absence of Jewish community in southern Shaker Heights

[Urban Peasant]

Redlining could have occurred. I don't know enough of NE Ohio history to confirm this but here in Greater Boston, there were various instances of Jews being kept in their place in modern history. Dorchester, the largest neighborhood in Boston at one time was heavily populated by Jews and Irish but the former New Haven Midlands Division Railroad (now the Fairmount Commuter Line) pretty much kept the Jews to the west of the railroad and the Irish to the east. Jews were prohibited from buying property on the east side. Another instance of redlining was with Brookline, that well to do suburb which is a nearly a twin of Shaker Heights. Nowadays Brookline is heavily populated by Jewish people by an elderly college professor from Brookline told me that generations ago Jews were forbidden from settling in Brookline and faced getting beaten up and harassed if they dared cross over from Roxbury. Maybe some instance like this occured with Chagrin Blvd acting as the red line.

[yofie]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

Redlining could have occurred. I don't know enough of NE Ohio history to confirm this but here in Greater Boston, there were various instances of Jews being kept in their place in modern history. Dorchester, the largest neighborhood in Boston at one time was heavily populated by Jews and Irish but the former New Haven Midlands Division Railroad (now the Fairmount Commuter Line) pretty much kept the Jews to the west of the railroad and the Irish to the east. Jews were prohibited from buying property on the east side. Another instance of redlining was with Brookline, that well to do suburb which is a nearly a twin of Shaker Heights. Nowadays Brookline is heavily populated by Jewish people by an elderly college professor from Brookline told me that generations ago Jews were forbidden from settling in Brookline and faced getting beaten up and harassed if they dared cross over from Roxbury. Maybe some instance like this occured with Chagrin Blvd acting as the red line.

I don't know if the answer to the above queries is that it was redlining. After all, many African-Americans moved to South Shaker and also to certain other parts of Shaker, and today, African-Americans make up the overwhelming majority of the area south of Chagrin and west of Lee, and they're a smaller majority in Lomond and a large minority in Sussex.

[yofie]

I just found out, from someone off this forum who's quite knowledgeable in the history of Jewish Cleveland, a key reason for the lack of synagogues in Shaker Heights, in Lomond/Sussex and elsewhere (with the exception of the two no-longer-existing ones south of Chagrin and west of Lee, right next to the old quarter of Kinsman). That is that as a garden suburb, Shaker Heights has historically been very picky in zoning non-residential uses in general and non-Protestant houses of worship in particular. At least with St. Dominic's Catholic Church on Van Aken, when it opened in 1947, in all probability Catholics were already living in Shaker, whereas Jews had yet to move en masse to places like Shaker. Thus, I intuit that it was much more difficult to zone for future synagogues, and it was simply much easier to do so in the communities right to the north, such as Cleveland Heights, South Euclid, and University Heights, where Jews did move to. All of that makes sense?

[bjimmy24]

Originally Posted by yofie

I just found out, from someone off this forum who's quite knowledgeable in the history of Jewish Cleveland, a key reason for the lack of synagogues in Shaker Heights, in Lomond/Sussex and elsewhere (with the exception of the two no-longer-existing ones south of Chagrin and west of Lee, right next to the old quarter of Kinsman). That is that as a garden suburb, Shaker Heights has historically been very picky in zoning non-residential uses in general and non-Protestant houses of worship in particular. At least with St. Dominic's Catholic Church on Van Aken, when it opened in 1947, in all probability Catholics were already living in Shaker, whereas Jews had yet to move en masse to places like Shaker. Thus, I intuit that it was much more difficult to zone for future synagogues, and it was simply much easier to do so in the communities right to the north, such as Cleveland Heights, South Euclid, and University Heights, where Jews did move to. All of that makes sense?

Not many Catholics in Shaker either. St Dominic's is it as far as Catholic Churches go. And they would only allow that church to be built if it looked like a New England protestant church.

[ferraris]

There's an interesting Shaker Life article on the history of the Moreland neighborhood's former Jewish population.

[kpl1228]

Originally Posted by ferraris

There's an interesting Shaker Life article on the history of the Moreland neighborhood's former Jewish population.

this is terrific

[TheProf]

Ferraris' Shaker Life article is very interesting. Growing up in JR/HS at Shaker, I knew a number of Jewish kids from the Lomond/Scottsdale area in south Shaker Heights. Also, though it is not a synagogue, Bellefaire is substantial Jewish-based agency with a large, attractive campus near the corner for Belvoir and Fairmount blvds. While it began as a Jewish orphanage in Cleveland in the 1800s, Bellefaire is still a Jewish-sponsored residential treatment facility that attends to the physical and psychological needs of troubled youth.