looking back: the 1940s

SPONSORED BY: IRA KAUFMAN CHAPEL

WHEN PHILIP SLOMOVITZ launched
the Jewish News in March 1942, he
made readers a promise: “To give
the latest news and historical data
concerning Jews all over the world and
help build up the morale of Jews in this
war-torn world by fostering that spirit of
brotherhood which will assure amity and
good will among all faiths of the United
States, the world’s greatest nation.”
The nation was embroiled in a world
war and many in Detroit’s Jewish
community had sons on the front lines,
including hometown hero and baseball
great Hank Greenberg, a sergeant in
the U.S. Air Force. The Jewish News
always kept those who were in harm’s
way at the top of mind on its pages.
The Jewish News was among the
first newspapers in the country to sound
the alarm about what would become
known as the Holocaust. In only its third
issue, it featured a front-page story of
Dutch Jews dying in Nazi slave labor
camps followed the next week by an
expose of Nazi attacks on Polish Jews.
The Jewish News documented the trials
and horrors of Jews worldwide, from
Romania to North Africa, from Spain to
Hungary to the Middle East.
On the homefront, the Jewish News
waged its own war on anti-Semitism,
continuing to take on the likes of Father
Charles Coughlin, the Roman Catholic
priest in Royal Oak’s Shrine of the Little
Flower, and William Dudley Pelley, an
admirer of Hitler, who founded the Silver
Legion, whose members, known as
Silver Shirts and Christian Patriots,
wore Nazi-style silver uniform shirts.
As the decade progressed, the
Jewish News reported on the death of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the
end of the war. It also championed the
cause of Holocaust survivors, including
their absorption into the Detroit Jewish
community.
Also in this decade, the Jewish
News continued its advocacy for the
creation of a nation-state for the Jew-
ish people in their biblical homeland.
It reported on the birth of Israel in May
1948, its War of Independence, and
ongoing military and political chal-
lenges to its existence.
Since its inception, the Jewish News
has been unwavering in advancing
the cause of Zionism in Detroit and
nationally. •

24

July 18 • 2017

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