In 1841, a rift opened within a German Orthodox congregation of a Bavarian Unsleben party that met in a rented room on Prospect Street. Known as the Israelite Congregation, it was formed just two years earlier as Cleveland’s first Jewish congregation. The group split over religious differences, with the departing members forming Anshe Chesed, meaning “the People of Loving-kindness.” The factions reunited in 1845 under the name Israelitic Anshe Chesed Society of Cleveland and soon built a synagogue on Eagle Street. This building was relatively small at 35 by 50 by 28 feet. After some disagreements over religious rituals in 1850, some members left to follow Rabbi Isidor Kalisch and establish Tifereth Israel. The Anshe Chesed then hired Rabbi Bernard L. Fould from Bavaria who headed the congregation from 1850 to 1875.

From 1861 to 1865, Rabbi Fould and chazan Gustava M. Cohen instituted many reforms, introduced an organ, tore down the women’s gallery, and installed pews. They also turned the reader of scripture from the Ark’s direction toward the audience. There were significantly more changes, later helped by Rabbi Michaelis Machol during his leadership from 1876 to 1906, converting Anshe Chesed from traditional to reformed Judaism. After the changes that Rabbi Michaelis Machol made during his leading congregation, they adopted English sermons, more moderate prayer books and services that switched between the Hebrew and English language. Some of these changes would later be reversed by Rabbi Barnett Brickner in the 1920s. Meanwhile, in 1887 the congregation relocated to a bigger building on Scovill Avenue and Henry Street (now East 25th). The 125-foot temple had alternating layers of white and red sandstone with octagonal turrets and three arching entrances. Designed by Lehman and Schmitt, the building could comfortably seat 1,200 people.

Rabbi Louis Wolsey from Little Rock, Arkansas, succeeded Rabbi Machol in 1907. The Anshe Chesed Congregation then announced their move to a location previously owned by Cassie Chadwick, who was known for defrauding banks out of millions by saying that she was an heir of Andrew Carnegie. Located on Euclid Avenue and East 82nd Street, Chadwick’s mansion was in the process of demolition in January of 1910, three years after she died in prison. On the vacant land, the Anshe Chesed planned to erect a synagogue designed by Lehman and Schmitt, the same architects who designed their previous home, and set aside $200,000 for construction. Rabbi Wolsey was said to favor an oriental style of architecture with tall columns and porticos for the new building. They cut some of the costs by choosing red brick instead of Indiana limestone, allowing them to spend the saved $50,000 on different amenities that included a new organ and pews.

In 1912, the congregation dedicated its new Euclid Avenue Temple. To commemorate the opening, they lit the eternal fire before the marble Ark representing God’s eternal presence. Within the Ark, there is a scroll of the Jewish law made of satin and gold. A sermon preached by Rabbi Wolsey gave thanks to God, who they believed allowed the building to be erected by His will and for His worship . The temple could seat 1,500 attendants and had one of Cleveland's largest organs at the time with 4,000 pipes. The temple had eight stained glass windows made by Tiffany and Company that each depicted moments of Jewish history as told in the Torah. The woodwork and pews had a silver-gray finish while the carpets and seating upholstery were a deep red. The Ark was made of French marble with two candelabras standing on each side made of bronze. Behind the choir lofts, a glass mosaic was imprinted with a verse from the book of Psalms, completing the synagogue. With all these extra expenses, the cost rose to $250,000.

Beginning in 1925, the Euclid Avenue Temple entered a new three-decade era in which it would become inseparable from the imprint of a new Rabbi. Born in New York City to Russian Jewish immigrants, Rabbi Barnett Brickner was a staunch Zionist and brought a new vision to Anshe Chesed. Rabbi Brickner moved away from many of the classical Reform practices of Anshe Chesed's prior years and reinstated many older Jewish traditions in services. So thoroughly did he shape Anshe Chesed that the synagogue became commonly known as "Brickner's Temple."

In 1956, Anshe Chesed, numbering 2,300 families, sold the building to a local African American congregation, Liberty Hill Baptist Church, which became the second Black church on Euclid Avenue, Anshe Chesed moved to Fairmount Boulevard in the eastern suburb of Beachwood. There they were known as the Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple. At this new location, the congregation pushed for more civil and political rights for all Americans, even helping Soviet Jews relocate to America to flee persecution. The congregation also welcomed lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Jews and their families, and they tasked Chevrei Tikva Chavurah in 2005 with undertaking outreach to the LGBT community. As a result of these actions, the Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple received the Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign Cleveland.

Anshe Chesed had a long history tied to the roots of Cleveland, but like most Jewish organizations, the congregation left the city of Cleveland as its members moved farther eastward into the suburbs. It cannot be understated that this congregation (which more recently merged with Temple Tifereth-Israel to form Mishkan Or) had a lasting impact on Jewish culture in Cleveland, including leaving a wonderful architectural legacy that continues to serve members of Liberty Hill Baptist Church.

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In November, 1970, officers of Shaker-Lee Synagogue presented an $11,500 gift to the Jewish Welfare Fund Appeal for donation to the Israel Emergency Fund.  The substantial gift fulfilled a pledge made by the congregation to its recently deceased members, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Gordon. Committed to do everything in their power to aid the Israeli cause, the Synagogue’s Sisterhood had raised $1,500 for this “tangible demonstration of…support for the Jews of Israel.” The remaining $10,000 was acquired through the sale of their synagogue property at 3688 Lee Road in Shaker Heights.  The sizable contribution marked an end to the small Orthodox congregation’s residence in Shaker Heights. Illustrated by persistent difficulties drawing ten male participants to hold minyan, changing conditions in the neighborhood were cited as a source of their depleted attendance.  The 135-member Synagogue determined that their religious needs would be best met by joining another congregation, and quickly secured permission to worship at Warrensville Center Synagogue in Cleveland Heights.



The Jewish enclave surrounding Shaker-Lee Synagogue would also find a new home outside of Shaker Heights.  By the turn of the century, a large Shield of David etched into the building’s polished sandstone facade remained as one of the area’s few visual reminders of the sizable Jewish community that once lived in the surrounding neighborhood.  The structure’s history as a religious sanctuary, however, neither began nor ended with its use by the Shaker-Lee Synagogue. For over 60 years, the converted commercial building has been used by the communities of Shaker Heights and Mount Pleasant as a center for religious and cultural life. The physical transformation of the storefront space, and subsequent services and activities housed within its walls, reveal the dynamic character of the Moreland neighborhood and the diverse makeup of religious communities that have lived within its bounds.



The construction of the building at 3688 Lee Road occurred fairly late within the context of Moreland’s residential and commercial development.  The southwest corner of the Kinsman-Lee intersection remained a homestead to descendants of the Manx farming community well into the first decade of the 1900s.  Then the area was acquired, improved and allotted by the Shaker Overlook Company. In 1918, the grounds were opened up for sale.  Antonio Lanese, an Italian sewer and water contractor, immediately purchased twenty-one lots along the boulevard that would become Nicholas Road.  Lanese eventually acquired nearly all the lands on both sides of Scottsdale Boulevard and Nicholas Avenue between East 163rd Street and Lee Road.  While most of the property was subdivided and sold to the Hillcrest Realty Company in the late 1920s, Lanese held onto a few allotments facing Lee Road into the mid-1930s.  A building permit for the property at 3688 Lee Road was submitted in 1935, although 1937 maps do not reflect the presence of a structure. The property was eventually sold in 1941, four years after Lanese’s death.





Sophie Schechter, a Russian immigrant living nearby on East 163rd Street, held the deed for the 3688 Lee Road property from 1941 to 1946.  Ownership then transferred to a dentist residing in Kenosha, Wisconsin. An April, 1947 advertisement for Culligan Soft Water Services offers the first evidence of a commercial structure having been built on the property. The Culligan franchise was operated out of this building until the early 1950s, but the entrepreneur eventually relocated his interests to the Lee-Miles neighborhood. In 1952, the property was deeded to Marguerite Kemmerling.  Kemmerling’s husband, Burt, owned a Ford dealership on Buckeye Road in Cleveland; Opened in 1949, the 20,000 square-foot dealership was one of the largest Ford passenger car and truck operations in Ohio.  Real estate agents for A.B. Smythe Company managed rentals of the couple’s commercial property on Lee Road. 



By the time Kemmerling held the deed, the Moreland neighborhood housed a rapidly growing Jewish settlement. An era of economic prosperity had begun to spur rapid suburbanization in the region. Increased mobility and anxiety over racial transition in Cleveland’s east-side neighborhoods exacerbated this flight from the inner city.  Previously centralized around the Glenvillle and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods, Cleveland’s Jewish population moved en masse into the inner-ring suburbs between 1940 and 1960.  





In Shaker Heights, affordable housing and discriminatory real estate practices steered the settlement of middle- and working-class Jews towards the Moreland and Lomond neighborhoods.   The proximity of these neighborhoods to the Orthodox Jewish community of Mount Pleasant, which had steadily expanded east along Kinsman Road since the 1920s, provided additional incentive for settlement in the area. Drawn by Shaker Heights’ superb school system and tree-lined lawns, a substantial Jewish community emerged near the Kinsman-Lee intersection.





The impetus to renovate the building at 3688 Lee Road grew from this rapid demographic shift. A study of the surrounding Kinsman-Lee neighborhood undertaken by the Jewish Welfare Federation in the late 1940s found the area lacking in adequate services and facilities.  In February, 1950, the Jewish Community Center purchased an eight-bedroom house at 3638 Lee Road to use as a branch in Shaker Heights.  With pre-existing locations in Glenville, Cleveland Heights and Mount Pleasant, the Cleveland-based organization provided cultural, recreational, and educational programming to Jewish communities throughout the city and its surrounds. Due to the proximity of the Mount Pleasant and Shaker-Lee branches, the former would eventually discontinue services in 1952.





One resource offered by the Jewish Community Center was its Drama Department. Guided by an objective to revitalize and reinterpret traditions of Jewish theater, the department staged productions of Jewish-themed plays. Since the establishment of the theater group in 1949, however, it lacked a central facility to house productions, rehearse and store equipment. The Jewish Community Center’s Board of Trustees approved the proposed costs of rent and equipment in 1953, and negotiations with A.B. Smythe commenced for use of the nearby commercial building at 3688 Lee Road. The brick structure was zoned as retail property, and contained 6,600 square feet evenly divided between two floors.





Funded by Friends of the Drama Department, the building was redesigned as a 175-seat playhouse that included a permanent stage, dressing rooms, rehearsal areas and workshop space.  It was dedicated in October, 1954. The Drama Department raised its curtains for the first time the following month for a presentation of Jan de Hartog’s “Skipper Next to God.” Chosen to commemorate the 300^th anniversary of Jewish life in the United States, the play depicted the struggles of postwar Jewish refugees as they were refused entry into the Americas.  Both the staging of culturally relevant programming and the new playhouse were well received, and the theater group quickly garnered over 500 subscribers to its three annual productions.  The Drama Department’s value as a community service was also realized through the many hours dispensed training Jewish Community Center members in acting, directing, set design, makeup and lighting. 





The Drama Center annex would also be used for a variety of recreation and ceremonial functions, such as banquets, religious ceremonies, fundraisers and dances. Due to the lack of any large Jewish-operated facilities in the Kinsman-Lee neighborhood prior to the opening of Beth El Synagogue in 1957, the new theater acted as both a cultural and recreational center for the Moreland neighborhood.





While the Jewish population of Shaker Heights steadily grew through 1961, Mount Pleasant’s Jewish community neighborhood had all but disappeared.  Religious institutions that remained behind quickly atrophied.  As early as 1954, Mount Pleasant’s once-popular Kinsman Jewish Center regularly rented the Drama Center hall to hold religious services within the neighborhood’s growing Jewish community.  The impact of this population shift became apparent as membership at the Shaker-Lee Jewish Community Center began to fall in 1956. While the Kinsman-Lee neighborhood was noted as being “enthusiastic” about the center, efforts to draw new members from other parts of the suburb proved futile.  The house on Lee Road did not “compare with the type of homes” that they were used to, and the Center did “not attract their interest or their parents.”

With trends in Jewish population movement appearing to shift towards Cleveland Heights, the Jewish Community Center elected Mayfield Road as the site of a new central facility in 1955.  Plans for the structure included a dedicated theater space, complete with graded seating. Following a performance of “The World of Sholom Aleichem” in May, 1960, the Drama Department began the process of relocating to their new air-conditioned quarters in Cleveland Heights. The doors of the Shaker-Lee Jewish Community Center closed the following year.





Even though the Jewish Community Center continued to work and hold functions out of the Kinsman-Lee Drama Center until late 1960, ownership of the property at 3688 Lee Road was transferred to the Ohel Jacob Anshe Sfard Congregation in November, 1957.  At the time of the sale, the formation of Ohel Jacob Yavneh Congregation was announced. The merger consolidated members of two Mount Pleasant Orthodox synagogues, Ohel Jacob and Ohel Yavneh.  As with many Jewish religious institutions that had grown along Kinsman Road, the two congregations were faced with dwindling membership. Re-centering their new synagogue within Kinsman-Lee’s Jewish community presented an opportunity to remain relevant in the religious lives of its members, and to grow. Following its purchase in 1957, the Drama Center auditorium housed the new congregation’s religious services. For over two years, both the Theater Department and Ohel Jacob Yavneh shared use of the building. The Ohel Jacob Yavneh Congregation also merged with members of Mount Pleasant’s Tifereth Israel Anshe Shard Congregation, and became known as Shaker-Lee Synagogue in 1959.





The building on Lee Road was once again remodeled, this time into a house of worship, following the departure of the Jewish Community Center Theater Department. In May, 1961, Shaker-Lee Synagogue was dedicated before a crowd of 300. Mayor Wilson G. Stapleton of Shaker Heights addressed the audience, welcoming a new Synagogue to the City.  Under the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Isaac Krislov, the synagogue would serve the religious needs of the Kinsman-Lee Orthodox community for over a decade. The congregation maintained an active Sisterhood, regularly offered adult study groups, and hosted gatherings associated with religious holidays.  Both the Rabbi and congregation members were also active in fundraising for pro-Israeli causes.  A shrinking congregation impelled the congregation to sell the synagogue in 1970.  As with the Jewish Community Center Theater Department, the congregation relocated to Cleveland Heights.





The closure of Shaker-Lee Synagogue in 1970 was indicative of a declining Jewish population in Shaker Heights. Estimations of Jewish public-school enrollment as a percentage of total enrollment plummeted from its peak of 47.3 percent in 1961 to 33.1 percent by 1968.  The Kinsman-Lee enclave soon gave way, as Orthodox communities increasingly centralized in University Heights, South Euclid, Beachwood, Cleveland Heights and Wickliffe.





These changes were most pronounced below Van Aken Boulevard in Shaker Heights, particularly within the Moreland community.  Ten percent of the neighborhood’s 600 homes were placed on the real estate market in both 1962 and 1963.  This was a sharp increase from prior years, and allowed for the rapid development of a Black enclave within Shaker Heights. Moreland, once known for its Italian and Jewish populace, quickly became a haven for an emerging middle-class African American community.  This transition was not uncharacteristic for Moreland, as witnessed during the Jewish migration into Shaker Heights at mid-century. While both an Italian and Jewish presence remained within the neighborhood, African-Americans comprised two-thirds of the Moreland population by 1970.



Following the sale of Shaker-Lee Synagogue, the building continued functioning as a religious sanctuary.  Converted into a Christian church, the structure housed the religious activities of Full Gospel Assembly Church from 1970 to 2001. This evangelical congregation was led by Reverend Joseph Frano, an ordained minister of the Christian Churches of North America. Rooted in the Italian Pentecostal Movement, the religious institution was known as the Italian Christian Church prior to 1948. Reverend Frano was noted for teachings that blended traditions of Pentecostalism, Protestantism and Catholicism. 





The Chapel of Hope Christian Fellowship has continued in the tradition of housing religious and community services for the surrounding neighborhood since 2001. Founded by Reverend Willard McFarland, development of the inclusive, non-denominational Christian congregation was guided by a belief that members should exemplify Christian teachings through daily actions in order to effect positive change in the world. Congregation members have sponsored a variety of aid programs over their many years of service in the Moreland neighborhood, including food drives, blood drives, and clothing giveaways. An annual Angel Tree outreach program is also sponsored during the Christmas season for children of incarcerated men and women.  Community services offered by the church have included raking leaves for elderly neighbors, jail ministry, financial seminars and leadership training. As the Chapel of Hope Christian Fellowship proceeds along a storied path of community outreach and faith-based service, the converted storefront at 3688 Lee Road acts as a reminder of the many religious communities that helped define the distinct character of the Moreland neighborhood.

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On July 29, 1951, more than 500 guests of Temple Beth-El convened at the Hotel Hollenden ballroom in downtown Cleveland to witness the dedication of the congregation’s Sefer Torah. Speakers at the ceremony included Rabbi David L. Genuth of Temple Beth-El, Ohio Governor Frank Lausche, and Mayor John W. Barkley of Shaker Heights. Rabbi Genuth, spiritual leader and founding member of the congregation, addressed the crowd with his vision for Temple Beth-El. “Our doors shall be open to all seeking a refuge and a haven from the troubles of the world, regardless of race, color or creed. Our temple shall be a sanctuary to the poor and the rich, the weak and the strong.”  Governor Lausche followed, observing the long and enduring history of Jewish persecution.  Mayor Barkley then welcomed Temple Beth-El to Shaker Heights, remarking “It is a people that make a city great. Your organization will make a valuable addition to our fair city.”  While Rabbi Genuth founded Beth-El to cultivate traditions of Jewish Orthodoxy within Shaker Heights, it was fitting for the public ceremony to be held in the neighboring City of Cleveland.  Efforts to institutionalize Jewish life in Shaker Heights had only recently begun to be realized.  The physical development of Jewish civic associations in the suburb was noticeably overdue, as was the newfound municipal support for their creation.  



Although not reflected in physical structures, Shaker Heights had long been home to an active Jewish community. As early as the 1920s, Cleveland’s many Jewish newspapers announced the births, deaths, bar mitzvahs, confirmations, business ventures, real estate purchases, and general comings-and-goings of the Shaker Heights community.  Increasingly throughout the 1930s, Jewish clubs and organizations regularly met in Shaker Heights homes for a variety of events that included garden parties, tea socials, sewing circles, and discussion groups. While hosting events in homes was common during the era, official meetings and charity events of Jewish clubs such as Kinsman-Shaker B'nai B'rith, Shaker Heights Masada, and Hadassah branches were typically held outside the suburb’s boundaries.



As evidenced by these activities, a 1937 population study estimated that fifteen percent of the Shaker Heights population was Jewish. This accounted for over 3,600 individuals in 837 families. Fifty-seven percent of these Jewish families were members of congregations.  Despite the presence of a substantial Jewish population, there were no dedicated houses of worship in Shaker Heights. This lack of grounded religious organizations was partly due to the community’s ties to synagogues in both Cleveland and, increasingly, Cleveland Heights. Although shrinking in size and influence, large Jewish communities centered in Glenville and along Kinsman in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood remained the hubs of religious and cultural life through the 1930s.   



The dearth of Jewish institutions within Shaker Heights, however, can also be attributed to exclusionary real estate policies implemented by The Van Sweringen Company during the 1920s.  Restrictive covenants in deeds issued following 1925 deterred property sales to Jews, African Americans and Catholics, and strict building standards discouraged types of religious architecture. While the deed restrictions did not explicitly deny home-ownership on the basis of religion or race, the covenants required the re-sale of a home be approved by the majority of neighboring property owners.  Masked under the guise of community standards, the process discouraged both real estate agents and homeowners from entering into negotiations with non-white and Jewish prospective buyers.  Despite a Supreme Court decision declaring restrictive covenants unenforceable in 1948,  the practices were commonly employed and actively hindered access to housing in many Shaker Heights neighborhoods well into the 1950s.




Because many properties in the southeast region of Shaker Heights were developed outside the Van Sweringens’ control, restrictive covenants were less likely to impede Jewish home ownership in the Moreland and Lomond neighborhoods.  A substantial Jewish community emerged near the intersection of Kinsman and Lee Roads during the 1940s, providing increased urgency for the development of religious institutions.



Three new Jewish congregations in Shaker Heights were chartered during this period of Jewish settlement. Established in 1947, the Temple of Shaker Heights was led by Rabbi Albert L. Raab of the N’Vai Zedek Congregation in Mount Pleasant. The congregation initiated fundraising for a $250,000 religious complex to be located in the Kinsman-Lee neighborhood, but the project was never realized.  Temple Emanu El was founded that same year, holding both services and religious school at Moreland School. The Reform Jewish congregation moved their services to Plymouth Church of Shaker Heights within the year. Congregants continued to hold religious services and classes in Shaker Heights until 1954, when land was acquired to construct a synagogue in University Heights.  The Suburban Temple, a splinter of Emanu El, was established in 1948. The congregation held services in the Lomond School Auditorium until securing land in Beachwood to construct a temple in 1954. At midcentury, the Emanu El and Suburban Temple congregations were in the process of raising funds to construct synagogues.  While the city of Shaker Heights remained devoid of any permanent Jewish religious edifices, efforts were underway to ground religious life in the Kinsman-Lee neighborhood. 



In the fall of 1950, four families gathered at the home of Rabbi David L. Genuth on Hildana Road for the purpose of establishing the “First Hebrew Sanctuary in Shaker Heights.”   Aspiring to fill the “long apparent need” for Orthodox services in the suburb, the small group founded Beth-El.  Aided by the Shaker Heights School Board, Orthodox services were quickly scheduled to be held at the Moreland School Auditorium on Saturday mornings.  Within four weeks, the congregation was granted a charter by the State of Ohio.



Reputed for his philanthropic, civic and cultural endeavors, Rabbi Genuth quickly grew the Beth-El congregation.  The Rabbi had long been an active and influential member of Cleveland’s Orthodox Jewish community.  Between 1933 and 1950, he acted as spiritual leader of the Kinsman Jewish Center in Mount Pleasant.  Modern Orthodox services were implemented under his guidance in 1937, and the congregation grew to over 400 families by 1940.  The Rabbi had also been instrumental in the development of the Cleveland Zionist Society, and helped found both the Jewish Community Council and the Shaker-Kinsman B’nai B’rith.  Like many congregants of the Kinsman Jewish Center, Rabbi Genuth relocated from Mount Pleasant to a home in Shaker Heights’ Kinsman-Lee district by the early 1940s.  With the announcement of the new congregation in Shaker Heights, both loyalties to the Rabbi and a desire to worship within the emerging Kinsman-Lee community aided in its rapid growth. 



In February, 1951, Beth-El celebrated its new charter at the Heights Jewish Center in Cleveland Heights.  That August, the sacred Sefer Torah was presented to the congregation and blessed at the Hollenden Hotel celebration.  Efforts were well underway to create a permanent space where Jewish religious life could be observed within the boundaries of Shaker Heights.   A frame dwelling, rumored to be the oldest standing farmhouse in Shaker Heights, was acquired by the Beth-El congregation in July of 1951 at 15808 Kinsman Road.   The grounds of the new property were consecrated, and the temple dedicated in August.  Before a capacity crowd, a procession led the congregation’s Torah scrolls into the building.   While the modest structure was only envisioned as a temporary home, Temple Beth-El was now equipped to provide for the educational, cultural and religious needs of the community.  



Due to limited facilities at the farmhouse, High Holy Day Services were held in the Moreland School Auditorium in 1951. Beth-El histories recount these ceremonies as the first time in the history of Cleveland that “a modern Orthodox congregation held services where men and women sat side by side and worshipped together.”  The years that followed witnessed a flurry of organizational and fundraising activities.  A Sisterhood was organized, a Sunday School established, cemetery lands purchased in Mt. Zion Memorial Park, existing grounds renovated to meet city codes, and plans prepared for the construction of a new synagogue. Doors remained open to the surrounding community daily throughout these years, with Rabbi David Genuth offering counsel to all that entered the Temple in Shaker Heights. 



On August 22, 1954, Rabbi Genuth stood before his congregation to perform groundbreaking rituals and initiate construction of Beth-El’s new synagogue. Below an open tent fronting the farmhouse, Mayor Barkley delivered the principal address to commemorate the establishment of the city’s first permanent Jewish temple.  The Mayor was presented with a bound Hebrew and English copy of the Song of Solomon, which had been printed in the recently formed state of Israel.  The turning of the soil symbolized the institutionalization of Jewish religious life in the community of Shaker Heights.



The successes of Temple Beth-El can in part be attributed to its close ties with the municipal government.  While the City had already shown a willingness to work with the Jewish community in providing access to its schools for use in religious services during the late 1940s, a personal relationship between Rabbi Genuth and Mayor Barkley helped color the interaction between these two institutions. Upon news of John Barkley’s election in 1950, Rabbi Genuth had penned a letter of congratulations to the Mayor-elect. The written correspondence evolved into a friendship. From the outset, the congregation found city officials to be supportive of their ambition to build a Jewish sanctuary in Shaker Heights.  Permissions were secured by both the Mayor of Shaker Heights and the Superintendent of Shaker Heights Schools to use the Moreland School Auditorium for forum meetings and religious services.    Upon Barkley’s subsequent acceptance of invitations to participate in Beth-El’s public ceremonies, relationships were forged between the Mayor and numerous congregation members.  



Through Mayor Barkley’s participation in public ceremonies, a precedent was set for the involvement of future administrations in Beth-El’s religious affairs. Personal ties would also be built by Rabbi Genuth with Mayors Wilson G. Stapleton and Paul K. Jones. The various Mayors participated in nearly all public events during these early years, including annual officer installations, construction-related ceremonies, ribbon-cuttings, and dedications.  This eventually extended to their attendance at significant religious observations, and a tradition emerged that the Mayor of Shaker Heights visited services on High Holy Days. The friendship and goodwill between municipal leaders and the congregation proved beneficial through the many difficult years of inspections, planning and construction of Temple Beth-El’s new structure. 



On September 15, 1957, Governor Frank Lausche and Mayor Wilson G. Stapleton of Shaker Heights convened to celebrate the dedication of Temple Beth-El’s House of Worship. The American colonial-type structure, situated at the rear of the historic farmhouse, was officially opened as the first built Synagogue in Shaker Heights. Designed to reflect the architectural motif of Shaker Square, the building merged traditions of the Jewish community and a historically exclusionary suburb. The dedication of a synagogue did not mark an end to the suburb’s troubled history of discriminatory real estate practices. The symbolic support offered by the City of Shaker Heights to Temple Beth-El throughout the 1950s, however, indicated the beginnings of an institutional shift towards inclusivity that would later become a cornerstone of the city’s identity.  Fittingly, the banquet that followed the official opening of Beth-El was held in Naiman Hall of the new synagogue. 



Under the leadership of David Genuth, Temple Beth-El continued to expand. The synagogue become a refuge for modern Orthodox Jewish religion, culture and education within Shaker Heights.  The congregation grew to 450 members by its tenth anniversary, 80 percent of whom lived in the immediate vicinity of the neighborhood. Even as the Kinsman-Lee Jewish community dispersed to the outer-ring suburbs of Cleveland during the 1960s and 1970s, Temple Beth-El maintained many of its members and a full schedule of religious services. The historic synagogue regularly reached full capacity on High Holy Days.  After nearly twenty-four years of service as the spiritual leader of Temple Beth-El, Rabbi Genuth passed away on February 23, 1974.  The Shaker Heights congregation continued on its path of fostering the traditions of modern Orthodox Judaism for the next twenty-five years.  Attrition, continued decline in the surrounding neighborhood’s Orthodox Jewish population, and the burdens of an aging structure impelled the sale of the synagogue to the City of Shaker Heights in 1998. Under the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Moshe Adler, the Beth-El congregation merged with 35 members of Beth Am to form Beth-El — The Heights Synagogue in January, 2000. The congregation is currently located in Cleveland Heights.

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Oheb Zedek is one of the most venerable Orthodox Jewish congregations in the greater Cleveland area. It was founded in 1904 by a group of former members of the congregation B’nai Jeshurun. The disgruntled ex-congregants vehemently disagreed with B’nai Jeshurun’s ongoing transition from Orthodox to Conservative Judaism. Accordingly, they sought to establish a more firmly Orthodox synagogue of their own. The next year, the group built and moved into a synagogue on East 38th Street and Scovill Avenue in Cleveland’s predominantly Jewish Woodland neighborhood. From there, Oheb Zedek followed the general migratory pattern of Cleveland’s Jewish population, slowly but steadily moving further eastward. By 1922, the congregation had fully relocated to the Glenville neighborhood, northeast of Woodland; by 1955, the group had moved again, this time to the inner-ring suburb of Cleveland Heights.

In Cleveland Heights, Oheb Zedek established itself in the building it occupies to this day: the Taylor Road Synagogue. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Taylor Road was in the process of becoming a hub of Jewish life and worship, reminiscent of similar streets in the Woodland and Glenville neighborhoods back when they had been among the primary Jewish enclaves in the Cleveland area. Notable institutions like the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland and the Hebrew Academy were also located on Taylor Road, and in 1961, the Jewish Community Center was built just down the street. In addition, a panoply of Jewish shops, restaurants, and other establishments spread up and down the street. Oheb Zedek was far from alone. By 1955, when its building had been completed and dedicated, the newly renamed Taylor Road Synagogue had absorbed several other Orthodox congregations: Agudath Achim, Agudath B’nai Israel Anshe Sfard, Chibas Jerusalem, Knesseth Israel, and Shaaray Torah. Together, these congregations would maintain a thriving Jewish community … for a while.

After about a decade, the Taylor Road Synagogue was under pressure to relocate once again. Faced with familiar motivators — an influx of African Americans into the area and the gradual departure of the Jewish population — it would have been relatively unsurprising to see Oheb Zedek and the other Taylor Road congregations move eastward once more. Many other Cleveland Heights congregations had already moved, or would do so within the next several decades: for instance, B’nai Jeshurun, Oheb Zedek’s forebear and occupant of the grand Temple on the Heights, voted to leave for Pepper Pike in 1969, although it did not officially relocate there until 1980. Surprisingly, however, Oheb Zedek and its brethren, along with a number of other Cleveland Heights Jewish congregations, refused to leave. With the help of the Heights Area Project, a nonprofit organization run by the Jewish Community Federation, Cleveland Heights’ Jewish residents rallied together, embracing integration and investing in institutions in a way that previous Cleveland Jewish communities had not. In this way, Cleveland Heights’s Jews managed to preserve their Heights presence, and prevent the departure of some (although far from all) local synagogues. Taylor Road in particular retained a significant portion of its Orthodox population, ensuring the survival of the Taylor Road Synagogue.

The aforementioned happy ending comes with a strange recent twist. In 2012, Oheb Zedek reportedly merged with the Cedar-Sinai Synagogue in Lyndhurst. What did not become apparent until later that year was that the proposed merger had engendered heated opposition. In November of 2012, furious members of Oheb Zedek on Taylor Road filed a lawsuit aimed at stopping the merger. This lawsuit was aimed not just at Cedar-Sinai, but at three leading members of Taylor Road Synagogue as well! The members who filed the suit mainly argued that the merger had been somehow illegitimate, and therefore invalid. After over a year of legal wrangling, involving both the Common Pleas Court of Cuyahoga County and a prominent Jewish religious court based in New York, the plaintiffs and the defendants reached an out-of-court settlement. While most of the details were not disclosed, it was made clear that the two synagogues would not be making a full merger. Once again, Oheb Zedek managed to pull through and survive. 

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In 1917, Anshe Emeth—an Orthodox congregation founded by Polish Jews near Woodland and Broadway Avenues (and later located on East 37th Street)—merged with congregation Beth Tefilo and bought land on East 105th Street in Glenville. Spearheaded by Rabbi Samuel Benjamin, the resultant building (completed in 1922) become one of the first US synagogues to adopt the Jewish Center mode: comprehensive services which (in the case of the Glenville structure) comprised an auditorium, swimming pool, and basketball and handball courts; as well as worship, study, education, library and administrative spaces. The congregation also sponsored lectures, social functions and entertainment; provided space for clubs; housed a branch of the Cleveland Hebrew Schools; and offered Americanization classes.

Led by Rabbi Solomon Goldman, the congregation changed from Orthodox to Conservative about the time of its move to Glenville. Within 20 years, Anshe Emeth Beth Tefilo’s membership reached 920 families, making it the largest congregation affiliated with the United Synagogue of America. Armond Cohen became the congregation's rabbi in 1934.

By 1942, members were migrating en masse to the suburbs—primarily Cleveland Heights—so the congregation sought to establish an eastern branch on the property of the Park School, a huge piece of land situated between Euclid Heights Boulevard and Mayfield Road, just east of Ivydale Road. At the time, the property contained only a few frame structures. A great new complex was envisioned and, in November 1945, a building campaign was launched at a dinner in the Carter Hotel.

Rabbi Cohen was already familiar with the work of Erich Mendelsohn, an architect working in New York and then San Francisco. Together with his family, the architect had escaped Nazi Germany, moving to England and Palestine. Mendelsohn had had an illustrious career in Europe. Among his most admired creations were the De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, England; Expressionist-style department stores in several German cities; and the Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany.

Rabbi Cohen was instrumental in bringing Mendelsohn to Cleveland. During his first visit, Mendelsohn sketched his ideas on a blackboard and immediately won the synagogue building committee’s approval to move ahead. The new Park Synagogue would be one of the architect’s first American synagogue commissions, although he would go on to design several others. In all, four were constructed, all in the Midwest. During the course of synagogue planning, the architect also remodeled much of the interior of Rabbi Cohen’s own home on Euclid Heights Boulevard, to conform with International Style principles. Dedication activities for the as-yet-unfinished project were held in December, 1950. Building activity for the original structure was completed by 1953.

The complex’s centerpiece is its vast hemispheric temple dome: 125 feet high, 120 feet in diameter and weighing 680 tons. Reputed to be the third largest in the world at the time of construction, the dome required 180,000 feet of lumber and took eleven weeks to assemble. Its outer layer is pre-formed copper, designed to blend through natural oxidation with the surrounding landscape.

Beneath the dome, the main sanctuary is connected to a fan-shaped assembly hall with folding doors, so that the size can be almost doubled for attendance on High Holy Days. Lighting effects were designed at Nela Park. Mendelsohn also insisted that only clear glass should be used—absolutely no stained glass.

By the mid-1960s, more space was needed. Large donations culminated in the Kangesser wing, dedicated in March 1968, which added an art gallery, another assembly hall with a large auxiliary space for events such as weddings, and numerous smaller rooms. The new wing connects to the main building via an enclosed bridge over a ravine. Around the same time that the Kangesser construction took place, land in Pepper Pike was donated to the congregation for a future educational facility.

Shortly after Park’s dedication in 1950, one critic referred to the synagogue as “the outstanding example of modern Hebrew architecture in America . . . the forerunner of a modern, functional synagogue design.” A curator of the Jewish Museum in New York wrote: “I regard Park Synagogue as the most significant structure of its kind in our generation.” The Cleveland Heights facility is now referred to as Park Main, as the congregation built and maintains a second facility in Pepper Pike.

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