CJH The Israelitic Society

Our First Jewish Organization

Starting in 1836 Cleveland was home to only a few Jews, notably Simson Thorman from Unsleben, Bavaria, the first Jew to buy land here. In August 1839 a party of 15 friends and relatives, invited by Thorman, arrived. Our city of 6,000 residents now had a minyan. A communal organization was formed, called the Israelitic Society, the name of Unsleben's Jewish communal body.

The most recently discovered document of those first years is also the oldest: the Israelitic Society's 1840 petition for a Jewish section of Cleveland's Erie Street Cemetery. This page was created on the 185th anniversary of that petition.

Arnold Berger April 1, 2025

below: 1840 Signers of the Petition to Cleveland City Council

below: 1840 Josiah Barber sells Willet Street Cemetery to Israelitic Society

below: 1845 Great Gift to Israelitic Society, land for its first synagogue

The first document above, dated April 1, 1840 is our only document with the signatures of many of our Jewish founders. It was safe but undiscovered for more than 177 years in the archives of Cleveland City Council. It was discovered on August 1, 2017 and identified that day by this web historian. Though its story was soon on these pages, it has not been reported in a newspaper or scholarly journal.

The Society's petition for a half-acre Jewish section of the city cemetery on Erie (East 9th) Street was soon rejected. City law allowed only for the purchase of small family plots. Yet it shows the bold action our pioneers took to provide for the future needs of the region's Jewish community.

Surprisingly, no copy of this historic document is on public display. How good to think of it being viewed by visitors to its modern counterpart: our Cleveland Jewish Federation and also in the core exhibit of the Maltz Museum.

The second document, the deed to Willet Street Cemetery dated August 7, 1840 has always been available at the Cuyahoga County Recorder and is now online.

The third document, recorded on September 17, 1844 is the deed to land for our first synagogue, a gift from the agent for the original owner of this part of the Western Reserve. Though Congregation Anshe Chesed had been formed in 1842, the gift was made to the Israelitic (also Israelite) Society.

One object remains: the headstone of Alexander Kahnweiler, buried in Willet Street Cemetery by Society members on Friday, August 7, 1840 -- the same day the cemetery deed was recorded. The original stone, unreadable after 180 years of Cleveland weather, is now stored at Mayfield Cemetery. A new headstone will soon be dedicated.

Was there an Israelitic Society in Unsleben?

That our first settlers, most of them from the Bavarian town of Unsleben, formed the Israelitic Society so quickly suggests that they had been in a similar group before.

Our oldest document, a Farewell card known as the Alsbacher Document as it was brought here by Moses and Yetta Alsbacher, supports that thinking. Its 233 signatures show there was a large Jewish population. That the Farewell message was written by Lazarus Kohn, the community's teacher, shows there was an organization that that could hire and pay a teacher. We also know that in 1856 its Jewish community was able to buy a burial ground.

Was there such a community body, and what was its name?

We reached out to CWRU Professor Jay Geller who is an expert on the history of Jews in modern Germany. He soon found a reference to the "Israelitische Gemeinde Unsleben" (Unsleben Israelitic Society). It was in an 1868 German publication.

We believe that Cleveland's Jewish founders organized following the structure they left behind and gave their new communal body the same name, the Israelitic Society.

Thanks to Prof. Jay Geller, CWRU

    Learn more on these pages:
      • 1839 Farewell Card (the Alsbacher Document)
      • 1840 Petition and its history
    • 1840 Israelitic Society deed to Willet Street Cemetery
      • 1840 First Jewish Burial (same day as deed!)
      • 1840 Headstone of Alexander Kahnweiler
      • 1843 Land for our first synagogue: the Great Gift
      • 2017 Discovery of the 1840 petition

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