Jewish Cleveland before the Civil War

Jewish Cleveland before the Civil War
Supplementary Notes

Where did the immigrants come from

The Kingdom of Bavaria (in green) within Europe, about 1815.

The 1840s through after the US Civil War would see Jewish immigrants from Bavaria, then other German-speaking areas such as Prussia (northeast), Bohemia/Czechoslovakia (east) and then Austria-Hungary (farther east).

There was no German nation at that time. It would not be until 1871 that 27 territories, most ruled by royal families, would unify to form a German Empire that would last until 1918 when Germany was defeated in World War I.

The great wave of Eastern European immigration, which accounts for more than 80 percent of America's Jewish population, would start in 1881.

Map from Wikipedia

Persons interested in this period of Cleveland's Jewish History are urged to read "This Tempting Freedom The Early Years of Cleveland Judaism and Anshe Chesed Congregation", a 28-page booklet written in 1973 by Allan Peskin, PhD. It is online, part of the Cleveland Memory project of the libraries at Cleveland State University. Link to this pdf document.

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