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10 years later, Orthodox campus revisited
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BY: RICK PERLOFF Special to the CJN
A decade ago, Beachwood councilman Fred Goodman could not go anywhere without encountering the topic du jour.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s the grocery store or a restaurant; everyone has wanted to talk about it, and everyone has an opinion,” Goodman told The Plain Dealer in 1997. He was referring to the issue of constructing a campus of Orthodox institutions in Beachwood.
“There were zealots on both sides. It was a very difficult time. People I knew very well were against it, and people I knew very well were for it,” he says, recalling the issue today.
Goodman rarely encounters the issue today. When he knocked on doors during the recent election campaign, the topic never came up.
“It seems so long ago,” says Lynn Danzig, a longtime Beachwood resident. “No one talks about it anymore. It’s over and done with.”
Ten years ago, the Beachwood issue was a hot topic in the press. The CJN was besieged with letters. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland TV news stations, the Forward, and The New York Times covered the story. Columbia University professor and Times correspondent Samuel G. Freedman devoted a long chapter to it in his book Jew vs. Jew, a bestseller among Jewish intelligentsia.
On the once-controversial 12 acres of land on South Green Road there now sits Young Israel of Cleveland synagogue, Chabad House of Cleveland, and Beatrice Stone Yavne High School. The three institutions are thriving, a bustling center of Orthodox culture in Cleveland.
“Everybody’s gotten older, and since they have gotten older, they accept more,” explains David Nittskoff, a member of nearby Green Road Synagogue (Orthodox).
Peel past the surface veneer of acceptance, however, and a more complicated picture emerges. The neigh- borhood near the synagogues has undergone a social transformation. Over the last decade, there has been an influx of Orthodox families, with the area becoming an epicenter of Orthodox life. Although some opponents of the campus predicted that dire consequences would ensue as a result, there is little evidence that these consequences have materialized. At the same time, some residents express concern about the future, worrying that over the long haul, schools will be adversely affected.
These observations emerge from my 10-week exploration of the aftereffects of the conflict, based on interviews with more than two dozen religious leaders, city officials, partisan supporters and opponents of the campus in 1997, and other Beachwood residents.
Much of the bitterness harbored by partisans on both sides of the issue has dissipated. They say they want to put the issue behind them, sometimes displaying concern that reopening any public discussion might erode what they see as a fragile peace. Several of these activists declined to be interviewed for this article.
But Dr. Stephen Post, a professor of philosophy and religion at Case Western Reserve University, sees benefits from revisiting the past. “Insofar as people gradually forget the reality of this kind of conflict, they don’t learn from it. And they don’t use it as a learning opportunity more positively,” he says.
The issue dates back to 1995. With the Orthodox community growing and moving eastward, three Orthodox groups joined forces to develop a sweeping proposal to construct a synagogue for Young Israel, Chabad House, and Yavne High School for girls on South Green Road in Beachwood. The plan recommended tearing down homes located on the proposed construction site and replacing them with the synagogues and high school. Few expected the plan, which Orthodox leaders developed with guidance from former Beachwood Mayor Harvey Friedman, to run into difficulty. However, a group of homeowners objecting to the idea of putting synagogues and a school smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood organized a campaign to prevent construction of these institutions.
In March, the Beachwood Planning and Zoning Commission, meeting at a packed community hall with TV crews videotaping the event, voted against the proposal. This prompted the now-famous incident, in which an outraged campus supporter ran toward the dais, waving a Purim noisemaker, shouting, “This is Purim all over again. Haman! Haman!”
It marked the beginning of the firestorm.
A bitter campaign ensued. City Council overrode the decision of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Opponents put the issue on the November ballot, and Beachwood voters turned down the campus proposal by a razor-thin margin. Undaunted, Orthodox leaders modified their proposal, submitted a new campus plan to the Board of Zoning Appeals, and the Board narrowly supported the plan.
Opponents challenged the decision in court. Ultimately, the Orthodox supporters won their case, ironically on a legal technicality.
Groundbreaking followed. Subsequently, the synagogues and school were built, marking the fulfillment of a long-held dream in the Orthodox community.
Ten years later, what is the balance sheet?
Opponents feared that the public schools would suffer if Orthodox Jews moved en masse to the city. “It’s such a small system now, the potential of losing families who normally would send their kids to the schools is scary,” Richard Swartz, who lived near the development, told a Plain Dealer reporter in March 1997.
In fact, school levies placed on the ballot over the past five years have passed overwhelmingly. Seventy-two percent of Beachwood voters approved a 9.8 combined bond and operating levy in 2002, and 68.5% supported a 5.9 operating mill levy in 2005. These proportions of victory are comparable to n and in the case of 2005, higher than n the margins by which levies passed in the 1990s.
Rabbi Melvin Granatstein of Green Road Synagogue, says he publicly urged his congregants to vote for school levies, a recommendation that congregants interviewed for this article still recall. Dr. Alan Rosenthal, a member of the Beachwood School Board and an Orthodox Jew, contends “the Orthodox are strongly supportive of school levies on a numbers of levels. On the simplest level, the better the school system, the more you draw people into the community and the better the real estate values. But the people in the Orthodox community also realize the beauty and value of the Beachwood schools.”
Yet others in Beachwood see portentous trends on the horizon.
Mark Leimsieder examined the history of the Orthodox campus in a master’s thesis at Siegal College, one of two theses to examine the issue. “I see a continuing decline in the public schools and increase in the parochial schools as more Orthodox residents move to Beachwood,” he says. “My concern is with what happens to the public schools in Beachwood in the next 20 years because there are not enough fish in the pond.” One resident, who asked that his name not be used, said, “As more and more Orthodox move into the community, it changes the public-school enrollment.”
But the evidence so far tells a different story.
The number of students in the Beachwood public schools has fluctuated over the past decade. During 1996-1997, 1,591 students were enrolled in the public schools. Two years later, 1,676 students were enrolled. In 2006-2007, the number had dropped by 100, to 1,576.
Beachwood School District treasurer Michelle Mills says the decline may be only temporary, and she points to several explanations. With an increase in “empty nesters,” there could be fewer school-age children in the Beachwood district. The late 1990s could have been a peak period of public-school enrollment, as children born in the 1980s n part of the baby boomlet n attended school in record numbers.
The decline may also reflect increased interest in Jewish day schools, like the Agnon School (non-denominational) and Gross Schechter Day School (Conservative), or private schools like Laurel, Hathaway-Brown, University School and Hawken, she says. At the same time, some Orthodox children have matriculated to Beachwood High School, taking advantage of particular educational curricula.
“It’s fairly complex,” Mills concedes. “I don’t know if you can draw easy conclusions.”
A second fear, frequently expressed 10 years ago, was that with the advent of the campus, the makeup of the community would change. A couple of residents told the CJN in spring 1997 that they worried Beachwood would become a more insular community.
True, more Orthodox Jews have moved into the neighborhood adjoining the campus. However, there are different opinions as to whether this has made the community more insular.
The number of Orthodox individuals living on several streets n Wendover, Timberlane, and Ranch n has grown significantly over the past decade. Vicky Cohn, a longtime realtor and member of Chabad House, says that nearly all the homes on these streets, particularly on Wendover, are owned by Orthodox Jews.
“Cleveland has attracted a number of young Orthodox families to this neighborhood,” says Doreen Lipschitz Warn, a member of the Young Israel and Green Road congregations. “They are professional people, attracted by the quality of the community and the quality of the (day) schools,” she says. Another draw is Cleveland’s comparatively affordable housing market.
Warn, along with other Beachwood residents living near the campus, adds that a number of families moved away from the area, usually selling their homes to Orthodox Jews. In some instances, longtime residents relate, Orthodox buyers enthusiastically approached potential sellers, offering them generous sums of money for their homes.
The deals seem to have been mutually beneficial. Beachwood city planner George Smerigan says the buying and selling of homes near the synagogues seem to have followed the economic laws of supply and demand.
Demand pushed up the price of Beachwood homes located near the campus, says Dr. Robert Simons, a professor in the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. Simons recently compared how much homes located within three quarters of a mile from the campus sold for in 1997 and in 2006. “In 1997, these homes were selling at a discount compared to other homes in the community, holding housing size, lot size and other factors constant. By 2006, the discount had disappeared, and many houses were selling higher than before.”
The findings make sense to Young Israel of Cleveland’s Rabbi Naphtali Burnstein. “If you are Sabbath-observant, being within walking distance of a synagogue is not a luxury; it’s a necessity.”
Rabbi Granatstein observes, “Whenever an Orthodox synagogue goes up, the price (of nearby homes) goes up.”
If the economic outlook is bright, what of the social fabric of the neighborhood? Strong opponents and supporters of the campus agree that a handful of individuals left Beachwood after the campus was constructed, partly because they felt uncomfortable in the new social milieu.
Drew Kate, who actively opposed the campus in 1997, says one reason he moved from his home on Brentwood was that “we became very uncomfortable in our own yard. I could not be outside on a Saturday doing things outside my house without getting negative comments and finger-pointing.”
Realtor Cohn says she has heard of people who opted to leave the city because they felt uncomfortable. She understands their sentiment, but opines they do not “feel comfortable within themselves when they see people living Jewishly.”
It becomes a psychological conundrum. What part of the discomfort stems from hostile comments, what portion is projection, and how can one sort it out?
Dr. Richard Rakos, a psychology professor at Cleveland State, notes that “clearly the perception of conflict is part real, part exaggerated.”
Orthodox families adhere to strict dietary and religious laws. Some Orthodox parents are not comfortable having their kids play with non-Orthodox children or spend time in homes where they might be given non-kosher snacks or food. Similarly, if almost everyone who lives on the block is Orthodox, non-Orthodox families can feel isolated and uncomfortable.
“If you live in a community where you have a certain cultural point of view and you are surrounded by people who do not necessarily share your lifestyle,” you will be tempted to move, says Warn. “If a person who is not Orthodox wants to live here, that’s fine. I don’t begrudge anyone the choice to live where they feel most comfortable.”
Sharon Muskin, a longtime member of Young Israel, says she liked growing up in a culturally diverse neighborhood. “I like my kids being exposed to a variety of people and not thinking that the whole world consists of one demographic.”
Alan Weinstein, a law professor at Cleveland State University, has examined some of these problems in his work. He notes that “residential segregation is not uncommon in many other areas of the country. We have corporate CEOs living in Hunting Valley, and you hear the same concerns in old communities where a lot of Slovenians live.” Reflecting on the situation in Beachwood, Weinstein believes that, on balance, the Orthodox are well-integrated into the larger community and the wounds of 10 years ago have healed.
Realistically, says Dr. David Gottesman, who was a leader in the effort to construct the campus, “you tend to socialize with people you have more in common with. You’re in synagogue a lot, and your life revolves around the synagogue or the school.” But he is quick to note that relations between Orthodox and non-Orthodox in the neighborhood are cordial. “We always say hello to each other. Everyone gets along.”
Beachwood resident Elisa Ross says that when her husband is out jogging on a Saturday, he says “Good Shabbos,” and they say “Good Shabbos.” It’s none of, “Oh, you shouldn’t work on Shabbat.”
To Ross and other Beachwood residents interviewed for the article, the Orthodox have added cultural diversity to the community. “There are so many people out and around and talking, and everybody dressed nice,” she says. “Once a week, people are just walking outside and talking to each other. We don’t know who some of these neighbors are, but that’s our fault. We could go out and talk to them.”
Saul Eisen, who in 1997 publicly opposed the campus as a member of the Beachwood School Board, says he has changed his mind. “I look at the issue differently today. The Orthodox brought different things to our city that aren’t really quantifiable. I like seeing their activity on Shabbat, their sense of family. It’s good to watch, and it’s good to remind ourselves of the entire Jewish community and what the Orthodox bring to us.”
Driving past the campus on Green Road and glimpsing parents pushing baby strollers en route to shul, it is hard to imagine there ever was a controversy about the construction of the site. Reflecting on the issue after he studied the topic in a master’s thesis at Siegal College, Mitchell Frankel remarks that, “In the end, the whole thing got built. It didn’t have any detrimental effects on the neighborhood. I think you have a pretty good mix of Orthodox and non-Orthodox today. There was no reason for the battle.”
Frankel says the real outrage occurred when residents learned former Beachwood Mayor Harvey Friedman had conducted behind-the-scenes negotiations with Orthodox groups to build three Orthodox religious institutions. “There was nothing malicious in what Mayor Friedman was doing,” claims Frankel. “He had the best interest of the city at heart.”
But Frankel acknowledges that the perception that a deal had been arranged in the absence of public debate unleashed considerable anger. He says opponents overstated the negative effects the campus would exert on the community, while some supporters couldn’t understand why Jewish residents might be upset about an Orthodox campus located in their neighborhood.
However, the conflict has had some salutary effects. Councilman Mark Wachter notes that it helped open up Beachwood city government. Friedman’s successor Mayor Merle Gorden eschews closed meetings. “If the issue does not involve executive session actions like litigation or personnel, the door of the room must be open. That is Merle’s creed.”
In the aftermath of the conflict, the city made a structural change in governing. Ten years ago, the Board of Zoning Appeals was the final arbiter of land use appeals in Beachwood, with the authority to overrule a voter referendum. To some opponents of the campus, it did just that when it approved, in a close vote, a modified proposal to build Young Israel. Several years later, Beachwood City Council abolished the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Understanding between Orthodox and non-Orthodox residents of Beachwood also seems to have increased over the decade. Several residents interviewed for this article said they try to show sensitivity to Orthodox neighbors by not doing yard work on Shabbat. In at least one case, an Orthodox rabbi chided congregants who were disdainful of non-Orthodox visitors to the synagogue.
Yet issues remain. A survey conducted by the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland asked Jewish residents of the Greater Cleveland area to identify the biggest problem facing them. Second on the list were internal conflicts within the community.
Federation has mounted efforts to tackle some of this. They have sponsored dialogues on religious diversity, as well as Chanukah Unity choir concerts at Tower City that include children from a variety of Jewish day schools. “We have Orthodox and non-Orthodox working together,” says Dayan Gross, Federation director of community relations. “They are not thinking of an Orthodox or non-Orthodox perspective.”
But Gross notes that theological differences exist, a point rabbis from different denominations acknowledge.
“In Beachwood, everything will be fine,” Rabbi Granatstein says. “The broader issue involves the lack of resolution in the Jewish world concerning how to straddle the inherent tensions between modern civilization and Jewish commitment to traditional religion that manifests itself in a thousand different ways.”
Rabbi Steven Denker of Temple Emanuel (Reform) says, “the healthiest thing from a Jewish perspective is if we could find better ways to communicate with one another and to respect each other if we disagree about things and find a way to meet together to study Torah.”
Frankel, who titled his thesis “Is Jewish Unity Possible?” is bullish on Beachwood. But, he says, the problem of Jewish disunity dates back thousands of years to the time when the Sanhedrin, the rabbinical authority that provided a unified mechanism to resolve group differences, was disbanded. “It says in the Torah that the answer is not in heaven; the answer is in man. It is for us to determine the answer to disputes here on earth.”
In Beachwood, the dispute that tore a community apart 10 years ago remains a source of embarrassment to many residents. Looking past denominational differences, former Beachwood councilman Eisen says, “We all have the same Lord; the Jews are all one people. When push comes to shove, if we don’t stand together and respect each other, we won’t stay together very long.”
Rick Perloff is professor and director of the School of Communication at Cleveland State University.
Catching up with campus antagonist and protagonist
In his book Jew vs. Jew (Simon & Schuster, 2001) and in a subsequent New York Times Magazine article, Columbia journalism professor Samuel Freedman focused on the controversy over the Orthodox campus in Beachwood. He took as his leitmotif the differing orientations of two men on opposite sides of the issue, both morally committed to a particular vision of Jewish identity.
Si Wachsberger, the former city councilman who had devoted years of his life to building Beachwood, opposed the campus project. He had no disagreement with Orthodox Jews in general, he said, but he came to object to the project as a result of what he experienced and witnessed. As Freedman relates, while Wachsberger “was gardening one Saturday morning, a group of Orthodox Jews passed and chided him for working on the Sabbath. He was furious. He felt his town was being swiped from under his feet.” After thinking about the broader implications, he decided that the project was not in the best interest of the city.
The supporter of the campus was David Gottesman, a gastroenterologist and son of a Holocaust survivor. After years of feeling out of place in his public school, eating kosher food at lunch, and missing Saturday afternoon football games, he found a home in the modern Orthodox culture. When he came to Cleveland to set up a medical practice, he was delighted to discover a thriving Orthodox community. He became president of Young Israel and was thrilled that the culture that had given so much joy was growing and expanding in Beachwood.
Contacted recently, Wachsberger and Gottesman seem relieved there is peace in the once-fractious Jewish community. Yet they vividly recall the conflict, and, with pride and bemusement, related the national attention they received.
“I heard from people from all over the country,” Wachsberger says, with a faint smile, sitting in his living room overlooking pictures of himself as a solider in World War II. “People from Boca Raton called me to tell me they’re having a similar crisis in Boca Raton, and would I come down there and explain to them how we’re handling it?”
He also heard from Air Corps buddies, a former employee living in Atlanta, and from a non-Jew in the state of Washington who complimented his stand.
Gottesman had a similar experience. When he was in Florida, he sat at services next to an attorney from New York. “I said, ‘I am from Cleveland.’ He said, ‘Are you from Beachwood?’ I said, ‘How did you know about Beachwood?’ He told me, ‘I read a book, Jew vs. Jew. I think you should read it. It’s a good book.’ ‘What did you think of the protagonist?’ I asked him. He said, ‘He came out well.’ I said, ‘I’m David Gottesman, protagonist.’”
Gottesman recently completed his term as president of Fuchs Mizrachi School. He is still active in the synagogue and remains committed to Beachwood, noting that two of his grown children will be living in Beachwood by next summer.
Wachsberger and his wife Shirley still live in the Beachwood home they settled in 56 years ago.
R. P.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s the grocery store or a restaurant; everyone has wanted to talk about it, and everyone has an opinion,” Goodman told The Plain Dealer in 1997. He was referring to the issue of constructing a campus of Orthodox institutions in Beachwood.
“There were zealots on both sides. It was a very difficult time. People I knew very well were against it, and people I knew very well were for it,” he says, recalling the issue today.
Goodman rarely encounters the issue today. When he knocked on doors during the recent election campaign, the topic never came up.
“It seems so long ago,” says Lynn Danzig, a longtime Beachwood resident. “No one talks about it anymore. It’s over and done with.”
Ten years ago, the Beachwood issue was a hot topic in the press. The CJN was besieged with letters. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland TV news stations, the Forward, and The New York Times covered the story. Columbia University professor and Times correspondent Samuel G. Freedman devoted a long chapter to it in his book Jew vs. Jew, a bestseller among Jewish intelligentsia.
On the once-controversial 12 acres of land on South Green Road there now sits Young Israel of Cleveland synagogue, Chabad House of Cleveland, and Beatrice Stone Yavne High School. The three institutions are thriving, a bustling center of Orthodox culture in Cleveland.
“Everybody’s gotten older, and since they have gotten older, they accept more,” explains David Nittskoff, a member of nearby Green Road Synagogue (Orthodox).
Peel past the surface veneer of acceptance, however, and a more complicated picture emerges. The neigh- borhood near the synagogues has undergone a social transformation. Over the last decade, there has been an influx of Orthodox families, with the area becoming an epicenter of Orthodox life. Although some opponents of the campus predicted that dire consequences would ensue as a result, there is little evidence that these consequences have materialized. At the same time, some residents express concern about the future, worrying that over the long haul, schools will be adversely affected.
These observations emerge from my 10-week exploration of the aftereffects of the conflict, based on interviews with more than two dozen religious leaders, city officials, partisan supporters and opponents of the campus in 1997, and other Beachwood residents.
Much of the bitterness harbored by partisans on both sides of the issue has dissipated. They say they want to put the issue behind them, sometimes displaying concern that reopening any public discussion might erode what they see as a fragile peace. Several of these activists declined to be interviewed for this article.
But Dr. Stephen Post, a professor of philosophy and religion at Case Western Reserve University, sees benefits from revisiting the past. “Insofar as people gradually forget the reality of this kind of conflict, they don’t learn from it. And they don’t use it as a learning opportunity more positively,” he says.
The issue dates back to 1995. With the Orthodox community growing and moving eastward, three Orthodox groups joined forces to develop a sweeping proposal to construct a synagogue for Young Israel, Chabad House, and Yavne High School for girls on South Green Road in Beachwood. The plan recommended tearing down homes located on the proposed construction site and replacing them with the synagogues and high school. Few expected the plan, which Orthodox leaders developed with guidance from former Beachwood Mayor Harvey Friedman, to run into difficulty. However, a group of homeowners objecting to the idea of putting synagogues and a school smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood organized a campaign to prevent construction of these institutions.
In March, the Beachwood Planning and Zoning Commission, meeting at a packed community hall with TV crews videotaping the event, voted against the proposal. This prompted the now-famous incident, in which an outraged campus supporter ran toward the dais, waving a Purim noisemaker, shouting, “This is Purim all over again. Haman! Haman!”
It marked the beginning of the firestorm.
A bitter campaign ensued. City Council overrode the decision of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Opponents put the issue on the November ballot, and Beachwood voters turned down the campus proposal by a razor-thin margin. Undaunted, Orthodox leaders modified their proposal, submitted a new campus plan to the Board of Zoning Appeals, and the Board narrowly supported the plan.
Opponents challenged the decision in court. Ultimately, the Orthodox supporters won their case, ironically on a legal technicality.
Groundbreaking followed. Subsequently, the synagogues and school were built, marking the fulfillment of a long-held dream in the Orthodox community.
Ten years later, what is the balance sheet?
Opponents feared that the public schools would suffer if Orthodox Jews moved en masse to the city. “It’s such a small system now, the potential of losing families who normally would send their kids to the schools is scary,” Richard Swartz, who lived near the development, told a Plain Dealer reporter in March 1997.
In fact, school levies placed on the ballot over the past five years have passed overwhelmingly. Seventy-two percent of Beachwood voters approved a 9.8 combined bond and operating levy in 2002, and 68.5% supported a 5.9 operating mill levy in 2005. These proportions of victory are comparable to n and in the case of 2005, higher than n the margins by which levies passed in the 1990s.
Rabbi Melvin Granatstein of Green Road Synagogue, says he publicly urged his congregants to vote for school levies, a recommendation that congregants interviewed for this article still recall. Dr. Alan Rosenthal, a member of the Beachwood School Board and an Orthodox Jew, contends “the Orthodox are strongly supportive of school levies on a numbers of levels. On the simplest level, the better the school system, the more you draw people into the community and the better the real estate values. But the people in the Orthodox community also realize the beauty and value of the Beachwood schools.”
Yet others in Beachwood see portentous trends on the horizon.
Mark Leimsieder examined the history of the Orthodox campus in a master’s thesis at Siegal College, one of two theses to examine the issue. “I see a continuing decline in the public schools and increase in the parochial schools as more Orthodox residents move to Beachwood,” he says. “My concern is with what happens to the public schools in Beachwood in the next 20 years because there are not enough fish in the pond.” One resident, who asked that his name not be used, said, “As more and more Orthodox move into the community, it changes the public-school enrollment.”
But the evidence so far tells a different story.
The number of students in the Beachwood public schools has fluctuated over the past decade. During 1996-1997, 1,591 students were enrolled in the public schools. Two years later, 1,676 students were enrolled. In 2006-2007, the number had dropped by 100, to 1,576.
Beachwood School District treasurer Michelle Mills says the decline may be only temporary, and she points to several explanations. With an increase in “empty nesters,” there could be fewer school-age children in the Beachwood district. The late 1990s could have been a peak period of public-school enrollment, as children born in the 1980s n part of the baby boomlet n attended school in record numbers.
The decline may also reflect increased interest in Jewish day schools, like the Agnon School (non-denominational) and Gross Schechter Day School (Conservative), or private schools like Laurel, Hathaway-Brown, University School and Hawken, she says. At the same time, some Orthodox children have matriculated to Beachwood High School, taking advantage of particular educational curricula.
“It’s fairly complex,” Mills concedes. “I don’t know if you can draw easy conclusions.”
A second fear, frequently expressed 10 years ago, was that with the advent of the campus, the makeup of the community would change. A couple of residents told the CJN in spring 1997 that they worried Beachwood would become a more insular community.
True, more Orthodox Jews have moved into the neighborhood adjoining the campus. However, there are different opinions as to whether this has made the community more insular.
The number of Orthodox individuals living on several streets n Wendover, Timberlane, and Ranch n has grown significantly over the past decade. Vicky Cohn, a longtime realtor and member of Chabad House, says that nearly all the homes on these streets, particularly on Wendover, are owned by Orthodox Jews.
“Cleveland has attracted a number of young Orthodox families to this neighborhood,” says Doreen Lipschitz Warn, a member of the Young Israel and Green Road congregations. “They are professional people, attracted by the quality of the community and the quality of the (day) schools,” she says. Another draw is Cleveland’s comparatively affordable housing market.
Warn, along with other Beachwood residents living near the campus, adds that a number of families moved away from the area, usually selling their homes to Orthodox Jews. In some instances, longtime residents relate, Orthodox buyers enthusiastically approached potential sellers, offering them generous sums of money for their homes.
The deals seem to have been mutually beneficial. Beachwood city planner George Smerigan says the buying and selling of homes near the synagogues seem to have followed the economic laws of supply and demand.
Demand pushed up the price of Beachwood homes located near the campus, says Dr. Robert Simons, a professor in the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. Simons recently compared how much homes located within three quarters of a mile from the campus sold for in 1997 and in 2006. “In 1997, these homes were selling at a discount compared to other homes in the community, holding housing size, lot size and other factors constant. By 2006, the discount had disappeared, and many houses were selling higher than before.”
The findings make sense to Young Israel of Cleveland’s Rabbi Naphtali Burnstein. “If you are Sabbath-observant, being within walking distance of a synagogue is not a luxury; it’s a necessity.”
Rabbi Granatstein observes, “Whenever an Orthodox synagogue goes up, the price (of nearby homes) goes up.”
If the economic outlook is bright, what of the social fabric of the neighborhood? Strong opponents and supporters of the campus agree that a handful of individuals left Beachwood after the campus was constructed, partly because they felt uncomfortable in the new social milieu.
Drew Kate, who actively opposed the campus in 1997, says one reason he moved from his home on Brentwood was that “we became very uncomfortable in our own yard. I could not be outside on a Saturday doing things outside my house without getting negative comments and finger-pointing.”
Realtor Cohn says she has heard of people who opted to leave the city because they felt uncomfortable. She understands their sentiment, but opines they do not “feel comfortable within themselves when they see people living Jewishly.”
It becomes a psychological conundrum. What part of the discomfort stems from hostile comments, what portion is projection, and how can one sort it out?
Dr. Richard Rakos, a psychology professor at Cleveland State, notes that “clearly the perception of conflict is part real, part exaggerated.”
Orthodox families adhere to strict dietary and religious laws. Some Orthodox parents are not comfortable having their kids play with non-Orthodox children or spend time in homes where they might be given non-kosher snacks or food. Similarly, if almost everyone who lives on the block is Orthodox, non-Orthodox families can feel isolated and uncomfortable.
“If you live in a community where you have a certain cultural point of view and you are surrounded by people who do not necessarily share your lifestyle,” you will be tempted to move, says Warn. “If a person who is not Orthodox wants to live here, that’s fine. I don’t begrudge anyone the choice to live where they feel most comfortable.”
Sharon Muskin, a longtime member of Young Israel, says she liked growing up in a culturally diverse neighborhood. “I like my kids being exposed to a variety of people and not thinking that the whole world consists of one demographic.”
Alan Weinstein, a law professor at Cleveland State University, has examined some of these problems in his work. He notes that “residential segregation is not uncommon in many other areas of the country. We have corporate CEOs living in Hunting Valley, and you hear the same concerns in old communities where a lot of Slovenians live.” Reflecting on the situation in Beachwood, Weinstein believes that, on balance, the Orthodox are well-integrated into the larger community and the wounds of 10 years ago have healed.
Realistically, says Dr. David Gottesman, who was a leader in the effort to construct the campus, “you tend to socialize with people you have more in common with. You’re in synagogue a lot, and your life revolves around the synagogue or the school.” But he is quick to note that relations between Orthodox and non-Orthodox in the neighborhood are cordial. “We always say hello to each other. Everyone gets along.”
Beachwood resident Elisa Ross says that when her husband is out jogging on a Saturday, he says “Good Shabbos,” and they say “Good Shabbos.” It’s none of, “Oh, you shouldn’t work on Shabbat.”
To Ross and other Beachwood residents interviewed for the article, the Orthodox have added cultural diversity to the community. “There are so many people out and around and talking, and everybody dressed nice,” she says. “Once a week, people are just walking outside and talking to each other. We don’t know who some of these neighbors are, but that’s our fault. We could go out and talk to them.”
Saul Eisen, who in 1997 publicly opposed the campus as a member of the Beachwood School Board, says he has changed his mind. “I look at the issue differently today. The Orthodox brought different things to our city that aren’t really quantifiable. I like seeing their activity on Shabbat, their sense of family. It’s good to watch, and it’s good to remind ourselves of the entire Jewish community and what the Orthodox bring to us.”
Driving past the campus on Green Road and glimpsing parents pushing baby strollers en route to shul, it is hard to imagine there ever was a controversy about the construction of the site. Reflecting on the issue after he studied the topic in a master’s thesis at Siegal College, Mitchell Frankel remarks that, “In the end, the whole thing got built. It didn’t have any detrimental effects on the neighborhood. I think you have a pretty good mix of Orthodox and non-Orthodox today. There was no reason for the battle.”
Frankel says the real outrage occurred when residents learned former Beachwood Mayor Harvey Friedman had conducted behind-the-scenes negotiations with Orthodox groups to build three Orthodox religious institutions. “There was nothing malicious in what Mayor Friedman was doing,” claims Frankel. “He had the best interest of the city at heart.”
But Frankel acknowledges that the perception that a deal had been arranged in the absence of public debate unleashed considerable anger. He says opponents overstated the negative effects the campus would exert on the community, while some supporters couldn’t understand why Jewish residents might be upset about an Orthodox campus located in their neighborhood.
However, the conflict has had some salutary effects. Councilman Mark Wachter notes that it helped open up Beachwood city government. Friedman’s successor Mayor Merle Gorden eschews closed meetings. “If the issue does not involve executive session actions like litigation or personnel, the door of the room must be open. That is Merle’s creed.”
In the aftermath of the conflict, the city made a structural change in governing. Ten years ago, the Board of Zoning Appeals was the final arbiter of land use appeals in Beachwood, with the authority to overrule a voter referendum. To some opponents of the campus, it did just that when it approved, in a close vote, a modified proposal to build Young Israel. Several years later, Beachwood City Council abolished the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Understanding between Orthodox and non-Orthodox residents of Beachwood also seems to have increased over the decade. Several residents interviewed for this article said they try to show sensitivity to Orthodox neighbors by not doing yard work on Shabbat. In at least one case, an Orthodox rabbi chided congregants who were disdainful of non-Orthodox visitors to the synagogue.
Yet issues remain. A survey conducted by the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland asked Jewish residents of the Greater Cleveland area to identify the biggest problem facing them. Second on the list were internal conflicts within the community.
Federation has mounted efforts to tackle some of this. They have sponsored dialogues on religious diversity, as well as Chanukah Unity choir concerts at Tower City that include children from a variety of Jewish day schools. “We have Orthodox and non-Orthodox working together,” says Dayan Gross, Federation director of community relations. “They are not thinking of an Orthodox or non-Orthodox perspective.”
But Gross notes that theological differences exist, a point rabbis from different denominations acknowledge.
“In Beachwood, everything will be fine,” Rabbi Granatstein says. “The broader issue involves the lack of resolution in the Jewish world concerning how to straddle the inherent tensions between modern civilization and Jewish commitment to traditional religion that manifests itself in a thousand different ways.”
Rabbi Steven Denker of Temple Emanuel (Reform) says, “the healthiest thing from a Jewish perspective is if we could find better ways to communicate with one another and to respect each other if we disagree about things and find a way to meet together to study Torah.”
Frankel, who titled his thesis “Is Jewish Unity Possible?” is bullish on Beachwood. But, he says, the problem of Jewish disunity dates back thousands of years to the time when the Sanhedrin, the rabbinical authority that provided a unified mechanism to resolve group differences, was disbanded. “It says in the Torah that the answer is not in heaven; the answer is in man. It is for us to determine the answer to disputes here on earth.”
In Beachwood, the dispute that tore a community apart 10 years ago remains a source of embarrassment to many residents. Looking past denominational differences, former Beachwood councilman Eisen says, “We all have the same Lord; the Jews are all one people. When push comes to shove, if we don’t stand together and respect each other, we won’t stay together very long.”
Rick Perloff is professor and director of the School of Communication at Cleveland State University.
Catching up with campus antagonist and protagonist
In his book Jew vs. Jew (Simon & Schuster, 2001) and in a subsequent New York Times Magazine article, Columbia journalism professor Samuel Freedman focused on the controversy over the Orthodox campus in Beachwood. He took as his leitmotif the differing orientations of two men on opposite sides of the issue, both morally committed to a particular vision of Jewish identity.
Si Wachsberger, the former city councilman who had devoted years of his life to building Beachwood, opposed the campus project. He had no disagreement with Orthodox Jews in general, he said, but he came to object to the project as a result of what he experienced and witnessed. As Freedman relates, while Wachsberger “was gardening one Saturday morning, a group of Orthodox Jews passed and chided him for working on the Sabbath. He was furious. He felt his town was being swiped from under his feet.” After thinking about the broader implications, he decided that the project was not in the best interest of the city.
The supporter of the campus was David Gottesman, a gastroenterologist and son of a Holocaust survivor. After years of feeling out of place in his public school, eating kosher food at lunch, and missing Saturday afternoon football games, he found a home in the modern Orthodox culture. When he came to Cleveland to set up a medical practice, he was delighted to discover a thriving Orthodox community. He became president of Young Israel and was thrilled that the culture that had given so much joy was growing and expanding in Beachwood.
Contacted recently, Wachsberger and Gottesman seem relieved there is peace in the once-fractious Jewish community. Yet they vividly recall the conflict, and, with pride and bemusement, related the national attention they received.
“I heard from people from all over the country,” Wachsberger says, with a faint smile, sitting in his living room overlooking pictures of himself as a solider in World War II. “People from Boca Raton called me to tell me they’re having a similar crisis in Boca Raton, and would I come down there and explain to them how we’re handling it?”
He also heard from Air Corps buddies, a former employee living in Atlanta, and from a non-Jew in the state of Washington who complimented his stand.
Gottesman had a similar experience. When he was in Florida, he sat at services next to an attorney from New York. “I said, ‘I am from Cleveland.’ He said, ‘Are you from Beachwood?’ I said, ‘How did you know about Beachwood?’ He told me, ‘I read a book, Jew vs. Jew. I think you should read it. It’s a good book.’ ‘What did you think of the protagonist?’ I asked him. He said, ‘He came out well.’ I said, ‘I’m David Gottesman, protagonist.’”
Gottesman recently completed his term as president of Fuchs Mizrachi School. He is still active in the synagogue and remains committed to Beachwood, noting that two of his grown children will be living in Beachwood by next summer.
Wachsberger and his wife Shirley still live in the Beachwood home they settled in 56 years ago.
R. P.
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