The still-standing structures

On this page we will try to identify all the still-standing structures in Cleveland that were once home to a Jewish congregation. For the major structures we will try to add pictures of the building interior as it is now.

We show these buildings in this order: mid-town (East 38th - East 55th), Glenville, Mount Pleasant and Shaker Heights. Given the Jewish community's continual movement to the east, this is also roughly in chronological order.

The earliest congregations

We will try to give special attention to some of Cleveland oldest and largest congregations. They include:

• Eagle Street Synagogue Cleveland's first synagogue building (1846) and In Pursuit of the Eagle Street Synagogue Plaque

• The Temple at University Circle

• Euclid Avenue Temple, and its Tiffany Windows, a treasure we believe is not available elsewhere on the web.

The first two congregations, Anshe Chesed (now Anshe Chesed - Fairmount Temple) and Tifereth Israel (now The Temple - Tifereth Israel) began Orthodox but within a generation had moved solidly to Reform. After a stormy start, they would both enjoy an amazingly long year period (97 years, 1851-1948) of quiet growth becoming, with more than 2,000 families each, two of our nation's largest congregations. Currently they both report memberships of 1,600 families. For a list of congregations today, visit CJN's "The Source".

The rabbis of the two Reform congregations had such long service - Barnett Bricker at Anshe Chesed for 33 years (1925-1958) and Abba Hillel Silver at Tifereth Israel for 46 years (1917-1963) - that many called these congregations Brickner's Temple and Silver's Temple. One Cleveland Jew upon meeting another he believed to be Reform might ask "Do you go to Silver's or Brickner's?"

Few Clevelanders may have known that Silver and Brickner - distinguished and very American rabbis, - were both immigrants who had grown up in New York's Yiddish-speaking Lower East Side. They had gone to the same yeshiva and as teenagers both had been in the Herzl Zion Club whose advisor was Rabbi Moses Silver, the father of Abe (later Abba Hillel) Silver. It should also be noted that despite a shared boyhood, they did not have a good working relationship.

For continuing congregations we provide a link to the History page of their website. We also recommend the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History as the best online resource for old, now vanished, congregations.

In March 2010 we added our first version, to grow over the coming months, of a virtual tour of old Jewish Cleveland. It is Nate's Tour, that Nate Arnold has been leading for several years. click here

Also in March 2010 we published a web version of Professor Alan Levenson's essay on Congregation Brith Emeth and Rabbi Philip Horowitz.

Recently added to these pages: Willet Street Cemetery and Mayfield Cemetery, owned by Cleveland's two oldest congreations: Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple and The Temple - Tifereth Israel.

In progress: The great gift of land to our first synagogue
In the early 1840s a few religious organizations were given land for constructing buildings. Amazingly, the Israelitic Society (Anshe Chesed) was one of them. The story of the gift isn't clear and in a new page we will do our best to tell it. more ....