From the start of Jewish Cleveland, its rabbis have shaped our community, the spiritual life of its Jewish citizens, our community structure and our response to external challenges and opportunities. This site began with an examination of the life and accomplishments of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, Cleveland's best known Jewish leader of the 20th century. We plan to present information on other leading rabbis of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In much of Cleveland's Jewish community there has been a steady shift from rabbinic leadership to lay leadership. Lay leaders play a larger role in congregational governance than a few generations ago. Today the Jewish agencies have the resources of operating funds, endowment, staff and energetic informed volunteers for new initiatives - particularly "Federation", the community's central funding-planning body.

Yet rabbis continue to lead our congregational life, which for many Jewish Clevelanders is the primary aspect of their communal identification.

We are glad to start this section with noted Cleveland photographer Herbert Ascherman's Rabbis, a photo essay first published in the Cleveland Jewish News in 2008.

In May 2010 we added a page on Jews who served on Cleveland's City Council.  

In November 2010 as a start to a Gallery section we added our first page:

- Sogolovitz family contributed by Nate Arnold.