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Overview

According to historian Lila Corwin Berman, “Jews created a new kind of urbanism- a metropolitan urbanism- that broadened the range of possible spaces and behaviors that Jews nonetheless understood as urban oriented. “

History

Detroit's First Jewish Neighborhood (1880-1930)

1. German and Central European Jews found their homes in the Hasting Street Area neighborhood in around 1880
2. Professions of the middle class included
   1. Proprietors
   2. Managers
   3. White Color Workers
3. The Elite
   1. Involved in politics
      1. Served in elected positions at the city and state level in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries
   2. After 1930, no Jew served on Detroit’s elected Common Council until 1962

Eastern European Arrivals (1900-1937)

1. Eastern European Jews arrived in 20th century
   1. German Jews left the Hastings Street neighborhood for areas to the North and to the West of it
      1. East of Woodward Avenue near Warren and Oakland Avenues
2. According to historian Lila Corwin Berman, “Although not as populated as the Lower East Side, “Jewish Hastings Street still struck reports as overcrowded and teeming with foreignness and a “queer” Yiddish dialect”.
   1. According to the Michigan census in 1935, 10% of Jews lived in the Hastings Street area and 80% of the Jewish population lived in two neighborhoods: The Twelfth Street area and the neighborhood referred to as Dexter.
3. The local elementary school was the most populous in the city
   1. Had a predominantly Jewish student body
4. Synagogues and kosher markets lined the streets in this area of the city
   1. Dexter/Davison Market was where Jews came to shop and to pause in their errands for conversations and catch up with one another
5. Economy
   1. According to Meyer, "Income of Jewish workers likewise varies between industries. An income of $2,000 more was received in 1934 by 33 percent of the Jewish workers engaged in professional service, whereas the income was received by only 5 percent of the workers in domestic and personal service industries and 6 percent of the Jewish workers in automobile factories.
   2. 1935: Working force may considered to be 34359 people
   3. White collar occupational groups
      1. Professional workers
      2. Proprietors
      3. Mangers and officials
      4. Clerks and kindred workers
6. 1937:71,000 Jews lived in Detroit which made it the sixth most populated Jewish city in the United States

Tension (1936-1970)

1. Jewish Community Council
   1. Centralized Jewish organization founded in 1936
   2. Aimed to coordinate Jewish activity with relations with non-Jews throughout the city
   3. Turned its attention to the tension brewing in the Hastings Street area in the late 1930s
2. According to Berman," in the fall of 1937, the rabbi of Temple Beth El, the city’s largest Reform temple, chastised Jewish merchants in the Hastings Street area for behaving unethically toward black customers”
3. Berman also stated, “Black Jewish conflict fared between 1938 and 1941, especially along Hastings Street where youths assaulted merchants and their stores.”
   1. However, there were some African Americans who considered Jews their allies.
4. According to Capeci, "Prominent Jewish Detroiters had supported the Urban League, genuinely but paternalistically concerned more with improving the welfare of black than raising their status"
5. 1940s
   1. Jews in Detroit were involved in their neighborhood's policies
      1. Who was living where?
      2. Who was moving?
      3. And why?
6. Fall of 1947
   1. Jewish Community Council joined forces with the Interracial Committee of the NAACP to create the Midtown Neighborhood Council
      1. Goal was to slow the process of the neighborhood's transformation into a black neighborhood
7. In the late 1960's and 1970's
   1. Progressive democratic ideologies
   2. Radical political ideas from the left, the right, and black separatist groups

The Rise of the Suburbs (1950-1958)

1. In the 1950's Jewish settlement patterns changed from the northwest suburb of Detroit into Jewish spaces
2. 1958: 1/5 of all Detroit Jews lived in Oak Park and Huntington Woods
3. Some left for the suburbs with a sense of defeat
4. According to Berman,” Most, however, expressed optimism that the suburbs would become a newer, better location for American and Jewish life than the city had been. Suburban planning commissions, driven by the building industry and federal inceptives for home building in the suburbs, helped create that landscape of optimism”