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in
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Jewish Contributions to Humanity

#25
series
#32 in
in a series

These Jews
Were Hollywood
Pioneers.

Rabbi Ariana
Silverman speaks at
the June 21 event.

Hungry For Justice

Faith leaders meet to voice support for
SNAP benefi ts.

ROB STREIT JN INTERN

P

eople have a right to eat. That
was what an interfaith group
of spiritual leaders who met at
Greater Baptist Church in Detroit on
June 14 said, as they called on Sen.
Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., to sup-
port SNAP benefits in the Farm Bill.
Stabenow is the ranking member of
the Senate Committee on Agriculture,
Nutrition and Forestry, which drafts
the bill.
The Farm Bill is a sweeping omni-
bus bill that encompasses all food
and agricultural policy in the U.S.
Every five years, the bill gets renewed
by Congress in an often-contentious
process. The bill is up for renewal
this year, and lines are being drawn.
The House version of the bill calls
for recipients of the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program — or
SNAP — to meet new work or job
training requirements to receive ben-
efits. The Senate’s version does not
include this change to SNAP benefits.
“They are still arguing if people
have a right to eat,” said Rev. Charles
Christian Adams, presiding pastor
of the Hartford Memorial Baptist
Church in Detroit. “We will not sup-
port any of it — to balance the econo-
my of this country on the backs of the
poor. We are determined to support
our legislators that are fighting for
SNAP.”
Several in the interfaith coalition
called Hungry For Justice said that
their faiths mandate they help to feed
the hungry and assist those in need.
“I give my strong support to SNAP
because I believe my faith com-
mands me to do so,” said Rabbi
Ariana Silverman of the Isaac Agree
Downtown Synagogue. “God com-
mands 36 times to love strangers and
support the needy in the first five
books of the bible.”
The faith leaders said that the work
requirements were draconian and did
more harm than good.
“Eighty percent of people who

receive food stamps are already work-
ing,” said Rev. James Perkins, pastor
of Greater Christ Baptist Church in
Detroit. “The remaining lack skills or
have mental illness or other health
issues.”
Perkins said he was disenchanted
with the attempt to cut SNAP.
“This administration has demon-
strated they’re doing a reverse Robin
Hood. They’re simply taking from the
poor and giving to the rich; making
the rich richer and making the gap
between the haves and have-nots
wider,” he said.
Community activist Sabrina Cotton
was in attendance as well. She high-
lighted her own struggle with trying
to feed her baby after her food assis-
tance benefits were cut. Her daughter
is underweight due to the lack of
nutrition. Cotton also struggles to
feed herself.
“I only have $20 to feed myself after
buying my child’s food,” Cotton said.
Cotton is not alone. One in seven
people in Michigan relies on SNAP
to eat. Food insecurity is widespread
throughout the state as well as the
nation.
“Sixty-two percent of SNAP recipi-
ents are families with children. Forty-
seven percent of families have elderly
or disabled people. Fifty percent have
working members in their family,” said
Rev. Steve Bland of Liberty Temple
Baptist Church in Detroit. “There are
no welfare queens here.”
Silverman spoke of scripture verses
where God commands the holy to
leave the corners of their fields for the
needy when it comes time to reap. “If
we fail to do so, we cannot call our-
selves holy,” she said.
The Senate Farm Bill was approved
in committee in a 20-1 vote. Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky., said the full Senate will likely
vote on the bill before the July 4
recess. It would then need to be rec-
onciled with the House version. •

ADOLPH ZUKOR (1873-1976).
b. Ricse, Hungary. d. Los Angeles, California.
The founder of America’s modern motion picture.
Adolph Zukor lived a blessedly long life, and by the end of it he
could say he brought America its first ever feature-length film. Zukor’s
journey began in the late 1880s, when he left Hungary for New York,
securing his first job sweeping the floor in a fur store. He worked his
way up and eventually invested money in “penny arcades”—enter-
tainment machines that allowed people to watch short films. Seeing the popularity
of these penny arcades, Zukor then invested in “nickelodeon
theaters”, a type of indoor space for showing projected pic-
tures, with motion but no sound, to the public. Zukor, navigat-
ing a tricky legal landscape involving the film trust, screened
the French-made “Queen Elizabeth” at the Lyceum Theater on
Broadway. It was the first ever feature-length film to be shown
in the U.S. He created the Famous Players Film Company to
produce and screen more such features, engineered many mergers and consolida-
tions, and was a founder of Paramount Pictures in 1916. In addition to screening his
films in his many dozens of theaters around the country, Zukor also struck deals with
other theaters to screen his films, developing the ongoing practice of distributors col-
lecting a percentage of box-office receipts received by theaters.

SAMUEL GOLDWYN (1879-1954).

b. Warsaw, Poland. d. Los Angeles, California.
The heir to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

One of the most impactful men in Hollywood studio history, Sam-
uel Goldwyn (born Samuel Goldfish) left Poland at 16 and made his
way to upstate New York via Birmingham,
England and Nova Scotia, working his way
up in the booming garment business. Gold-
wyn married the sister of film producer Jesse Lasky and,
with enough capital to pursue additional ventures, teamed
up with Lasky, Adolph Zukor and director Cecil B. DeMille to
make Hollywood’s first-ever feature film, “The Squaw Man.”
Lasky, Zukor and Goldwyn were involved in a number of mergers, but after a falling
out, Goldwyn left and founded Goldwyn Pictures, which is most popularly known for its
“Leo the Lion” trademark. There, too, though, Goldwyn was forced out before the stu-
dio was bought by Marcus Loew and the Metro Pictures Corporation, which became
known as the famous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer despite Goldwyn’s departure.

HARRY COHN (1891-1958).

b. New York, New York. d. Phoenix, Arizona.
From ‘Poverty Row’ to the top of Hollywood.
The son of Russian and German immi-
grants, Harry Cohn and his brother, Jack,
created the CBC Film Sales Corporation
in 1919 (both had been employees at Uni-
versal Pictures). Although CBC stood for “Cohn, Brandt and
Cohn”, the Hollywood establishment derisively nicknamed
it “Corned Beef and Cabbage”, helping prompt the trio to
change the name to Columbia Pictures Corporation. Columbia couldn’t shake its stig-
ma as a “Poverty Row” studio until 1934, when its Frank Capra-directed comedy “It
Happened One Night”, won several Oscars. Columbia Pictures only grew from there,
going on to work with the likes of Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart
and many others. Cohn’s studio is now a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Original Research by Walter L. Field Sponsored by Irwin S. Field Written by Jared Sichel

jn

June 28 • 2018

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