18 April 25 • 2019
jn

New oral history website provides 
fi
 rsthand insight into Jewish Detroit.

O

ver the past few years, the 
concept of “truth” has had less 
to do with fact and more with 
non-negotiable personal opinion. But 
the real nemesis of truth may actually 
be time. Truth has a life span. And 
when eyewitness accounts are gone, 
what remains is up to interpretation.
With oral history interviews, we can 
preserve firsthand knowledge of events 
from those who experienced them. 
In an ongoing effort to make primary 
resources available, the Leonard N. 
Simons Jewish Community Archives 
of Detroit’
s Jewish Federation has 
launched a new website of its oral 
history collection (jewishdetroit.org/
oral-history). 
These interviews provide evidence 
and context of past events as well as 
behind-the-scenes knowledge that oth-
erwise might have been lost.
Take the Federation’
s Women’
s 
Division 1963 Annual Meeting. Its 
existence is forever part of the Archives 
collection through the original invita-
tion, a bright green card announcing 
Betty Friedan as the guest speaker. It 
was just four months after publication 
of The Feminine Mystique and a crowd 
of 500 women attended. The only 
written record of the aftermath was a 
short note in the meeting minutes of 
Women’
s Division that some women 
were upset by Friedan’
s speech. Thanks 
to an oral history interview, what 
happened more than 50 years ago is 
immortalized. We now know Friedan’
s 
speech was one of derision for volun-
teer jobs that took away paid positions 
for women — a belief she would recant 
decades later.
The Archives holds more than 100 
oral history interviews with communi-
ty leaders and philanthropists that span 
more than 70 years of Detroit’
s Jewish 
history. The content includes accounts 
of Federation, agency histories and 
personal stories about the people who 

have shaped this community.
Two recent oral history projects have 
added an important perspective. The 
Women in Leadership project cap-
tures the oral history of the Women’
s 
Philanthropy Department (formerly 
Women’
s Division) at Federation while 
simultaneously equalizing the voices of 
a cohort historically underrepresented. 
Diaspora in Detroit: the Jewish 
Immigrant Experience is an ongoing 
project to record the stories of Jews 
who have immigrated, from their lives 
in their native homelands through 
their journey to Metro Detroit. The 
collection touches on tales from coun-
tries like Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia, 
and the events that led people to leave 
their homelands for a better life. 
Currently, more than 45 interviews 
have been uploaded, with more com-
ing each week. Visitors can watch or 
listen to the interviews or read the 
transcripts.
The oral history website was funded 
in part by the Ravitz Foundation and 
has been in the works for more than a 
year. An ongoing hurdle has been the 
migration of old technology, like VHS, 
to current standards. While the goal 
has been to bring these interviews to 
the public, a benefit has been the long-
term preservation of content originally 
recorded on obsolete media. View 
interviews at jewishdetroit.org/
oral-history. 
Also of note, the Holocaust 
Memorial Center in Farmington Hills 
maintains an oral/written history of 
Michigan Holocaust survivors at 
portraitsofhonor.org. ■ 

Robbie Terman is archivist for the Leonard N. 
Simons Jewish Community Archives. Her story 
first appeared in myjewishdetroit.com. She is 
seeking subjects for the Diaspora in Detroit 
project. If you are Jewish, born outside the 
U.S., have memories of your native homeland 
and live in Metro Detroit, you meet the criteria. 
Contact Terman at terman@jfmd.org.

jews d
in 
the

ROBBIE TERMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

More to the Story

Federation’
s Junior 

Division on a radio 

show, circa 1940s

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