Even though she grew up in East Lansing, Michigan – “enemy territory” as she calls it – Tamara Cofman Wittes headed south to Northeast Ohio to get her undergrad at Oberlin College. Her senior year, she wrote her thesis on the history of Jewish Cleveland, which sparked a successful career researching Jewish and Middle Eastern culture. Today, she serves as a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization in Washington, D.C.

A Cleveland Festival to Celebrate Art, Music, and Israel’s 71st Independence Day!

The city of Cleveland and the Jewish Federation of Cleveland celebrated the announcement that Cleveland and Beit Shean and Valley of Springs in Israel will become official Cleveland sister cities during a short ceremony at the Cleveland Public Library Louis Stokes Wing in Cleveland on May 2.

The Jewish Federation of Cleveland is thrilled to share this milestone achievement. Congratulations to everyone who has been involved in Beit Shean/Valley of Springs who helped make this partnership possible.

In a muted and somber commemoration of the Holocaust brought palpably close by the shootings in Poway, California, April 27 close to 600 people attended a community wide Yom Hashoah service at B’nai Jeshurun Congregation in Pepper Pike on May 1.

An estimated 770 Holocaust survivors live in the Cleveland area. Our community will honor these survivors and remember those who perished during the Holocaust at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and Kol Israel Foundation’s Yom Hashoah V’Hagvurah. Join us on Wednesday, May 1 at 7:00 pm at B’nai Jeshurun Congregation (27501 Fairmount Blvd in Pepper Pike). This annual event is free and open to the community.

Every year, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland holds Yom Hashoah V'Hagvurah, a commemoration dedicated to remembering those who survived the Holocaust and those who perished.

Cleveland native William Daroff lobbies on behalf of the Jewish people as the director of the Washington DC office and the senior vice president of public policy for the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA).

Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger and Shadi Abu Awwad see a future where there is peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people. As leaders of the non-profit organization, Roots, they are building a unique network of local Palestinians and Israelis who have come to see each other as the partners needed to make changes and end the ongoing conflict between the two cultures. Through their work, they are fostering a grassroots movement of understanding, nonviolence, and transformation founded on dignity, trust, mutual recognition, and respect.

About 120 people gathered at Cleveland Botanical Gardens Feb. 12 to bless trees and their fruit, drink, sing and share their stories of connection to trees and nature.