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time circulating them to Federation volunteers, sometimes to all
donors, but most of the time only during Allied Jewish Campaign
season. Detroit’s Federation had published its own newsletter in
the 1930s (Slomovitz served on the editorial committee), but the
newsletter had been discontinued.
By 1942, Federation’s Board of Directors was considering restart-
ing the newsletter as part of an educational and promotional
program to better inform Jewish Detroiters about the activities of
Federation and its agencies and to promote those activities. Shortly
after the Jewish News began publishing, however, some Federation
leaders (some of whom presumably were also investors in the Jewish
News) proposed that the Jewish News serve as the Federation’s official
news organ. The proposal was approved in June 1942.
Under the arrangement, the Jewish News would include all articles

a clear competitive advantage over the Chronicle in terms of reader-
ship, influence and advertising revenue.
Not everyone felt the Federation/Jewish News arrangement
was appropriate or good for the community. Management of the
Chronicle and the Daily Forward, the leading Yiddish newspaper in
town, protested the arrangement, citing conflicts of interest, unfair
subsidization of a private enterprise and ethical issues. Others in the
community were also concerned, but even those most vocal in their
criticism acknowledged that the Jewish News investors acted for rea-
sons other than profit.
Enough concern was generated that Abe Srere, then Federation
president (and an investor in the Jewish News), explored a pos-
sible merger between the Chronicle and the Jewish News, but when
Chronicle management refused to accept any arrangement that
would keep Slomovitz on the paper, the discussions collapsed. The
correspondence concerning those merger discussions reveals the
depths of animosity between Slomovitz and Chronicle manage-
ment, with accusations of unethical practices flying both ways. The
Chronicle letters also reveal the level of anger and frustration that
Chronicle management felt over the Federation/Jewish News relation-
ship.
The first Jewish News Federation issue was not published until
Sept. 25, 1942, but it is clear that from the Jewish News’ inception,
Federation found an ally. Comparing Jewish News and Chronicle
issues during 1942 confirms the Jewish News was the better vehicle
for Federation’s goals — comprehensive information about local,
national and international events affecting the Jewish community,
a mainstream editorial policy favoring Zionism and emphasizing
the need to be both a good American and a good Jew during the
war, and a large amount of publicity and information about various
programs and fundraising efforts effectuated by Federation and its
constituent agencies.
The Chronicle was at a competitive disadvantage because of its
inability to access many news reporting agencies, but even so, some
of its editorial policies and choices as to what to report would have
created discomfort among mainstream Jews in Detroit.

CAMPAIGN BOOST

and advertising submitted by Federation leaders and would serve as
the vehicle informing donors about Federation and its agencies, as
well as areas of Jewish life and current events. The Jewish News would
provide every Federation donor household that did not separately
subscribe to the Jewish News with a special “Federation issue” at least
once a month, and would receive in return 50 cents annually for
each such donor household, reduced by any net profit. Additionally,
the investors in the Jewish News agreed to give Federation a majority
voting interest in the papers’ affairs.
Federation’s degree of control over a theoretically independent
and community-based paper raised some eyebrows and generated
some criticism, but Slomovitz claimed he never felt constrained
and that he was never restricted. Given Slomovitz’s avid support of
Federation and its constituent agencies, and his belief against airing
the “dirty laundry” of community organizations, any Federation exer-
cise of control probably would not have seriously impacted Jewish
News content.
The Federation subscription rate gave Slomovitz a necessary
steady cash flow and, critically, Federation’s subscription list includ-
ed 23,000 donors from 16,000 discrete families, giving Slomovitz the
singular opportunity to expose a good portion of Jewish Detroit to
the Jewish News at least once a month. By comparison, the Jewish
News had a subscription list of approximately 3,000 outside of the
Federation arrangement, while the Chronicle had approximately
1,500 subscribers. The Federation arrangement gave the Jewish News

ABOVE: Philip
Slomovitz, Elwin
Rosenberg and Charles
Lefton.

Federation strategists recognized that the 1942 Allied Jewish
Campaign, their main fundraising event, would be very different
because of America’s entry into the war. They tied the Campaign
to patriotism, emphasizing to the donor base that giving to the
Campaign was both a Jewish obligation and an American duty, and
that a “total war calls for a total effort.”
Campaign leaders, fearing donors would be tempted to merely
move their normal Campaign contributions to other secular, war-
related causes, stressed that a truly patriotic American Jew would
not meet other patriotic monetary demands by reducing their
charitable giving.
The 1942 Campaign received front-page and much inside cov-
erage in the Jewish News every week during the Campaign even
though it occurred well before the Federation/Jewish News rela-
tionship was formalized. Each issue followed the progress of the
Campaign, from setting the initial goal, to listing the names of
all volunteers, to tracking progress of pledges, to the final results.
Most front covers featured an editorial from a Federation leader,
and back covers featured photographs or “advertisements” relating
to agencies funded with Campaign dollars or missives written by
Federation affiliates.
Slomovitz would run at least one editorial in each edition urging
readers to give generously. Many of the newspaper articles remind-
ed readers of the close tie between funds raised and the war or the
ongoing European tragedy.
Some articles and editorials were written with Federation strate-
gies specifically in mind. “Never before has the need been as great,”
wrote Slomovitz in one editorial. Guest editorials connected the
Campaign, the war and patriotism.
In a full-page article titled “A Message from Yourself to Yourself ”
that ran twice on the back cover of the paper during Campaign sea-
son, Fred Butzel told readers they had to be both an American and a

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