return to Home page

Jewish Federation of Cleveland

 Help
2008: the extended debate about where Federation should be located.

Since 1965, when it moved into its building at East 18th and Euclid Avenue, Federation's staff had grown from 50 to more than 130 persons - an increase of 160 percent. Most worked in a second building, also owned by Federation, shown at the right, west of the main building.

A search of the new Digital Archive at the Cleveland Jewish News found the first story about a possible move, published on October 19, 2007. Story shown below.

  

The economic downturn in late 2008 forced large staff reductions. The current (9/2010) staffing is roughly 100 persons.

An active discussion began, both open and private, for many in the Jewish community believe that the Jewish Community Federation should remain in downtown Cleveland, to show a continued commitment to Cleveland's health and growth. Many others wanted the offices and staff to be located near the center of the Jewish community.

In the year from the first story (above) on October 19, 2007 and the issue of exactly a year later when it reported the decision, the Cleveland Jewish News carried many news stories about the debate and many more expressions of opinion. A search of Cleveland Jewish News using the "search past issues" and looking for search words federation move east finds 41 "hits" for 2008, through September 12. click here for the results

Though this search on 9/27/2010 found 41 "hits", that does not mean 41 stories. Some stories may have been missed, some hits are extraneous, many are letters to the editor and some are for the same story (a story on two pages will be reported as two hits -  if the second part is found). As the free search lacks the power of the Archive search, it will miss stories that say "moving" instead of "move" and it will include stories that have only one or two of these search words. For much better results, use the Advanced Search feature in the new CJN Digital Archive, but as that tool requires paid registration, we have not used it here.

Two polls were conducted.

Some of this discussion is on the web:

 

 

 

A group organized to campaign publicly and privately that Federation should remain downtown. Soon their website www.KeepJCFinCLE.com was online. The domain name had been registered on April 21, 2008. The list of sponsors included former Federation chairs and trustees and many who for years have been active leaders and generous donors in the Jewish community. The group first appeared in the press with a full-page ad in the April 25, 2008 issue of the Cleveland Jewish News.
 
As we don't know how long the site will be online, we show its Home page below. 
 
 

Marilyn Karfeld, a CJN reporter who had been following the story closely, wrote in the August 29, 2008 issue "Efforts continue to pursuade" that the Federation Building Committee had unanimously decided to move east and has explored purchase and renovation of an existing building. The pro-downtown group protested that Federation has not changed its position "one inch."  Federation officials said that a final deciision would not be made until the September 11 meeting of the Trustees. Read story in CJN Digital Archive.