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Detroit Jewry responds vigorously to the founding of the State of Israel.

Louis Finkelman I Special to the Jewish News

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

father, philanthropist and businessman
Max Fisher, at home in the Lee Plaza Hotel
in Detroit, huddling over the radio to hear
news of Palestine.
Benno Levi of Oak Park, then a student
at Wayne State and recently demobilized
from the Pacific Theater, recalls that "the
whole community was glued to the radio:'
Rita Bigman, who now lives in Ra'anana,
Israel, uses about the same words. That
description appears in nearly every
account of Detroit Jews of that period.
A peaceful partition seemed impossible.
Arabs and Jews scrambled to get weapons
for the coming conflict. The U.S. govern-
ment responded cautiously, even discour-
agingly. In December 1947, Secretary of
State Gen. George Marshall announced
that the U.S. had embargoed arms for all
combatants in Palestine; but the Jews in
Palestine needed arms from the United
States, and the Arabs had many other sup-
pliers.
On May 15, 1948, David Ben-Gurion
announced the formation of a new, inde-
pendent state to be called Israel. The next
day, armies from five Arab states invaded,
vowing to destroy the new Jewish State. In
the vivid words of Hassan al-Banna, found-
er of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood:
"If the Jewish state becomes a fact, and
this is realized by the Arab peoples, they
will drive the Jews who live in their midst
into the sea ... Even if we are beaten now
in Palestine, we will never submit. We will
never accept the Jewish state" (New York
Times, Aug. 2, 1948).
The Detroit Jewish community
responded on May 17 with a rally at the

12 May 2 • 2013

THE JEWISH NEWS

mt.

A Weekly Review w of Jewish Events

And I will t•,,n II

inhabit them: and they s1,811

of my pe ople Israel, and they shall bald the waste places and

vineyar ds. and &in, the wine thereor, they 51.11 also ma.

gardens and eat the Iruits d them. And I will plant them upon their land. end they shell no

more ba pl,ckod 4, out of their land which I kayo 4yen them. sallk the Lord thy God.

—(Amos 1.14-15))

We Acclaim

the Reborn

State of

ISRAEL

Perhaps news of
the destruction of
European Jewry
had convinced
many of the most
skeptical Jews that
we needed a Jewish
State.

and the

First

Provisional

President

massive Central High School athletic field.
According to contemporary estimates,
22,000 attended. The rally represented a
hard-won unity of nearly all Jewish organi-
zations.
Lila Corwin Berman, history profes-
sor at Temple University in Philadelphia,
has a forthcoming book on the Jews of
Detroit. She notes that by 1948, Detroit
Jews were largely united by fervent sup-
port for the new state. "In earlier decades,
when German and Central European Jews
controlled more of the Jewish wealth in the
city, this had not been the case she says.
Philip Slomovitz, when he established
the Jewish News in 1942, was already a fer-

The May 21, 1948, Jewish News
proclaimed in Hebrew, "Long Live

the Land of Israel."

vent champion of Zionism; his pages and
his editorials reflected that view.
But that was not true with all. Rabbi Leo
Franklin of Temple Beth El, for example,
recognized as one of the leading rabbis in
America, had been a founding member
of the American Council for Judaism, an
obsessively anti-Zionist group. But, after 42
years, Franklin had retired. His longtime
associate rabbi, Leon Fram, an outspoken
Zionist, left to serve as rabbi at Temple
Israel. Beth El's new leader, Rabbi Benedict
Glazer, was also a Zionist. By 1948, though,
opposition to Zionism among Detroit's
Jews had crumbled.
In June 1948, Franklin resigned from the

American Council for Judaism.
A.M. Hershman, the long-serving rabbi
of Congregation Shaarey Zedek, one of the
first Conservative synagogues in America,
was also a leader in the religious Zionist
organization, Mizrahi, and the congrega-
tion had long ago urged all its members to
join the Zionists of America. It was, accord-
ing to local historian Sidney Bolkosky, the
first major congregation in the Midwest to
endorse Zionism. When Hershman retired
in 1946, the congregation chose Rabbi
Morris Adler, another staunch champion of
Zionist causes.
Forceful Zionist rabbis led the Detroit
Orthodox community, including Rabbis
Joshua Sperka and Irving Stollman,
who became head of an international
religious Zionist group, the World
Mizrahi Organization. Led by Rabbi Max
Wohlgelernter of Beth Tikva Emanuel, all
of Detroit's Orthodox congregations had
sent telegrams to President Truman urging
him to recognize the new Jewish State.
Perhaps news of the destruction of
European Jewry had convinced many of
the most skeptical Jews that we needed a
Jewish State. Bolkosky writes in his book,

Harmony and Dissonance: Voices of Jewish
Identity in Detroit 1914-1967, that "some of
those who opposed it became neutral, and
some of them turned to its support. Those
who had been indifferent became Israel's
champions:'
All synagogue rabbis — Reform,
Conservative and Orthodox — appeared
on the dais at the Central High School rally,
along with leaders of every significant sec-
ular Jewish organization. Bolkosky recalls
that the program included speeches by

Leonard N. S imons Jewis h Commu n ity Arc hives

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