Cleveland Jews and the Making of a Midwestern Community

Edited by Sean Martin and John J. Grabowski

Rutgers University Press

This volume gathers an array of voices to tell the stories of Cleveland’s twentieth century Jewish community. Strong and stable after an often turbulent century, the Jews of Cleveland had both deep ties in the region and an evolving and dynamic commitment to Jewish life. The authors present the views and actions of community leaders and everyday Jews who embodied that commitment in their religious participation, educational efforts, philanthropic endeavors, and in their simple desire to live next to each other in the city’s eastern suburbs. The twentieth century saw the move of Cleveland’s Jews out of the center of the city, a move that only served to increase the density of Jewish life. The essays collected here draw heavily on local archival materials and present the area’s Jewish past within the context of American and American Jewish studies.

Cleveland has played an out-sized role in American Jewish history. The essays in this book help to explain why. Many of the themes taken up in this volume illuminate the American Jewish experience as a whole. Jonathan D. Sarna, author of American Judaism: A History

'All those essays are informative, and if any of these areas coincide with your own interests, I will not hesitate to recommend these essays along with their voluminous footnotes. Their scholarship is undeniable. San Diego Jewish World

Taken together, these essays speak to the religious diversity of Cleveland Jews and to the ongoing significance of migration across national and municipal borders....One hopes that these essays will help lay the groundwork for more extensive studies of Cleveland Jewish life beyond the alphabet soup of Jewish organizations in the twentieth century. Journal of Jewish Identities

This book complements previous research on Midwestern Jewish communities well. It will be a useful read for scholars of urban Jewish history between the coasts, those in the local Cleveland community, and students of post-World War II Jewish history more broadly... I was wowed by the impressive collections of the WRHS and will refer back to the volume’s wonderfully rich and unique contributions to post-World War II Jewish history. Wendy F. Soltz, H-Net

SEAN MARTIN is the author of Jewish Life in Cracow, 1918-1939 (Vallentine Mitchell, 2004) and A Stitch in Time: The Cleveland Garment Industry (Western Reserve Historical Society, 2015), and author and editor of For the Good of the Nation: Institutions for Jewish Children in Interwar Poland (Academic Studies Press, 2017).

JOHN J. GRABOWSKI is the editor of the on-line edition of the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History and the Dictionary of Cleveland Biography, and co-editor of Cleveland: A Tradition of Reform (Kent State University Press, 1986) and Identity, Conflict & Cooperation: Central Europeans in Cleveland, 1850-1930 (Western Reserve Historical Society 2002).

Contents
Foreword
Stephen H. Hoffman
Introduction: Cleveland and its Jews: New Perspectives on Communal History
Eli Lederhendler
Chapter 1: “A Link in the Great American Chain”: The Evolution of Jewish Orthodoxy in Cleveland to 1940
Ira Robinson
Chapter 2: Jewish Philanthropy in Cleveland to 1990
David C. Hammack
Chapter 3: Abraham Hayyim Friedland and the Context, Structures, and Content of Jewish Education
Sylvia Abrams and Lifsa Schachter
Chapter 4: Everyman vs. Superman: Harvey Pekar, Comics, and Cleveland
Samantha Baskind
Chapter 5: Ethnic Identity and Local Politics: Abba Hillel Silver as Community Leader and International Politician in Cleveland, 1940-1950
Zohar Segev
Chapter 6: “She Will Be the Mary Poppins We Have Been Searching For”: The Rise of Feminism and
Organizational Change in the Cleveland Section of the National Council of Jewish Women
Mary McCune
Chapter 7: Trepidation, Tolerance, and Turnover: Jewish-Black Relations in Cleveland Neighborhoods, 1920-1960
Todd Michney
Chapter 8: Jewish Suburbanization and Jewish Presence in the “City without Jews”
Mark Souther
Chapter 9: Suburban Temple and the Creation of Postwar American Judaism
Rachel Gordan
Chapter 10: People-to-People: Cleveland’s Jewish Community and the Exodus of Soviet Jews
Shaul Kelner
Afterword
Sean Martin
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Index

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