58 | AUGUST 22 • 2024 J N Looking Back From the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History accessible at thejewishnews.com Historic Jewish-Owned Movie Theaters A llan Gale posed this question. Have I written about Jewish-owned or -managed movie theaters in Metro Detroit? What? Jews in the movie industry? You’re kidding me! Well, this did seem like an excellent idea for a cruise into the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History, but it was not a straight-forward, easy search. First, just entering “theaters” into the Archive search box raised more than 33,000 pages where the word “theater” was mentioned; narrowing the search to just “movie theaters” raised more than 1,000 pages. Of course, one could also search for owners of theaters if one knew all of the names. Suffice it to say that the Detroit Jewish Chronicle and the JN have published quite a few stories related to movies and theaters. So many that I’ll provide a disclaimer now — this Looking Back is in no way a comprehensive history of the Detroit-Jewish movie theater connection. I can, however, provide a few highlights. For example, movie news can be found in the Chronicle as early as the 1930s. See Helen Zigmond’s columns, “Our Film Folk,” for good old-fashioned Hollywood gossip (March 4, 1932). Perhaps the primary source for movie and theater news is the vast array of Danny Raskin’s “Best of Everything” columns. Danny wrote about movie debuts, theater openings, encounters with actors and, likely, the popcorn served in the lobby. His columns are a bone fide potpourri of entertainment news. One of the earliest and decidedly Jewish movie theaters was Littman’s People’s Theater. It opened in 1927 and featured Yiddish films with stars such as Paul Muni and Molly Picon. It was also an important source for newsreels about British Mandate Palestine and Eretz Israel. An important Jewish institution in Detroit, the theater became Littman’s in 1938, the Abington (1945) and finally the Gold Coast (1956) before closing its doors in 1958. BTW — movie theaters were among the first businesses in America to be air-conditioned. On hot summer days, they were cool refuges, no matter what movie was playing. There were many other locally famous Jewish-owned movie theaters. Two prominent examples were the “Americana” and the “Northland” at Northland Mall, both located in Southfield. And, there was the venerable Maple Theater in Bloomfield Township, which closed its doors this year. It often showed rare foreign and Israeli films (a lot of tears were shed over the demise of the Maple). The movie business in Detroit also created prominent local Jewish-owned theater chains. For example, Lew Wisper and William Wetsman owned W & W Theatres, while Irving and Adolph Goldberg owned Community Theaters. Perhaps Detroit’s most prominent theater mogul was Richard Sloan, who learned the business managing his father’s Mercury Theater in northwest Detroit (April 24, 2014, JN). Sloan subsequently created the Suburban Theaters, one of the most successful movie theater chains in America. There is one last important point to be made about movie theaters in Detroit. There are hundreds of reports in the pages of the Davidson Archive about Jewish communal organizations and families holding fundraisers and business meetings, as well as bar/bat mitzvahs, birthday parties and anniversaries in local movie theaters. Today, movie theaters are dominated by national chains. However, Jewish Detroiters have had a deep influence on the history of our local movie business. Want to learn more? Go to the DJN archives, available for free at thejewishnews.com. Mike Smith Alene and Graham Landau Archivist Chair