metro >> on the cover

Days Of Future Past

Detroit seniors look to the city's past with an eye to the future.

Josh EI'Chonen I JN Intern

Above: At the ground breaking of the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield,
Sept. 23, 1973: Samuel Frankel, Alan Schwartz, Mandell "Bill" Berman, Max Fisher, Paul
Zuckerman, Alfred L. Deutsch, Richard Kux.

Top right: Dr. Guy Stern, director of the Institute of the Righteous at the Holocaust
Memorial Center, and Paula Marks-Bolton, who speaks there as a survivor.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

David Tanzman of Oak Park, a Detroiter
for most of his life, originally came from
Corona, N.Y. Early jobs included dusting
women's fur hats in a factory, building can-
dlesticks for the holidays and making cotton
deliveries for the garment industries.
Later, because he could sing, he landed a
job as a sound technician at a local radio sta-
tion providing sound effects.
During World War II, Tanzman fought
in the Battle of the Bulge in Europe, was
promoted to a chaplain administrator,
arranged Gen. George S. Patton's funeral and
conducted the first High Holiday services in
Heidelberg, Germany, after the war.
When the war ended, Tanzman worked
first as a government messenger in
Washington and later became a mediator for
the National Defense Mediation Board and
then the National Wage Stabilization Board.
In September 1948, he relocated to
Detroit to join the newly established Federal
Mediation and Conciliation Service. Its focus
was to prevent labor disputes through medi-
ation and arbitration. One of Tanzman's first
assignments was to resolve a teacher strike at

Yeshiva Beth Yehudah.
Bill Berman of Franklin was born in
Detroit and is a longtime businessman and
philanthropist. He graduated from Harvard
University and served as a naval officer dur-
ing WWII. Berman then started a success-
ful career in the building business with his
brother-in-law and became president of the
Southeastern Michigan Builders Association.

Early Leadership
According to Berman, Detroit's past leaders
were many. Specifically, those involved with
the Jewish Federation in Detroit were of
primary significance. Having been involved
with Federation for many years, Berman is
proud to be considered a leader himself.
Fred Butzel (1877-1948), a lawyer and
community philanthropist, was recognized
as one of the great Jewish leaders of his time.
His efforts played a prominent role in Jewish
welfare and educational programs.
"The Butzel name was the name to aspire
to when I was a kid:' Berman recalls. "He
was the name we all knew."
Berman gives credit to Max Fisher
(1908-2005), another renowned com-

David Tanzman
at Young Israel
of Oak Park

munity leader in Detroit, for helping him
grow into more leadership roles. Fisher was
a passionate supporter of Israel and the city
of Detroit.
In the late 1950s, the Jewish community
had a heated controversy involving multiple
Jewish factions. Fisher was approached to
help dissolve the quagmire revolving around
the Jewish Community Center on Curtis and
Meyers operating on Shabbat. At the time,
Berman was vice president at Congregation
Shaarey Zedek. When Fisher started to form
a new committee, he approached Berman to
act as chairman.
Berman makes the point that to "want" is
not enough: "You have to be ambitious to do
it:' he said, and he followed his own advice.
Today, at age 97, he is a patriarch of Jewish
Detroit and best known for his contributions
to Jewish and secular education.
Marks-Bolton considers Rabbi Goldman
an outstanding leader in those earlier days.
One way he helped was by giving a fresh
sense of community to those who needed it.
From 1982 until 2010, the late rabbi was a
chaplain at Providence Hospital in Southfield

and Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.
"When it became hard for him to walk, he
still went to the hospitals — with a walker:'
Marks-Bolton said.
Goldman's daughter, Rose Brystowski,
would drive her father on many occasions to
the hospitals and stay late with him.
"He had to see every Jewish patient and
their roommates, too:' Brystowski said.
Tanzman recalls Rabbi Samuel Prero
(1916-2003) as a leader. Prero came to
Detroit in 1948, and started fundraising for
Yeshiva Beth Yehudah. Then he began help-
ing to grow the Young Israel movement, the
congregation's new building on Dexter and
youth activities. Eventually, Prero became
the rabbi of Young Israel in 1950.
Tanzman, a longtime Young Israel mem-
ber, developed a close relationship with the
rabbi. He recalls an incident when an indi-
vidual who maintained a lower standard of
religious observance was elected to the board
of a synagogue.
Tanzman approached Prero in private and
asked, "What do we do?"
To which Prero replied, "You do nothing!

Future Past on page 10

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February 19 • 2015

JN

