return to Home page

WHAT'S NEW and WHAT'S COMING  
 

WHAT'S NEW
A log of major upgrades and changes in these Abba Hillel Silver pages

In 1998 a search for abba hillel silver found only 200 pages. Today it will find many more pages: 30,800 on Google or 18,000 on Yahoo! Knowing that I would have to be very selective in expanding this site, in the summer of 2005, with the help of Marc Raphael's biography of Rabbi Silver, I began to invest more time. Here's what's been done since.

July - October 2005

All pages got a new look. The Home page was made easier to find on searches. Seven pages were added including Biography (web-based and in-print), Site Guide, and the memorial prayer sung at the funeral service. Links from other sites were obtained. Soon these pages would rank first or second in a search on abba hillel silver.

May - July 2006

I visited Wheeling West Virginia to gather materials on Silver's first two years as a rabbi. Research at The Temple - Tifereth Israel and the Western Reserve Historical Society helped me finish five pages on the Wheeling years of 1915-17. Our "Links" page becomes three: Zionism, Publications and Recognition. We triple the number of links. For serious visitors, we create an Endnotes page for linked comments and more information and a Resources (links for further study) page.

August - December 2006

The "Youth" page expands with census data on the Silver family. We add a page on Rev. Tzvi Hirsch Masliansky - and his only picture on the web. 

My interest in Cleveland Jewish history having become much broader. , on December 27, 2006 I register the domain clevelandjewishhistory.net and copy the Abba Hillel Silver pages to this new website.

2007

After a few months of dual life on the old and new sites, the old Abba Hillel Silver pages are deleted.

Many other parts of the Cleveland Jewish History website which now hosts these Silver pages were expanded, such as the Simpson Thorman family, Cleveland's Old Synagogues and Glenville, with much work on our coming Soviet Jewry section. Changes in this section were to photograph the real "B'nai Brith Building" where AHS spoke and so impressed the Board of Trustees of The Temple that they decided "he was their man". Correspondence with Dr Rafael Medoff suggested that the "pounding on Harry Truman's desk" incident may not have taken place, so our Zionism page was corrected.

2008

With 30 pages and more than 70 images, this Abba Hillel Silver website is mature — but not yet complete. Pictures of the Silver home in Harlem were added.

2009

Late in the year we were pleased to hear from descendants of Reverend Zvi Hirsch Masliansky and receive a copy of their English translation of his memoirs. We added what may be their best coverage on the internet.

2010

In March it was announced that the Temple Building at University Circle was to start a new, renewed dual life as CWRU's Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center. We added a page on this new life and were gratified to see our site used by and linked to from the Jewish News and Plain Dealer websites.

May 2010 was a very busy time. On May 13 a story about a book by Ofer Shiff appeared in Haaretz and needed first, to be noted and second to be questioned. Then on May 19 a fire destroyed the old B'nai B'rith building on East 55th.

June brought a call from Susan Koletsky who shared some materials on Abba Hillel Silver's funeral service. Adding them led to our documenting his final resting place at Mayfield Cemetery.

In August we found, at last, and posted the 1906 Tannersville photo.

August 2010

 

WHAT'S COMING in the months ahead

I have obtained copies of his New York Times obituary and the Cleveland Jewish News stories on his death and the memorial service. As most visitors now have high speed connections that will support audio files, I will try to take advantage of the TTTI's huge audio library and post some small sample so you can experience his eloquence.

I have also secured a video file of Raphael Silver speaking at the Cleveland's City Club on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. My plan is to put several parts of the Q&A portion of the City Club session on the website.

By the way, a Google search on Abba Hillel Silver now finds 35,000 "hits", with this website ranked #1. Try it.

June 2010

Update: Though this page has not been updated since June 2010, I just Googled Abba Hillel Silver and found an amazing 116,000 hits!   AB 10/2014

Top of Page    Introduction    Recollections    Guide to the Silver Pages    Abba Hillel Silver Home    CJH Home