jews in the d

COURTESY OF THE RABBI LEO M. FRANKLIN ARCHIVES OF TEMPLE BETH EL, BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI

Looking Back

Temple Beth El Teens work on their student-published newspaper called The Bethelite, c. 1953.

From the DJN Foundation Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History

I

Mike Smith

Detroit Jewish
News Foundation
Archivist

74

read that one of my favorite sports announcers, Ken
Daniels, was inducted Oct. 23 into the Michigan
Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. This is good news. Since
1997, Daniels, along with Mickey Redmond, has been
the television play-by-play voice of my beloved Detroit
Red Wings hockey team. Mazel tov, Mr. Daniels!
It also occurred to me that, after nearly five years of
writing about Detroit Jewish History for the JN, I have
intersected with the Hall of Fame many times. Almost
daily, I search the pages of the Davidson Digital Archive.
There are 655 mentions of the Hall of Fame in the JN,
and Bill Davidson himself was one of the first induct-
ees in 1985. I have also written about at least six other
members of the Hall of Fame: Hank Greenberg, Benny
Friedman (both Greenberg and Friedman were also
among the first class of inductees), Jackie Kallen, Julius
Spielberg, Bert Ruby and Dr. Stuart Kirschenbaum.
As its website notes, “The Michigan Jewish Sports
Foundation was founded in 1984 to both honor Jewish
individuals who have distinguished themselves as ath-

November 1 • 2018

jn

letes within the state of Michigan and to foster Jewish
identity through athletics.”
Along with maintaining the legacy of outstanding
Jewish athletics — men and women, by the way — the
Michigan Jewish Sports Foundation has raised more
than $1 million to fight cancer, to provide scholarships
for student athletes and to support other great causes.
In this respect, every year, the Foundation also holds
the Hank Greenberg Memorial Golf Invitational to raise
funds for charitable causes.
Well, the five fellows who founded the Michigan
Jewish Sports Foundation had a great idea and made a
real contribution to the history of Detroit’s Jewish com-
munity. And, in 2004, Alvin Foon, Mickey Fishman,
Seymour Brode, Myron Milgrom, William Jacobs and
Robert Steinberg were themselves inducted into the Hall
of Fame they founded 20 years earlier. ■

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