08/30/2024
Federation Has a Long History of Responding in Times of Crisis at Home and Abroad
Beachwood police vehicle at the entrance to the Jewish Federation of Cleveland in Beachwood. CJN Photo / Bob Jacob
ABIGAIL PREISZIG | CJN
Just 48 hours after the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israel by Hamas, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland gathered more than 2,000 Jewish and non-Jewish individuals to pray and support Israel outside of its Beachwood offices.
About a month later, the Federation provided a free bus ride for Clevelanders to join an estimated 290,000 demonstrators for a historic pro-Israel rally at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Cleveland Jewish News reported.
“As you know, our community has stood proudly with the modern state of Israel since its founding in 1948,” Daniel N. Zelman, board chair, and Erika B. Rudin-Luria, president of the Federation, said in a community-wide email on the evening of the attacks. “Over the years, we have worked closely with our international partners at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Israel to provide a wide range of humanitarian support for the people of Israel in times of peace and war. This enduring commitment allows us to respond immediately when lives are at stake as is the case now.”
Rudin-Luria
Support for Israel during the Israel-Hamas war is one recent example of how the Federation has fervently mobilized in times of crisis for Jews locally, nationally and internationally since its inception 120 years ago.
In last four years, the Federation has battled antisemitism by helping more than 200 Clevelanders participate in the “No Hate. No Fear. Solidarity March Against Anti-Semitism” in New York City; responded to the COVID-19 pandemic through a community-wide education and engagement effort, raising $1.6 million to offset revenue loss and expense increases experienced by beneficiary agencies; and sent leaders to Warsaw, Poland to aid the border of Ukraine as refugees left their homes and raised $3.5 million to support Ukrainian/Ethiopian rescue efforts.
The Federation’s first-recorded emergency relief campaign was in 1905 for pogrom victims in Russia. Cleveland Jews gathered at “The Temple” to adopt a resolution of protest and raise $10,396.06 to relieve suffering Russian Jews, The Jewish Review and Observer reported that November.
Edward M. Baker, former secretary of the Federation, called the Federation of Jewish Charities at the time, addressed the group not as Jews of a certain nationalist group or branch of Judaism, but rather as Jews uniting for Jews during a crisis.
“In the presence of the appalling affliction that has befallen our Russian kinsfolk, all petty distinctions, all national names are forgotten, all party labels vanish, and we only know that we are Jews who share alike a historic grief,” Baker said. “… There is but one thing to be done, and that is to organize as effectively as possible for the collecting of funds to be sent to the relief of the Russian sufferers.”
In 1931, the Federation launched its Jewish Welfare Fund Appeal, now known as the Campaign for Jewish Needs, as a comprehensive campaign for local and overseas needs and in 1935, it created the Jewish Community Council to counter antisemitism, according to a timeline of the Federation’s history on jewishcleveland.org.
In response to the Six-Day War in 1967, in which Israel captured the entire Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria in less than a week, the Federation’s annual Campaign for Jewish Needs raised a record-breaking $11.5 million, according to the Federation’s timeline, nearly double the previous year’s total of $6.3 million, the Cleveland Jewish News reported that May.
Also in the 1960s, the Federation’s Community Relations Committee lobbied for the expansion of civil rights laws in Ohio and Washington, joined the United Freedom Movement seeking economic and educational opportunities for African Americans in Cleveland, and demanded that all Jewish organizations adopt fair hiring policies, the CJN reported. The committee also provided leadership in addressing the issues raised during the 1966 riots in the predominantly Black community of Hough in Cleveland.
“… We came to realize that only in a society in which civil rights and civil liberties are guaranteed for all groups can Jews and the Jewish community feel secure,” Jordan C. Band, Community Relations Committee chair from 1962 to 1965, wrote for the committee’s 50th anniversary reflection in a September 1995 issue of the CJN.
The Federation experienced another unprecedented campaign in response to the Yom Kippur War, when Arab forces launched a surprise attack on Israel in October 1973. The Federation quickly announced it would conduct its annual Jewish Welfare Fund Campaign for 1974 that November, the CJN reported. The campaign normally was conducted in the spring, however, “the emergency in Israel makes it impossible to conduct ‘business as usual,’” Max R. Friedman, campaign chairman, said.
Additionally, the Federation, called the Jewish Community Federation at the time, organized two simultaneous rallies a week after the attacks, “to demonstrate Cleveland’s solidarity with Israel in her struggle against the forces of Arab nations,” the CJN reported.
The campaign raised $23.1 million by December 1973, a 62% increase from the previous year’s campaign and “the largest single increase ever in the history of the Cleveland Jewish community” Federation, the CJN reported.
As Jews left the Soviet Union during the 1960s through the 1990s to escape antisemitism and find better opportunities, the Federation and Cleveland Jewish community played an active role in their emigration.
The Federation became the first federation in the U.S. to support the issue by providing funds for the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism in 1966, according to the Federation’s website.
In 1973, the Federation established a task force that urged the U.S. government to grant refugee visas to Soviet Jewish immigrants and lobbied for sanctions against the Soviet Union for restricting exit visas. Jewish Family Service Association of Cleveland also helped recent immigrants settle into life in the U.S. by connecting them to housing and government programs.
The Federation continued to expend considerable energy in the areas of Soviet Jewry by organizing the first “Freedom Run” for Soviet Jewry in 1984; mobilizing 1,700 community members to travel to Washington, D.C., to march in support of Soviet Jews in 1987; and sending the first large mission from Cleveland to the Soviet Union to meet with refuseniks in 1988.
Between 1990 and 1993 Clevelanders would raise $22.2 million to resettle Jewish families from the former Soviet Union through Operation Exodus, according to the Federation’s timeline. More than 6,000 families were resettled by JFSA throughout the 1990s and in 2000, the Federation’s New American Initiative began training immigrants from the former Soviet Union for leadership positions in Jewish organizations.
The Federation also assembled to resettle in Israel Ethiopian Jews facing starvation through Operation Moses in 1985, the CJN reported. The Jewish Welfare Fund raised $1.5 million in three months for the cause.
“If the Israelis, with their severe economic problems, can rush to receive the Ethiopians as they have, we can do no less,” Peter Rzepka, the campaigns general chairman, said, according to the CJN report.
In 1991, the Federation continued the effort, raising $1 million for its Operation Solomon and continues to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel as Cleveland’s sister communities of Beit Shean and the Valley of Springs are home to the Beit Alfa absorption center, established in 2007, according to the Federation’s website. During their first year, adults learn Hebrew and kids are integrated into educational facilities, and in their second year they go to work and start saving money to rent an apartment.
And in 1997, after series of church arsons in South Carolina, the Federation sent a mission to assist in reconstruction of a Baptist church. In 1999, it worked with Catholic Migration and Refugee Services, the International Services Center and the Albanian community to resettle refugees in Cleveland from the Kosovo crisis and approved a $25,000 emergency grant for humanitarian assistance to refugees in Albania and Macedonia, according to the Federation’s website.
In the 2000s, the Federation responded to the Great Recession with employment-related support programs in 2008, and Stephen H. Hoffman, now Federation president emeritus, spearheaded the Secure Community Network – the first national nonprofit dedicated to protecting the American Jewish community through homeland security initiatives, according to the Federation’s website.
Throughout it all, the Federation continues to deepen its bond with and build bridges between Jews in Cleveland and Israel through partnerships with cities, mission trips, financial support and more.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, the Federation has raised $34.3 million for its Israel Emergency Campaign, providing immediate assistance to victims of terrorism and their families, and sent eight mission trips to Israel as of August 2024, according to the Federation.
The Federation and Cleveland Jewish community will continue to heed their call to action and tikkun olam, to repair the world, as they remain prepared for any unprecedented crisis that the Jewish Diaspora and those in Israel may face over the next 120 years.
