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INTRODUCTION | |
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INTRODUCTION | |
(This introduction is from the first version of this site - in 1998)
How these pages came to be
. . . So began a long relationship with the Temple. I attended services regularly and soon became a member. It is where I married in 1958 and where my daughters Susan, Margaret and Joanie became Bat Mitzvah and were confirmed. That was many years ago. Abba Hillel Silver died in 1963 at the age of 70, having served his congregation for 46 years. The center of activities for "The Temple - Tifereth Israel" moved east, following its members. But the magnificent old Temple in Cleveland's University Circle is still there, used for community meetings, the High Holy Days and life cycle events. One of those life cycle events was the wedding of my youngest daughter Joanie. In April 1998, as part of a web site I developed to celebrate the wedding, I created pages about the scene of the wedding, the Silver Sanctuary. Doing this brought back many memories of Abba Hillel Silver - perhaps the most eloquent, inspirational and accomplished man I had ever known. The wedding pages finished, I began to look for web-based information about Abba Hillel Silver. I visited almost every one of the nearly 200 "hits" revealed by search engines and my bookmark file grew. Then I created a small web page using a few of the more interesting links. The web page grew and became a small site. As The Temple-Tifereth Israel had no web site in 1998, I added photos of the building where Abba Hillel Silver spent all but two years of his life as a rabbi. Last, as a personal note, I added some recollections, hoping that later others might furnish more. I hope you will find these pages interesting. Arnold Berger |
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Recent Developments - a log of major upgrades and changes In 1998 a search for "abba hillel silver" found only 200 pages. Today it will find many more pages: 30,800 on Google or 18,000 on Yahoo! Knowing that I would have to be very selective in expanding this site, in the summer of 2005, with the help of Marc Raphael's biography of Rabbi Silver, I began to invest more time. Here's what's been done since. July - October 2005 All pages got a new look. The Home page was made easier to find on searches. Seven pages were added including Biography (web-based and in-print), Site Guide, and the memorial prayer sung at the funeral service. Links from other sites were obtained. Soon these pages would rank first or second in a search on abba hillel silver. May - July 2006 I visited Wheeling West Virginia to gather materials on Silver's first two years as a rabbi. Research at The Temple - Tifereth Israel and the Western Reserve Historical Society helped me finish five pages on the Wheeling years of 1915-17. Our "Links" page becomes three: Zionism, Publications and Recognition. We triple the number of links. For serious visitors, we create an Endnotes page for linked comments and more information and a Resources (links for further study) page. August - December 2006 The "Youth" page expands with census data on the Silver family. We add a page on Rev. Tzvi Hirsch Masliansky - and his only picture on the web. On December 27, 2006 these pages move to a new site: www.clevelandjewishhistory.net 2007 Many other parts of the Cleveland Jewish History website which now hosts these Silver pages were expanded, such as the Simpson Thorman family, Cleveland's Old Synagogues and Glenville, with much work on our coming Soviet Jewry section. Chages in this section were to photograph the real "B'nai Brith Building" where AHS spoke and so impressed the Board of Trustees of The Temple that they decided "he was their man". Correspondence with Dr Rafael Medoff suggested that the "pounding on Harry Truman's desk" incident may not have taken place, so our Zionism page was corrected. What's Ahead With 30 pages and more than 70 images, this Abba Hillel Silver website is mature — but not yet complete. More information on his publications will be added and I will continue my search for less formal pictures of him, perhaps with his family. As most visitors now have high speed connections that will support audio files, I will try to obtains some so you can experience his eloquence. November 2007 |
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About the Webkeeper |
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