‘Where the Israeli flag is flying’

Scenes from the Hebrew Cultural Garden, the first ethnic garden at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.Zachary Smith, Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The first official installment in the Cleveland Cultural Gardens after its 1925 creation was the Hebrew Cultural Garden in 1926, dedicated to the Jewish people of Cleveland and a focal point of visibility in the city.

“It’s one of the only places in the city of Cleveland where the Israeli flag is flying,” says Sheila Allenick, a volunteer and former director for the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, which sponsors the Hebrew Cultural Garden.

For “a lot of people who don’t have any interaction with Jewish people, this is the only thing they see.”

Leo Weidenthal, the publisher of Jewish News at the time and founder of the Shakespeare Garden, helped found the Cultural Garden League to create gardens that focused on Cleveland’s ethnic communities, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.

“The Shakespeare Garden was the very first garden, and then because he was Jewish, the Hebrew cultural garden was the first national ethnic garden,” says Allenick.

But as time progressed, Jewish history in Cleveland shaped the garden.

This is part of a series of stories from cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer exploring the Cleveland Cultural Gardens and the ethnic communities each garden represents. Read the ongoing series at this link. The Gardens 2023 One World Day is Sunday.

Scenes from the Hebrew Cultural Garden, the first ethnic garden at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.Zachary Smith, Cleveland.com

The garden acts as a spot for Jewish families to gather and also to be part of a greater community. Allenick says that locals will hold events like family reunions in the garden. One World Day on Sunday will allow “the Jewish community to come and see the garden and realize what a gem it is.”

Over the years, the garden has undergone renovations, which included adding the flight of stairs that begins on Martin Luther King Drive up to the garden located on East Boulevard.

Allenick has been responsible for restoring the garden, which included raising funds to fix the pink Georgia Eweh marble fountain at the garden’s center.

“Two years ago, it became apparent that we needed some big money for the garden because the fountain, which is the centerpiece, was falling apart,” says Allenick. “We were able to renovate the fountain, renovate some of the landscaping and start an endowment fund for the garden so that we would never get into this position again.”

The bowl of the fountain sits on seven pillars representing the seven pillars referred to in the Bible’s book of Proverbs, “Wisdom hath built herself a house; she hath hewn her out of seven pillars,” which is inscribed in the fountain.

The first Jewish people to make their home in Cleveland were from Unsleben, Bavaria, in 1840.

But larger overlapping waves came twice, the first being the “German Era” (1837-1900). By 1880, 3,500 Jewish people were living in Cleveland, in neighborhoods like Kinsman and Hough. A wave from the “East European Era” (1870-1942) increased Cleveland’s Jewish population to 85,000 by 1925.

Initial Jewish settlements were near the Central Market, around the current site of the Gateway sports complex downtown. But as more people immigrated and the population increased, settlements moved to Glenville, Mount Pleasant and Kinsman on Cleveland’s East Side.

Following World War II, the Jewish community moved into eastern suburbs like Cleveland Heights. The area between Coventry and South Green roads became the heart of the Jewish community. More recent history has seen Jewish communities move further east to Beachwood and Pepper Pike.

“The Jewish community has moved further and further east,” says Allenick. “Now, there’s a large community in Solon, and it is a challenge to get people to come downtown or to the University Circle area, but I’d like to believe that the gardens offer enough that it could be a draw to get people to come.”

About 2.5% of Greater Cleveland’s population is Jewish, or about 85,653 people, according to a 2018 estimate from the Berman Jewish DataBank.

Additional renovations include replacing placards and incorporating more plants in the garden, like those around famous Jewish people in history like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.

Scenes from the Hebrew Cultural Garden, the first ethnic garden at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.Zachary Smith, Cleveland.com

Many of the placards sit at one of the points forming from the fountain, which sits on a shape resembling the Star of David.

The Hebrew Garden will also collaborate with other gardens, with Allenick recalling a group clean-up program hosted with the African American Garden.

Notable Jewish people who are either from or lived in Greater Cleveland include actors Joel Grey, Paul Newman, and Carol Kane; cartoonists Harvey Pekar, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; Cleveland Cavaliers General Manager Koby Altman, singer Marc Cohn, and TV Personalities Dorothy Fuldheim and Geraldo Rivera.

The Hebrew Cultural Garden can be found on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive across from the Lebanese Cultural Garden, or on East Boulevard., between the Croatian and Syrian gardens.

Zachary Smith is the data reporter for cleveland.com. You can reach him at [email protected]. See previous data stories at this link.

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