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The Discovery of the 1840 Petition |
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The Discovery of the 1840 Petition |
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The joy of identifying the oldest document signed by our pioneer Jews. |
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The Archives of
Cleveland City Council have helped this website
tell many stories of Cleveland's Jewish history,
but none more important than this one. On
August 1, 2017 Martin Hauserman, then its Chief
Archivist, sent an email
to me and Jeffrey Morris, now Manager of
Mayfield Cemetery. It said that while doing
research on another subject he had found a
document whose scanned image was attached to the email. He
asked: "Is this
of interest?" I read the
old handwritten document and recognized the names of its
signers. First
was S (Simson) Thorman, then A (Aaron) Lowentritt
and I
(Isaac) Hopferman
(later Hoffman). This document was from our first Jewish
organization, the Israelitic Society. For more than 177 years
it had been
out of sight and unknown, not reported in
any newspaper or history. The Israelitic Society 1840 petition to Cleveland City Council for a Jewish section of the city cemetery on Erie Street is our oldest Cleveland Jewish historical document.
The author with the document at
the Archives
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Comparing our two
oldest
documents: Dated May 5, 1839, the Alsbacher Document is the farewell letter written in Unsleben, Bavaria by teacher Lazarus Kohn to Moses and Yetta Alsbacher and the others leaving for America. In German, Hebrew and Yiddish it asks them to keep their Jewish faith in a land of tempting freedom. It was signed by the other Jews in Unsleben. It is our oldest document, though it was written to Cleveland's pioneers, not written by them. It is a treasured and well-known document, in many books and newspaper accounts. Since 2005, when the Maltz Museum opened, a facsimile has been in the permanent exhibit. The Israelitic Society Petition is very different. Dated April 1, 1840, it is a Cleveland document, our first community action. It is the only document we have with the signatures of many of our community's founders. Both documents were long hidden from view. The 1839 Alsbacher document was discovered in 1936, 97 years later, by Abraham Lincoln Nebel when he interviewed Rena Alsbacher, granddaughter of Moses Alsbacher. Until August 1, 2017, when found by Martin Hauserman and identified by this web historian, the 1840 Petition was unknown for more than 177 years. Our pages soon told its story. Sorry to say, our requests that the Cleveland Jewish News inform its readers of this discovery have all failed, the most recent rejection a few days ago. This petition has not been reported in any Jewish publication: popular or scholarly. Further, it is not on public display anywhere.
Where we might see
the
1840 Petition some day? In a meeting with his staff in September 2017 David Schafer, then its Executive Director, said it should be in their permanent exhibit, near the Alsbacher Document. But neither he nor its current director have agreed to display a copy, even on a lobby wall, until the permanent exhibit is redesigned. I look forward to meeting Milton Maltz and giving him a copy of this petition in the hope that he will share it with our community. As these pages have said, he is the greatest-ever supporter of our local Jewish history.
Jewish Federation of Cleveland The Israelitic Society was our first communal organization. Since 1903 our Cleveland Jewish Federation has been our central Jewish organization. How fitting it would be for the first public act of our Jewish community to be viewed in Federation's home, the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Building in Beachwood. In the first floor exhibition space, it would inform many visitors.
I look forward to
seeing Blaine Griffin, president of Cleveland's
City Council, present a copy to the leaders of
our Federation. Arnold Berger August 24, 2017, updated August 20, 2024.
Thanks to Martin Hauserman
and Chuck Mocsiran, the former |
