Park Synagogue - History

History

The Park Synagogue has its origins in two Orthodox Jewish congregations: Anshe Emet and Beth Tefilo congregations. Anshe Emeth was founded in 1869 by Polish Jews who lived originally in downtown Cleveland. By 1888, disagreements among congregants over the synagogue's direction led some members to leave and form a Reform congregation. In 1903, the remaining members built a new synagogue at Woodland and 55th Street. Yet by 1917, Cleveland's Jews began relocating eastward, which led Anshe Emeth's leadership to merge with Beth Tefilo, and under the leadership of Rabbi Samuel Benjamin the combined congregation bought land at the southeast corner of East 105th Street and Drexel Avenue for the new Cleveland Jewish Center which began construction in 1920.

Upon completion in 1922, with its extensive facilities, the Jewish Center quickly became a focal point of Jewish life. In addition to a synagogue, the Center had a ballroom, a recreation center, and an indoor swimming pool. At this time, under the leadership of Rabbi Solomon Goldman, the congregation transitioned from an Orthodox to a Conservative Jewish orientation.

The change of orientation proved highly controversial for many members. Among the changes, women and men were allowed to sit together and the selling of Aliyot was forbidden. Threats were made against the rabbi, legal action was mounted, which was appealed all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, who refused to hear the case. The rabbi who championed the changes, Rabbi Goldman, left the Cleveland Jewish Center in 1929 to assume another pulpit, that of the Anshe Emet Synagogue in Lakeview, Illinois where he established himself as a well-respected leader. To replace Rabbi Goldman the congregation called upon a gentle and scholarly man as their spiritual leader to heal the divisions. Rabbi Harry S Dawidowitz led the Jewish Center for 5 years, until he decided to move his family to Palestine in 1934.

Rabbi Solomon Goldman had taken a young boy, Armond Cohen, under his wing when he came to the congregation in 1922. Cohen had lost both parents to the influenza pandemic in 1918; living with his grandparents, the Jewish Center had also become his home. When Armond graduated from Glenville High School with no certain direction and after winning an oratory contest, Goldman made arrangements for Armond to attend New York University and the Jewish Theological Seminary to become a rabbi. Goldman would pay for the first year and procured promises of loans from the congregation to cover the rest.

In 1934, Rabbi Armond Cohen was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary and at age 25, was named Rabbi of the Cleveland Jewish Center (later known as the Park Synagogue), a position he would hold for 73 years, until his death in 2007. With the synagogue burdened by debt, Cohen, together with lay leaders raised funds to alleviate the financial crisis. But with Cleveland Jewry continuing to move eastward, Cohen and the synagogue's leadership recognized the need to build a new facility further east. To set the stage, the congregation purchased the defunct Park School and its property in Cleveland Heights, .

The following summer, in 1943, a day care and nursery school began functioning there, and an adjacent lot of 21 acres (85,000 m2) was purchased from John D. Rockefeller. In 1945, a fire broke out, destroying most of the old Park School buildings, as well as the synagogue's library and Torah scrolls. Erich Mendelsohn was hired to design the new synagogue. Completed in 1950, Park Synagogue is considered a significant example of modern synagogue design; one writer comments that its "adventurous use of space is masterly; there are surprises round every corner and unexpected vistas at every turn."

In 1986, to meet the needs of a Jewish population that had expanded eastward into outlying suburbs, Park Synagogue East opened in Pepper Pike and in 2005 the syangogue completed building a new facility there.

In 1990, Park Synagogue hired Rabbi Skoff as the Associate Rabbi. Subsequently, he was named Senior Rabbi, in 1996 given life tenure, and in 2008, honored with the newly-endowed Leighton Rosenthal Chair in Rabbinics. Rabbi Skoff has been eminently successful in unifying and re-energizing the congregation. As with Rabbi Armond Cohen in an earlier period, Rabbi Skoff carries on the tradition of Park Synagogue as an active and vibrant congregation, one of the largest Conservative congregations in the United States. Park has been awarded eleven Solomon Schechter Synagogue of Excellence Awards from the United Synagogue and continues its legacy of service to the Cleveland Jewish community.