Taken in 1927, this old Cleveland Press photo is not the dedication of the garden. The garden was dedicated on May 5, 1926 with the great Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik delivering an address in Hebrew. It was translated by Solomon Goldman, then rabbi at the Cleveland Jewish Center on East 105th Street - today The Park Synagogue.

The next year, 1928, Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, visited Cleveland. He too was given the honor of planting a tree and is shown in the center of the historic photo above. The others are: Jennie Zwick, a leader in Jewish women's circles; Abba Hillel Silver, Cleveland's leading Zionist and rabbi of The Temple, just a mile away at University Circle; City Manager William Hopkins, in whose memory our airport is named; and Leo Weidenthal, long-time editor of The Jewish Independent, who led the effort to establish the cultural gardens along Liberty Boulevard (originally Rockefeller Parkway and now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive).