Cleveland Jews and the Making of a Midwestern Community

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.

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).