Obituaries are updated regularly
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Jewish Values
LEONARD POGER
Copy Editor
Ann Arbor
laywright Arthur Miller used themes of impor-
tant Jewish values in many of his works, said
Enoch Brater, a University of Michigan profes-
sor who has specialized on Miller's career for the past
decade. In one Holocaust-Chemed production, Incident
at Vichy Mr. Miller stressed the importance of personal
responsibility in place of a simple apology of guilt.
Mr. Miller is most known for one of his early
Broadway dramas, Death of a Salesman. Ironically, he
died Feb. 10, 2005, of heart failure on the 56th
anniversary of the opening of that play. Mr. Miller, 89,
died in his Roxbury, Conn., home.
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The West Bloomfield-based Jewish Ensemble Theatre
(JET) previously scheduled one of Mr. Miller's short
plays, The Last Yankee, to be staged March 16-April 17.
The play concerns the public's prejudices toward
women with mental or emotional illnesses.
On Mr. Miller's incorporation of Jewish themes and
values into several plays, JET'S artistic director Evelyn
Orbach said, "Mr. Miller was always a social activist but
didn't want to be known as a 'Jewish' writer. He wanted
to be known as a major international writer."
Orbach also said that Mr. Miller's later plays used the
Holocaust and Jewish themes, and he became more
open in identifying with the Jewish community
"He was always a social activist who wrote about the
problems of the world," she said.
While the characters weren't clearly identified as Jews,
they had Jewish backgrounds, such as the furniture
appraiser in The Price, Orbach added.
p
.
Professor Brater, a U-M English and theater profes-
sor, commented that Mr. Miller's views were shaped by
growing up before the Great Depression in New York
City. He was raised by Yiddish-speaking parents and
had a bar mitzvah. "He grew up in a upper-middle-class
background in a Jewish neighborhood," Brater said.
"He was in a very Jewish world" with his family made
up of cultural Jews. And his Jewish background had a
"profound impact" on his plays.
A major theme of many of his plays was the impor-
tance of ethics and responsibility. Brater said that several
of Mr. Miller's plays stressed a Jewish value that
"responsibility is action-based. He had his characters ask
`What can.you do?'"
The professor, who is teaching an Arthur Miller semi-
nar class this semester, said that the playwright assimi-
lated Jewish values at their best into his works.
Mr Miller was thankful; Brater added, - forrhe °ppm-
tuni:
tiOs, - that America gave Jews: The nation 1.1owed
-
Jews io "take part in its society and to be whatever they-I.::.
wantecrto be. America -valtied'meritocrky."
"Arthur Miller was a public intellectual who used his
position to speak out against injustices," Brater said.
By coincidence, Brater edited a book, Arthur Miller's
America, that came out just a week before the play-
wright's death. Brater also has written his own book,
The Stages ofArthur Miller, to be published in October.
In an interview six years ago, Mr. Miller told the JN
that he doesn't have "any connection with any organ-
ized religion. I never had, and I don't now But I do
identify myself as a Jew, just not as a religious Jew."
In the interview, Mt Miller acknowledged that Willy
Loman, the main character in Death of a Salesman, was
Jewish and that the character was based on one of his
own uncles, a salesman who committed suicide.
While Mr. Miller was widely regarded as one of
America's most important playwrights, he had a special
affinity for his alma mater, the University of Michigan.
The university honored him many times, including a
*
expires Feb. 25, 2005
code 0225
weeklong symposium held
five years ago. More recent-
ly, the school recognized his
contributions by the nam-
ing of a new theater in his
honor in the planned
Walgreen Drama Center
on the north campus.
Mr. Miller was attracted
to U-M during the Great
Depression because it had a
highly regarded theater pro-
gram and offered an annual
$250 Hopwood Award
prize for the best student
Arthur Miller
writings — or about four
times the school's then-annual tuition. He won it twice.
University President Mary Sue Coleman said in a
statement, "we mourn the death of Arthur Miller, one
of the nation's most celebrated playwrights and a loyal
alumnus whose affection for the university endured for
his lifetime."
He "expressed his genius in an exquisite ability to
communicate the beauty and sadness of ordinary peo-
ple and everyday life. We are proud that Michigan
played a part in his life and grateful for the many ways
this extraordinary man shared himself with us."
In 1998, the school's literary publication,
Michigan Quarterly, had its entire edition devoted to
. Miller and his contributions to the theater.
Mr. Miller's last appearance on the campus was
this past spring when he met with part of the uni-
versity community and had the theater department
produce a montage of memorable scenes from about
a half-dozen of his most best-known plays.
Mr. Miller's reputation and the use of his plays by
generations of high school and college drama stu-
dents is reflected in the more than 1.5 million
entries in the Google search engine.
YESHIVA BETH YEHUDAH
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"The entire world is sustained by the Torah study of young chifdree':
During the coming week, the students of Yeshiva Beth Yehudah
will study in memory of the following departed friends.
In addition, Kaddish will be said during the daily minyan.
Adar 11 / February 20
Rose Aronoff
Esther Janet Bragman
Max E. Charness
Anne Kaufman
Bertha Kole
Louis Menenberg
Solomon Rosenberg
Ernest Wolfsheimer
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Benjamin Bruseloff
Rabbi Joseph
Eisenman
Kalman Solomon
Florence
Pearl Herskovitz
Simcha Kleinemus
Karl Loewenstein
Ada Shapiro
Adar 15 / February 24
Annette Borovitz
Eva Bunin
Betty Dinkin
Bertha Feldman
Alfred C. Funke
Morris J. Hart
Sarah Horowitz
Morris Karbal
" Louis Kukes
Adar 12 / February 21 Adar 14 / February 23 Herman Miller
Risha Benjamin
Myron J Armon
Meyer Ephraim Revzin
Susan Bernstein
Tillie Cohen
Alvin Bernard Spector
Esther A Bolton
Abraham Eisenman
Louis Daniels
Frieda Gottlieb
Adar 16 / February 25
Clara Eisenberg
Celia King
Harry B. Park
Lena Farber
Bessie Kushner
Ann Rubenfaer
David Grossman
Gerald A Lobel
Nathan Ruzumna
Henry Grossman
Ellis Markofsky
Ma I ka Yassky
Isadore Kramer
Isaac Mickelson
Samuel Techner
Morris Music
Adar 17 / February 26
Esther Nusbaum
Lillian Belkin
Adar 13 / February 22 Samuel Plotkin
Rebecca Bresler
Ethel Arden
Sarah Seppen
Jennie Butensky
Abraham Berkowitz
Sarah Eizen
Morris Fine
Vojtech Haber
Kate Henock
Szmul Jutkiewicz
Louis Kasoff
Maurice Katz
Nathan Krentzin
Isaac Levine
Elkan Levine
Shabse Yosef Lipschutz
Zalman Lopata
Louis Moss
Bernard Naiman
Jack Pollock
Samuel Silver
Charles Solomon