CLEVELAND HEBREW SCHOOLS is a community afternoon supplemental school for instruction in Hebrew and religious studies. The nondenominational school is principally involved in teaching Hebrew to children who do not attend Jewish day schools. It traces its origins to the creation in 1885 of the Sir Moses Montefiore Hebrew School, located at Broadway and Cross streets and known as the Talmud Torah. The school moved to E. 35th St. in 1890. Early in the 20th century its instructional approach was changed by Jules Flock and Aaron Garber from one of rote learning to an organic approach, in which Hebrew became the language of use for all school activities to the complete exclusion of Yiddish, the first language of most of the pupils. By 1920 there were nearly 900 students in the main school on E. 55th St. and a branch in the Cleveland Jewish Ctr. in GLENVILLE. Enrollment more than doubled in the following decade under the superintendency of ABRAHAM FRIEDLAND, who marked the school's curriculum with the nationalist tone of his Zionist views. The ensuing Depression, however, coupled with the outmigration of Jews from the old Woodland neighborhood, eroded much of the school's tuition base. While there were 7 branches of Cleveland Hebrew Schools in 1948, congregations that had relocated in the suburbs were taking over much of the responsibility of Jewish Hebrew education. This led eventually to the consolidation of the Cleveland Hebrew Schools' classes into its present location at 25400 Fairmount Blvd. with branches in the CLEVELAND COLLEGE OF JEWISH STUDIES on Shaker Blvd. and the Arthur Rd. Elementary School in SOLON. Cleveland Hebrew Schools closed in 2009, due to decreased enrollment.
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Finding aid for the Cleveland Hebrew Schools Records, WRHS.
Finding aid for the Cleveland Hebrew Schools Photographs, WRHS.
Finding aid for the Cleveland Hebrew Schools Records and Photographs, Series II, WRHS.
Finding aid for the Bureau of Jewish Education Records, Series I, WRHS.
Finding aid for the Bureau of Jewish Education Records, Series II, WRHS.