Insight

Remember
When • •

Remembering Our Vets

From the Jewish News pages for this
week 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60
years ago.

Coming exhibit at JCC will highlight Jews' military stories.

HARRY KIRS BAUM
Stqfflr;-iter

Cuba's San Juan Hill.
• The veterans of World War II will comprise the biggest
section, because 10,000 Jews.from Michigan served and
about 225 were killed in action.
Christein said people have generously contributed mem-
orabilia for the exhibit, which will include photographs,
artifacts, uniforms and medals.

ach of Sylvia Granader's eight grandchildren has a
framed portrait of her from 1942, climbing into
the plane she flew during Air Force flight training
at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas.
Granader, now 81 and living in Beverly Hills, Mich., was
one of the lucky 1,074 Women Airforce Service Pilots (out of
Funding From UJF
25,000 applicants) who earned their wings to become the first
women active military pilots in U.S. history. And — as far as
Created by Detroit designer James Conway, the 40-foot
she knows — she was the only Jewish "WASP" among them.
exhibit will be placed in the hallway past the Michigan
"They nicknamed me `Schwartzy' after my maiden
Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in the JCC Kahn Building, and
name," she said. "It was just a
have rotating exhibits about other
wonderful group."
veterans as well as an interactive
Granader spent her year as a
kiosk.
WASP stationed in Wilmington,
The United Jewish Foundation, the
Del. Earning $250 a month and
Federation's financial-banking arm,
with six ladies to a barrack, they
provided a $100,000 grant-loan for
spent their days practicing flight
the exhibit.
maneuvers and airplane
"Federation is raising capital to
mechanics.
repay the Foundation for the grant,"
She resigned when the Air
said Robert Slatkin, chairman of the
Force wanted to transfer her to
JWV memorial project. "We hope to
Waco, Texas, to tow targets from
repay them. We think we will, but
her plane that military trainees
they're not going to pull the funding
would shoot at with live ammu-
if we don't."
nition.
Some consider the exhibit a corn-
That didn't sit good with
promise. Originally, the veterans
me," she said. Two of her friends
wanted to sell their JWV Memorial
already had been shot down by
Home in Southfield and move their
mistake.
hundreds of photographs of
Now, Granader's memorabilia
Michigan veterans who died to a
will be part of "We Were There:
room inside the JCC.
Michigan Jewish War Veterans,"
"I would have preferred more of a
a permanent exhibit scheduled
memorial than an exhibit, but when
to open at the Jewish
they're putting up the money, you
Air Force pilot Sylvia (Schwartz) Granader
Community Center in West
gotta do what you gotta do," said
and her plane, 1942.
Bloomfield on Memorial Day
Robert Feldman, JWV Memorial
2003.
Home president.
Curator of the show is Heidi Christein, director of the
Slatkin said the present memorial room in Southfield is
Leonard N. Simons Jewish Community Archives. It is
"really more for [the veterans] than the public." Proceeds
housed at the Bloomfield Township-based Jewish
from the JWV home's sale will help the group find another
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.
location for a memorial room and an office, "and they will
"The idea is to show Michigan Jewish military personnel
continue to function until the last man," he said.
from the Civil War — the first war that happened after
With the planned exhibit, "we're going beyond their gen
Michigan became a state — to Desert Storm," Christein
eration," Slatkin said. "We're trying to have every genera-
said.
tion be aware that Jewish men fought and went off to war."
"The exhibit will try to be an educational exhibit by
With sale of the building now pending, Feldman said the
selecting a few stories of different people who served in dif-
group hopes to place its photographs at the Jewish
ferent wars and different units," she said.
Community Center in Oak Park or in a synagogue.
Included will be several photos of men who fought in the
He said Federation may not have stepped up "until they
1898 Spanish-American War, including one of a man
were pressured, but they did step up and put their money
astride a horse with then Lt. Col. Teddy Roosevelt on
where their mouth was, with the help of Robert Slatkin."

1992
Shower Yisrael (Guardians of Israel)
is formed as a new project by stu-
dent volunteers to help Russian and
Ethiopian Jews find work in Israel.
More than 1,300 guests and 650
students attend the 78th annual
dinner in support of Yeshiva Beth
Yehudah at Detroit's Renaissance
Center.

1.9814.
The Jewish Community Center of
Metropolitan Detroit is now offer-
ing women's self-defense classes.
Perfection Lodge honors
Detroiter Louis Blumberg on his
60th year as a mason at a dinner
held at Ferndale Masonic Temple.

1972
The musical Milk and Honey is
staged at the Aaron DeRoy Theatre
at the JCC in Detroit.
A traveling photograph exhibit
called "Holocaust and Resistance"
opens at the Herzl Auditorium
Gallery in New York City.

1962
Ground-breaking ceremonies are
held for Hebrew Memorial Chapel,
being built by. Hebrew Benevolent
Society on Greenfield Road, south
of 11 Mile Road, in Oak Park.
Knesset member Abba Eban is
the guest of honor at an Israel
Bonds dinner held at Cobo Hall in
Detroit.

The American Jewish Committee
charges the Soviet Union with
enslaving thousands of Jews in
labor and internment camps during
World War II.

For the first time, all of Detroit's
rabbis assemble at one gathering at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek. The
occasion is to honor Dr. A.M.
Hershman for his 35 years of serv-
ice to the synagogue.

— Compiled by Holly Teasdle,
archivist, the Leo Ni Franklin
Archives, Temple Beth El

❑

11/22

2002

29