OUR COMMUNITY HISTORY
Yeshivath Chachmei Lublin
Phil Slomovitz, circa 1990
80 Years Ago
In 1942, Joe Biden and the Jewish News were both born. IRWIN J. COHEN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
E
ighty years ago, there was much to talk and read about. America was still reeling from the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Japan declared war on the United States and Britain after the attack on Hawaii and Honolulu. The following day, the United States declared war on Japan, and three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S, after which the U.S. declared war against them. Detroit’s newspapers on Dec. 15, sorted out the facts and destruction eight days earlier. At Pearl Harbor, six warships were destroyed, 2,729 men killed and 656 wounded. One of the 2,729 killed was a 27-year-old Jewish Detroiter, Harold Eli Shiffman. A graduate of Central High School, Shiffman enlisted in the Navy in 1940 and was stationed on the battleship Arizona as a radioman. My uncle, Sammy Cohen, was married at the Beth Tefilo Emanuel synagogue, then on the corner of Taylor Street and Woodrow Wilson in Detroit, on Dec. 7, 1941. He was a member of Young Israel of Detroit and so were most of the guests. The talk at the wedding was war, and the young men knew they soon would get an invitation from Uncle Sam to report for induction. My Uncle Sammy was ticketed to report for duty on the second night of Passover. My older cous-
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in related that the family was together for a seder, and Uncle Sammy had to leave early. Uncle Sammy saw military action in Italy and was wounded storming enemy lines. He was awarded the Bronze Star, Combat Badge and Purple Heart for his heroics and spent months recuperating at military hospitals. He died in 1990 at the age of 80, but was proudest that his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were all observant Jews. Today, the number is over a hundred, and each and every one is an observant Jew. “That’s the way to beat Hitler,” he used to say. Uncle Sammy knew the way the torch of religious Judaism would pass on to the next generation was to send his children to Jewish day school, and his five children all graduated the Yeshiva Beth Yehudah in the 1960s. JEWISH SCHOOLS However, 80 years ago in 1942, there were no Jewish day schools in Detroit. The Yeshiva Beth Yehudah, then an afternoon and Sunday school, housed over a hundred students in six grades in a four-flat (two units on the first floor and two above on the second floor) on Elmhurst near Linwood while the new YBY building, in partnership with Congregation Mogen Abraham on Dexter and Cortland, was in the finishing stages of construction.
At the time, the United Hebrew Schools, also offering a Hebrew studies program, was headquartered in the Rose Sittig Cohen Building on Lawton and Tyler, and the system had a staff of 42 with almost 1,500 students spread around several school buildings. Samuel and Leah Bookstein donated $25,000 toward the purchase of a building on Linwood and Elmhurst to be transformed into Yeshivath Chachmei Lublin. Rabbi Moshe Rotenberg, a graduate of the institution in Lublin who had come to America earlier in the year, served as dean of the school. JEWISH NEWSPAPERS In 1942, Detroit had a population of over 1.7 million. The city had seven radio stations and three daily newspapers, the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit News and the Detroit Times. The Jewish community had its publications, too. For 26 years, since 1916, the weekly Detroit Jewish Chronicle reported on the happenings in the Jewish community. Most people saw no need for another local Jewish weekly. However, several community members formed an advisory board and financial backing behind editor Phillip Slomovitz. Slomovitz had emigrated from Russia in adolescence and mastered writing English. He began his journalism career as a night editor on the University of Michigan’s student publication and graduated to the Detroit News copy desk as a reporter and editor. His interest in championing Jewish causes and issues led to editorships with the Jewish Pictorial, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Detroit Jewish Chronicle.
