(By our Detroit Correspondent)
Communal leaders, meeting at the Phoenix Club Tuesday evening to discuss needs for building activity in Detroit, went on record as favoring the establishment here of a Jewish hospital and of a Jewish center.
Action on plans for the establishment of a hospital and a Jewish center were referred to a committee to be chosen from the Jewish Welfare Federation. It is believed that the sum required for the two planned structures will exceed $3,000,000.
Henry Wineman, president of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit, presided at the meeting, and an outline of the existing situation, calling for the establishment of a hospital and a center, was presented by Morris B. Waldman, retiring executive secretary of the Federation.
Mr. Waldman referred to the survey conducted in Detroit four years ago, as a result of which emphatic endorsement was expressed for the establishment of a hospital. He pointed out that the board of directors of the United Jewish Charities also adopted a resolution in favor of a hospital, but the recent needs of the United Hebrew Schools and the constant pressure for funds for foreign relief caused a delay in building activities.
Mr. Waldman also advanced a number of reasons in favor of the establishment of a hospital: He pointed to the fact that Detroit is underhospitalized, and said that a Jewish hospital will be a distinct contribution to the city at large. A hospital, he declared, is necessary from the point of view of Jewish patients whose sensitiveness and psychology should be considered; and the need for providing Jewish doctors with hospital practice, because these doctors as a rule practice among Jewish people and must be given an opportunity to better themselves professionally.
Dr. Salzstein, chief of medical staff of the North End Community Clinic, said that the numbers in which Jews who come to the clinic speaks for the need of a hospital. He said that Jews come to the clinic because the doctors speak their language. The pressure for a hospital, has been exerted from the ranks of the patients, he declared.
David A. Brown strongly urged the leaders to begin work on a hospital and a center. The building of a center he called the obligation of the community to the youth. He declared that all efforts must be joined for a complete building campaign to include both a center and a hospital.
The only opposing voice raised against a Jewish hospital was Julian H. Krolik.Mr.Krolik declared that he “finds no response in his head or heart for a Jewish hospital.” He declared that he does not want the wall of differences between Jews and non-Jews set higher by changing a purely secular project into something sectarian.
David W. Simons. Mr. Bielfield, Mr. Brown, Harry S. Brown, J. H. Ehrlich answered Mr. Krolik. Dr. Brown stated they believed that Jews cannot be satisfied in a non-Jewish hospital, on account of the food and because the atmosphere of a non-Jewish hospital reacts negatively to Jews.
Rabbi A. M. Hershman, who presented the adopted motion declaring the sense of the meeting to be in favor of “a kosher Jewish hospital,” declared that a movement for a Jewish hospital may prove to be the most popular cause in the history of the Detroit Jewish community.
Dr. Leo M. Franklin declared that the meeting ought to go on record in favor of a kosher hospital. He decried, however, the claim that there is prejudice. It was his experience, he said that Jews were treated as well as non-Jews in the local hospitals.
Mr. Waldman expressed the hope that the movement for the hospital will create unity in all Jewish ranks in the city.
Morris D. Waldman, for the past five years the executive director of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit which he organized to include all the individual social service branches in the city, will leave Detroit on June 26. He is to be succeeded in September by Dr. John Slawson.
Mr. Waldman leaves Detroit for New York, and from there will sail for a European tour. In September he will assume his new duties as executive secretary of the American Jewish Committee.
Mr. Waldman was honored at a luncheon at the Phoenix Club, at which the members of the board of directors of the Jewish Welfare Federation were guests of Henry Wineman, president of the Federation.
The first issue of “The Monthly Pioneer,” a journal to promote the welfare of Palestine has appeared in London. The issue contains an interview with Sir Alfred Mond on Palestine, an article on land taxation in Palestine by Colonel Wedgwood, an article by P. Rutenberg on the hydro-electrical works, and articles by Leon Simon, Professor S. Brodetsky, and others.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
