From the DJN
Davidson
Digital Archive

looking back

On Feb. 1, 1926, the first phase of the newly built
Detroit Central High School opened for students.
Located east of Linwood between Tuxedo and
Lawrence avenues, in the Dexter, or 12th Street, area
of Detroit, the building was part of a large education
complex with the high school, a middle school and
an elementary school. Initially built with a capacity

to accommodate 1,800 students, by 1938, more
than half of the 764 graduating seniors were Jewish,
which led to Central High becoming known by locals
as “the Jewish school.” By 1942, during WWII, 80
percent of Central’s students were most likely Jewish,
as indicated by a population study conducted by the
Jewish Welfare Federation. •

For 75 Years And Counting,
The JN Tells Our Stories

W

hen asked to reflect upon the
75th anniversary of the Detroit
Jewish News, the first idea that
popped into my head was about children at
Temple Israel. I’ll explain this in a moment.
As the archivist for
the Detroit Jewish News
Foundation and the
principal archivist for the
Bentley Historical Library
at University of Michigan,
I can tell you without res-
ervation that the JN holds
a critical and significant
Mike Smith
place within the Jewish
Detroit Jewish News
community.
Foundation Archivist
No other publication
in Detroit provides the
community with current news of Jewish
people and important events. And, the
Foundation’s William Davidson Archive of
Jewish Detroit History captures 100 years
of community history in more than 300,000
pages from the JN and its predecessor, the
Detroit Jewish Chronicle.
But, here is the more important point.
The stories in the JN are personal stories,
your stories. No greater illustration of this
came during a recent visit to Temple Israel
in West Bloomfield, where Tessa Goldberg,
administrative assistant for the DJN Foun-
dation, and I visited a class of seventh-
graders to introduce them to the Davidson
Archive.
I must admit, at first, I wasn’t sure if any
of the children in the class were listen-
ing. Seventh-graders have a lot of energy
to burn! However, Tessa, mom that she is,
and the class teachers, ensured that the
students were indeed listening to us. I soon
saw the proof of this. Once we showed the
students how they might look up bar and
bat mitzvahs for their parents and grand-
parents, or that they might find the names
of their family members in various stories
in the JN, they were off and running, search-
ing for history directly linked to their lives.
For more than 75 years, the JN has cap-
tured your stories and it continues to do so.
It is truly a community treasure. •

Want to learn more?
Go to the DJN Foundation archives,
available for free at www.djnfoundation.org.

134

July 18 • 2017

jn

This page from the 1942 Centralite yearbook, highlights the “Minutemen” and “Quill and Scroll.” The Minutemen (top and bottom photos), the “shock troops
of school spirit,” were a de facto cheer squad charged with generating interest in and ad sales for student publications and the yearbook. The Quill and
Scroll (center), all members of the International Society for High School Journalists, were charged with publishing the Central Student newspaper, and often
prepared and presented literary radio scripts. They even wrote the script for the Civilian Defense program to be presented by the Central Defense Unit.

Historic photos are curated by the
Jewish Historical Society of Michigan.