portrayal of the Shylock character
book, a four-year project that drew upon unused interviews
was a continual thorn in the side of the Jewish , people. This
with old-time company executives in the Ford archives and
effort by Rabbi Franklin, Ford's neighbor and "friend," was a
Ford family memoirs. It tells how Ford's virulent media cam-
personal affront to the industrialist.
paign against the Jews took off during the "anxious decade"
Ford and Rabbi Franklin were neighbors on Detroit's
0