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Pag* Four
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Friday, Oct. II, 1968
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Published weekly by Southern Newspaper Enterprises, 390 Court-
kuid St., N. E., Atlanta, Georgia 30393. TR 6-8249, TR. 6-8240. Sec
ond class postage paid at Atlanta, Georgia. Yearly subscription $7.50.
The Southern IsraeUte Invites Uterary contributions and correspond
ence but is not to be considered as sharing the views expressed by
writers. DEADLINE is 5 P.M. FRIDAY, but material received earlier
will have a much better chance of publication.
Adolph Rosenberg, Editor and Publisher
Kathleen Nease, Vida Goldgar, Edward M. Kahn
Kathy Wood, Paul Warwick, Harry Rose
Betty Meyer, Gertrude Burnham
Georgia Press Assn.
BETWEEN YOU AND ME By Boris Smolar
A Leader Named Max Fisher
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7 Arts Features
Jewish
Telegraphic
Agency
World Union Press
New Center for Performing Arts
Atlanta’s new dimension in the performing arts—the
magnificent $13 million Memorial Arts Center was dedicated
this past weekend and it is a pleasure to turn from the dire
forebodings and strident urgency of the political and racial
scene to an arena where the stimulating talents and enter
taining enterprise will hold sway.
Here will be housed the combined family of superlative
music, inspiring and informative art, enchanting ballet and
a repertory theater, as well as art instruction and experience.
Bold new avenues for entertainment are simultaneously
available in the new facility which will of “a certainty attract
audiences and visits of people who live in Atlanta and en
virons as well as those who come from afar to enjoy what this
metropolis has to offer.
The offerings will from time to time zero in on Jewish
artists excelling in their respective fields of creativity.
We can note as prelude the very special part in which
men and women of our faith have already taken in bringing
this edifice and its on-going program into being.
A note of great sadness has to be injected into the picture
because the moving lorce in a way seems to have been given
impetus by an aviation tragedy which took the lives of some
120 Georgians. Nearly a dozen of these were Jewish, including
the gentle Reuben Crimms, the dedicated Weins and others
who died in the plane crash. The Memorial Arts Center is a
tribute to the effort of fellow Georgians to create a lasting
monument to the memory of the persons who died on an
art tour.
On a happier note has been the dynamic leadership in
the movement provided by Richard C. Rich who served as
general chairman of the enabling organization which created
the facility and brought to it the special program of communi
ty involvement and challenge.
Looming large in development of the groups which now
comprise the basic foundation for the center’s program is
maestro Henry Sopkin, whose persevering and musical genius
brought the Atlanta Symphony orchestra to its state of de
velopment where it could take its place among the nation’s
great musical groups.
In the Municipal Theatre, such devoted figures as “Bromo”
Seltzer provided leadership for many years and brought along
the combined efforts of many other Jewish leaders and
talented persons. One of these is the dedicated Michael Parver,
the group’s assistant producer.
Many talented dancers have helped too in bringing the
balict group to its current excellence and challenge.
All of this adds up to exciting promise for the Atlanta
arts Members of our community can take great pride in what
talented individuals have done so far. In the years to come we
will all have increasing and growing cause for great enrich
ment and enjoyment through this fine center.
Forty Years of “Rabbi-ing”
For four decades, Ahavath Achim Congregation has been
grateful for the spiritual guidance and inspiration of their
Rabbi Harry H. Epstein.
For the anniversary of such service, the board and mem
bers resolved that something very special should be given to
Rabbi Epstein. What better reward than a several-month
leave of absence in his beloved Eretz Yisroel, in whose cause
he has labored long and well for so many, many years. In
fact, as a young yeshive bochur, he had studied among the
first lot of students to create a center of learning in the then-
accessible city of Hebron.
All went well, it seemed, and right after the observance
of Yom Kippur, Rabbi Epstein and his charming wife were
scheduled to depart for Israel. A problem seemed to arise
over who should mind the shule in his absence and a replace
ment was engaged.
Only, the replacement suffered a heart attack at the
beginning of the High Holy Days and had to cancel his com
mitment in Atlanta at the last minute.
The Congregation members however were determined
that their spiritual leader should make the trip as planned.
A quick reshuffling of leadership and their Assistant Rabbi
Raphael Gold agreed to step temporarily into the gap and
together with the general leadership to carry on until Rabbi
Epstein returns.
This cooperation augurs well and the many-faceted ac
tivities of the group will proceed in capable hands while
Rabbi and Mrs. Epstein take a leisurely and much deserved
visit in the Holy Land. It will be a sentimental trip in many
ways. Above all, the visit will represent fulfillment and en
richment for the great interest the couple has had in the
Jewish State.
We wish them both a fruitful experience amid 1 the treas
ured historical and cultural sites so abundant in this blessed
land in the Middle East.
Copyright 1968, JTA
MEET YOUR LEADER
Max N. Fisher, the Jewish leader who has been
elected chairman of the United Israel Appeal—the
body which allocates funds for Israel raised by the
United Jewish Appeal—is not a Zionist. However,
he is a moot dedicated friend of Israel. Of his con
tributions last year totalling $1,000,000, the largest
part was given by him to the UJA and the Israel
Emergency Fund.
Known for his devotion to Jewish and humani
tarian causes, Mr. Fisher is today considered “the
Jewish Communal Leader Number One” in this
country, and rightly so In addition to succeeding
Dewey Stone—the prominent Jewish philanthropist
—as top leader of the UIA, Mr. Fisher is also pres
ident of the United Jewish Appeal, chairman of
the executive board of the American Jewish Com
mittee, one of the top leaders of the Joint Dis
tribution Committee, and vice president of the
Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds,
the central body of America’s organized Jewish
communities.
His top leadership positions in these most im
portant national Jewish organizations testifies best
to his leadership qualities, to his devotion to Jewish
communal life in this country, to his deep interest
in the welfare of Israel, and to his concern for the
well-being of Jews everywhere. His philosophy is:
“Leaders must give like leaders and work like
leaders.” He believes that “each of us has a respon
sibility to give something back for all we receive.”
And he is living up to this responsibility.
The son of Jewish immigrant parents from Rus
sia, he was born in Pittsburgh 60 years ago, raised
in Salem, Ohio, and settled in Detroit after grad
uating from Ohio State University in 1930. His was
not an easy youth. He had to work hard to earn
his tuition by doing many odd jobs. In Detroit, he
started by selling oil products, and soon found him
self a pioneer in developing Michigan’s oil industry
and in introducing new oil-refining processes.
While rising in business, he also took an active
interest in various local institutions. Gradually he
became a leader of the Detroit Jewish community,
and of the general community as well. His reoord
of Jewish and non-Jewish communal activities in
Detroit is one of the highest. He was campaign
chairman of the Detroit Jewish Welfare Fund and
is a veteran leader of its annual Allied Jewish Cam
paign. In 1961, he led the annual Torch Drive—a
non-sectarian campaign from which 200 institutions
in the city benefit.
In 1965 he found himself simultaneously Gen
eral Chairman of the national UJA and president
of Detroit’s United Foundatin, the nation’s largest
Community Chest organization. He thus became the
head of the largest non-sectarian Community Chest
in the country and the national head of the largest
Jewish voluntary fund-raising effort in the United
States.
• * *
MAN OF INFLUENCE
Mr. Fisher is highly respected in non-Jewish
circles as he is among Jews. In politics he is an
active member of the Republican Party. Richard M.
Nixon, the Republican Presidential candidate, ap
pointed him as his special advisor on urban and
community affairs. In knowledgeable circles, this
is interpreted to mean Mr. Fisher has been ap
pointed as Mr. Nixon’s chief advisor, among other
things, on the American Jewish community and
matters relating to IsraeL
Mr. Fisher’s active interest in the affairs of the
Republican Party proves best that there is no such
thing as “a Jewish vote” in political elections, and
that each Jewish voter follows his individual polit
ical sentiments when it comes to casting his vote.
This has been the assertion of all major Jewish
organizations in this country and it has proven
correct in the last years as shown by election results
in New York and other cities with a large Jewish
population.
In addition to becoming Mr. Nixon’s right-hand
man on Jewish and urban problems, Mr. Fisher—
who has long been interested in urban affairs and
in inner city problems—also became chairman of
New Detroit, Inc., which is considered the nation’s
most successful and most powerful urban coalition
group seeking to solve inner city problems. New
Detroit was formed after the July riots in the city
last year—-the worst riots this country has experi
enced in five years of similar racial disturbances.
Mr. Fisher refuses to believe that he has just
taken on “Mission Impossible” as some of his ac
quaintances call it. He feels keenly that every
American — every individual and certainly every
Jew—has an obligation to contribute toward solving
this greatest social crisis of our times. As new
chairman, he is determined to cement racial peace
and harmony in the troubled automobile capital of
the world. In this, he is assured of help by the 39
members—of which New Detroit is composed—rep
resenting those in power and those who speak for
the Negroes. Among the members are Henry Ford
H, and heads of Chrysler Motors and of General
Motors, as well as of other leading industries.
LOVER OF ISRAEL
I met Mr. Fisher for the first time on his first
trip to Israel, in 1954, when he traveled as a mem
ber of the first annual Study Mission of the United
Jewish Appeal. Since then, he has been a member
—or leader—of 13 successive UJA Study Missions,
in addition to making many trips on his own. He
averages three trips a year to Israel, many at the
request of Israel’s top leaders. For more than a
decade now, he has been principal advisor to Is
rael’s government leaders on the country’s economic
development. His name in Israel is a synonym for
all that is best in American Jewry. Although he
was raised in Salem at a time when there was no
organized Jewish community life there—not even
a synagogue-—he is a strong believer in Jewish
heritage. This goes back to his student days, when
at the age of 20 he joined the B’nai B’rith Hillel
student organization.
His first gift to the Jewish Appeal in Detroit
was made in 1932 and was five dollars. “Fortunate
ly, I am able to do a little better now than when
I started,” he says with a smile. He is today among
the largest givers to the UJA and other causes. He
gives and inspires others to give. From 1965 through
1967, as General Chairman of the UJA, he led
some of the most successful fund-raising efforts in
UJA’s 30-year history. This included the oampaign
last year for the Israel Emergency Fund, during
the critical Six-Day War period in Israel, when in
30 days, three times as much was raised in the
United States as UJA had been raising in a year.
In Detroit, lie and his wife Marjorie, made a gift
of half a million dollars to the Sinai Hospital where
a wing and a surgical pavilion bear the Fisher
Jewish Calendar
♦IIASHANA RABBA
Oct. 13, Sunday
'SIIEMINI ATZERET
Oct. 14, Monday
'SIMIIAT TORAn
Oct. 15, Tuesday
♦HANUKA
Dec. 16-23
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