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publisher’s notebook

Picking The Big Stories & Making Predictions
With The Tuesday Night Study Group

M

embers of the Tuesday Night
News and added to the Foundation’s web-
Study Group have been astute
site, where site visitors could add their own
observers of Detroit’s Jewish
written, audio or video recollections.
community for more than 30 years. Though
For the next 90 minutes, there was a buzz
most of its suburban Detroit members are
in the room as they discussed, analyzed and
walking a bit slower these days, they contin- politely debated the crafting of a top-story
ue to invite an array of presenters to chal-
list.
lenge, inform and occasionally delight them
I’d like to share with you candidates for
with insights, opinions and anecdotes.
the top story list that were discussed that
As a frequent presenter to the
night:
group, I’ve often asked them to
• World War II and the
act as my editorial board, help-
Holocaust
ing to make decisions about what
• Holocaust refugee absorption
is newsworthy, when to consider
(or lack of absorption) in Detroit
“spiking” a story, and how to bal-
• The founding of the Jewish
ance the role and obligation of
News by Philip Slomovitz
the Jewish News to both report on
• The founding of the state of
uncomfortable realities and be a
Arthur Horwitz Israel
force for good in the community.
• The opening — and closing —
Their judgments are typically rational,
of Sinai Hospital
devoid of fantasy … and I often incorporate
• The merging of the Jewish Chronicle
their opinions into our actual decision mak- into the Jewish News in 1951
ing.
• The rise — and sale — of Jewish-
One of my more memorable presenta-
owned businesses (supermarkets, pharma-
tions was in 2013 and centered on a stack
cies, etc.)
of water- and smoke-damaged bound
• The local and global impact of Max
Jewish News volumes salvaged from the
Fisher
2002 fire that destroyed our former office
• The shooting and passing of Rabbi
in Southfield. These volumes comprised a
Morris Adler
sampling of the more than 260,000 imper-
• The 1943 Detroit riot
iled original pages, dating to the publica-
• Hank Greenberg comes back from
tion’s March 27, 1942, founding.
World War II service and plays a key role
As I shared the dream of digitizing and
in helping the Detroit Tigers win the 1945
making easily available the entire contents
American League pennant and World
of the Jewish News to all, they remained
Series
focused on the old and water-stained pages
• Detroit’s automobile industry and the
they could touch. These depicted religious
Jewish-owned business and service entities
school seders, Mumford musings, birth
that prospered greatly as a result of it
announcements, fruit and vegetable prices
• The 1967 Detroit riot/civil disturbance
at Dexter-Davison market and — of course
• The demographic shift of the Jewish
— the big stories from Detroit, Europe,
community from the city to the suburbs
Washington, D.C., the Pacific and Israel.
• The Six Day War
The dream has become a reality, with
• The Yom Kippur War
the creation of the Detroit Jewish News
• The opening and closing of the Jewish
Foundation and the November 2013 launch Community Center in Northwest Detroit
of its William Davidson Digital Archive
• The construction of the Jewish
of Jewish Detroit History. The archive
Community Center in West Bloomfield
now contains more than 300,000 pages
and the creation of the Jewish community
and spans 100 years (1916-2016) with the
campus
addition in October 2015 of the Jewish
• The election of Carl Levin to the U.S.
Chronicle. The combined collection is on
Senate
track to receive almost 250,000 annualized
• Soviet emigration and refugee absorp-
pages views.
tion in Detroit
Last month, I pressed the group into ser-
• The rise and fall of United Hebrew
vice again. With the 75th anniversary year
Schools
of the Jewish News commencing in March
• The 1993 Michigan Miracle Mission to
2017, I asked them to assist our editors
Israel
in compiling a preliminary list of the top
• The passing of Ambassador David
stories impacting the Detroit Jewish com-
Hermelin at age 63
munity over the past 75 years. From this
• The emergence of large local Jewish
list, stories would be selected for inclusion
family foundations (Davidson, Fisher,
in a commemorative issue of the Jewish
Berman, Applebaum, Farber, Kahn, Danto,

8 September 29 • 2016

Frankel, etc.) and their impact
• The opening of the country’s first
Holocaust museum in West Bloomfield and
its relocation to Farmington Hills
• The impact of the 2008-2009 economic
meltdown
• Federation’s Annual Campaign as a
focal point of Detroit continuity and shared
responsibility
• The 1989 demographic study showing
a Jewish community of 96,000, more than
20,000 higher than estimated
• Temple Israel as America’s largest
Reform movement congregation
• The rise of Dan Gilbert and his business
entities as the backbone of a Detroit busi-
ness resurgence
• The emergence of Wayne State
University as Detroit’s “City College of New
York” equivalent, thanks to a combina-
tion of Jewish students, Jewish faculty and
Jewish philanthropy

Are there additional top stories of the
past 75 years that have been overlooked? I
invite you to send your recommendations
for inclusion to me at: ahorwitz@
thejewishnews.com.
But I had one additional task for the
study group. If we were together in 2042
— celebrating the 100th anniversary of the
Detroit Jewish News — what would the top
stories be from the coming 25 years?
Admittedly, this was a tough assignment.
But even with pastries, coffee and tea beck-
oning them from a nearby table, they pulled
out their crystal balls and, collectively, we
predicted the following:
• The Detroit Jewish community will
exceed 100,000 people, with an upsurge
in the number of young adults identifying
Jewishly and living in the city (or)
• The Detroit Jewish community will
number 60,000, with half Orthodox and
the remainder either in nursing homes or
members of Temple Israel
• There will no longer be a Conservative
movement
• The automobile industry will continue
to revive and thrive in the Detroit area
• There will be a continuing resurgence
of anti-Semitism, with much of it cloaked
as anti-Israel sentiment
• Average lifespans will continue to
lengthen, and the community will be chal-
lenged to meet their needs; end-of-life
issues will become more prominent
• Cancer will be cured
• The Detroit-area Muslim population
will continue to grow
• There will be a rise of new young lead-
ers to carry the community forward

• A consortium of Jewish family foun-
dations — the largest in assets belonging
to the newly created Gilbert Foundation
— will partner with the United Jewish
Foundation (which holds the Detroit Jewish
community’s real estate and other commu-
nity assets in its portfolio) to provide overall
planning and fund coordination responsi-
bility for the Detroit Jewish community
• Almost all of Federation’s Annual
Campaign will be funded by the commu-
nity’s leading philanthropic families and
Permanent Annual Campaign Endowments
(PACE). There will be dramatic reduction in
participation from the community at large
• (No one predicted the Lions would win
a Super Bowl)

“So what about the Jewish News?” the
study group asked me. “Let’s have that cake
and coffee now,” I responded. That didn’t
work. They weren’t going to let me leave
without a prediction. So, here goes …
The Jewish News in 2042 will be an inde-
pendent and credible supplier of useful and
“unsubstitutable” information for and about
the Detroit Jewish community — but it will
be in formats that its audience wants. And
those formats will be digital. The Jewish
News print editions will live digitally in the
William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish
Detroit History. Because of this shift, the
Jewish News will adjust its business model
accordingly to carry out its mission of ser-
vice to the community.
As we enter the New Year 5777, let’s
pause to honor and celebrate our com-
munity and those who helped to build and
shape it. Their stories — and the stories of
your family — are at your fingertips in the
William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish
Detroit History via www.djnfoundation.org.
It contains big stories — as the list from
the Tuesday Study Group attests — but also
the equivalent of our community’s DNA
— the smallest bits of information about
tens of thousands of people that, when
combined, tells for all time the remarkable
and continuing story of our Detroit Jewish
community.
I appreciate your ongoing readership,
trust and support and look forward to shar-
ing and celebrating the upcoming Jewish
News 75th anniversary with you.

*

L’shanah tovah,

Arthur Horwitz
Publisher & Executive Editor