Cleveland Housing Court calls banks to account for absentee landlordism

Photo: Judge Ray Pianka and his personal bailiff Miriam Ortiz-Rush at a celebration held by ESOP (Empowering and Strengthening Ohio's People),which advocates for homeowners in or on the verge of foreclosure.


I first heard about the Cleveland Municipal Housing Court back in 1992, when the current judge, Ray Pianka, was a Cleveland City Councilman and my husband, now a magistrate in Housing Court, was a Housing Court Prosecutor for the Cleveland Law Department.

The court in those days was much smaller, and the problems more plebian than they are today. His caseload consisted mainly of landlord-tenant disputes, evictions, people who let their grass grow too long or whose garages were collapsing, and "collectors," those puzzling folk who hoard so much stuff their homes become a hazard. Likewise, there were the "cat people," people who had so many cats --30, 40 -- that their homes became giant litter boxes, to their neighbors' dismay.

Once he prosecuted a guy who was keeping a pig in his yard -- and large livestock are forbidden by city codes.

"Why, sir, do you keep a pig?" my husband asked the defendant.
"Something to do," the urban pig farmer replied, shrugging.

Oh, but that was during the reign of Mayor Michael R. White, when Cleveland's neighborhoods were more stable, its housing stock more valuable, and restoration of old houses at its height.

That was before Cleveland became "ground zero" for the national mortgage crisis. Before Judge Ray Pianka, longtime advocate for the city's neighborhoods, became judge and expanded the Housing Courts services. As the Plain Dealer explains,

Judge Raymond Pianka is at the center of the area's mortgage crisis as presiding judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court's Housing Division. He has made the job into a nationally prominent position, whether he's ordering Wells Fargo to stop selling foreclosed homes or fining companies $1,000 a day when they fail to appear in his court on charges of neglecting their properties.

Today's PD offers video of Plain Dealer reporter Sandra Livingston talking with Michael McIntyre about Pianka's actions and the housing crisis. You can watch it here.

In addition to the PD, Pianka and the Housing Court's determined, innovative approaches to the problems brought on by the mortgage crisis have featured prominently in the national press.

• "Dirty Deeds," in BusinessWeek, Jan. 2008
• "All Boarded Up" in the New York Times, March 2009
  

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'Insularity and Arrogance' in Northeast Ohio: Has the region's brand gone sour?

"Outside an orbit of about 40 miles from Tower City, no one seriously considers Cleveland+ to be a regional brand. People in Akron and Yongstown joke about it, though."

Ed Morrison · Clevecentrism
Brewed Fresh Daily

Maybe I'm the wrong audience, but I've never liked the Cleveland+ brand.

For one thing, it had to be explained to me. No, it's not like HIV+, which is pronounced HIV positive. It's pronounced Cleveland PLUS. Plus what? Apparently plus all those other less important cities that don't bear mentioning ...

The branding is explained at length on the website.

Cleveland+ is an entirely new way to look at Northeast Ohio — as one
united region leveraging all of our strengths.

Focus group testing "in multiple markets and included regular leisure travelers, business site selectors and C-level executives" found that:

• Cleveland+ works for marketing Northeast Ohio for travel, meetings and conventions, and business. Many of the other names did not.
• Cleveland+ leverages the most recognized city in the region.
• Cleveland+ allows for the linking of our other major cities.
• Cleveland+ provides a memorable icon for marketing materials.
• Cleveland+ has a positive connotation to it.

And yet ....

The phrase boils Akron, Canton, and Youngstown -- and all the small towns and suburbs in between -- down to a footnote on the main attraction: Cleveland. The implication is that Cleveland will be the epicenter of northeast Ohio's economic future, which directly contradicts the idea of regionalism.

I'm sure it was tough to find a good name for the northeast Ohio brand (although Northeast Ohio isn't that bad, is it?) The problem is that regionalism is a complicated concept, involving countless resources and relationships. How to come up with a brand that indicates the richness of the region? And at a moment when regional connections are still in their infancy?

I don't know the answer, but I'm certain that Cleveland+ is not the solution. The brand reduces the region down to less than the sum of its parts.

And the flawed brand has become an emblem of Clevecentrism: an implicit and unchanging focus on Cleveland as the locus of the area's future.

According to community development guru Ed Morrison, reducing the region to nothing more than Cleveland plus enhancements to be named later is arrogant and insular. And insularity is detrimental to the whole idea of creating a region strong enough to compete in a global economy.

Morrison comes to the topic by way of the R2P: Return to Pittsburgh blog by Jim Miller, who argues that TeamNEO's competitiveness with other rust belt regions (like Pittsburgh) weakens northeast Ohio's ability to recognize and nurture existing regional relationships:

I'm still angry about Team NEO's ignorance of the economic challenges facing Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities. Team NEO is reinforcing the same dysfunctional geography that birthed the obvious gap between Pittsburgh and Cleveland in President Obama's proposed high speed rail initiative. Framing Pittsburgh as competition ultimately hurts other Northeast Ohio communities, particularly Youngstown.

Surprisingly, at least to me, Pittsburgh leadership seems to appreciate Youngstown's plight better than Cleveland does.

Morrison agrees and offers as proof the ever-widening gap in per capita income between Cleveland and Pittsburgh over the last decade. He concludes:

"Insularity and arrogance impose costs. These costs rise as regional and global economies become more inter-connected.

The legacy of this generation of Cleveland’s business leadership is already being written, and the picture is not pretty."

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Ohio's stimulus & unemployment, visualized

The brilliant folks at Mint.com were looking at the map and tables at ProPublica and started wondering "exactly what percentage of each state’s unemployment problem would be hypothetically solved by the total stimulus package."

They came up with this map. (Click on images to go to the full-size version on Mint.com's website.)



They do warn it is difficult to peg down the actual unemployment rates, referring reader to a previous posting, the recent Visual Guide to Unemployment. It's entertaining as well as informative, particularly if you fall into the category of underemployed or discouraged workers.



According to the graph, Ohio stands to recoup 31% of its lost jobs. If, that is, the laid off auto workers and waitresses and lawyers and journalists can be retrained to lay blacktop.

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Marcia Fudge's excellent take on the stimulus bill

I was happy to hear Congresswoman Marcia Fudge of Ohio's 11th Congressional District talking about the $789 billon dollar stimulus bill on WCPN's The Sound of Ideas this morning.

It was the first time I'd heard her speak at length and I was delighted to find her well-informed, smart, upbeat and politically savvy.

Her counterpoint, Rob Frost, chairman of the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County, was dour, ill-informed, half-baked and yet inexplicably smug for a man who clearly didn't know what he was talking about.

To callers, Marcia Fudge had to repeat in as many ways she could think of, "Yes, we wanted there to be more __________ in the bill, too (fill in the blank with: mortgage help for homeowners; job creation; investment in the infrastructure, etc.) but Senate Republicans wouldn't pass the bill unless we dumped all that and added more tax cuts."

At one point, Frost misstepped by critizing the bill for not providing enough stimulus to do much good (contradictorily, he'd just criticized the bill for heaping debt upon our children and our children's children).

And Fudge's answered back with, of course, "We wanted the bill to be larger, but for some reason Senate Republicans set an arbitrary limit of $789 dollars" (I'm paraphrasing).

Frost managed to stumble back to the faulty party line by saying that what he MEANT was that the stimulus package didn't include enough TAX CUTS, which as far as he was concerned was the only way to stimulate economic growth.

Fudge's rejoinder: We tried tax cuts for the last eight years, and ended up 3 trillion dollars in debt.

At which point moderator Michael McIntyre couldn't resist jumping in to point out that the tax cuts in the approved bill would amount to a little over $7 a week per person.

"How are each of you planning to spend your $7?" he quipped.

"Exactly," said Fudge.

It was lively. (But I'm still missing Dan Moulthrop.)

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"I hate to crush your buzz, but this is NOT a 'post-racist' society": Obama worries, part 2

About 3 weeks ago I wrote a blog post called Why am I so worried that Obama will be assassinated? Should I be? in which I confessed to being unable to stop myself from worrying that Obama might be assassinated.

Over on blogher the post began attracting more readers and comments (13!) from people who shared my worries and wanted to talk about why. Just yesterday *.Lee wrote:

Like many, in my lifetime, I never, ever thought that I would see a black man in the Oval Office. ... I couldn't be more pleased and proud as to what that says about America, but there is the shadow of worry in my heart as well. I didn't think that the country was 'ready' for a woman or a black man as President. I was wrong. ... And no doubt, as the old adage goes, a black man has to work twice as hard to be considered half as good... and no doubt, there will be those who will never be ready, and will never accept this historic event.

The readiness of America is an important issue, because frankly, although America found a way to elect a black President, it hasn't jumped at the chance to take a good clear look at the race issue.

It's a thought I have every time I hear someone gush about how the election was "color-blind" and racism is dead, how this is a brave new world of equal opportunity and love among brothers.


Not where I live. And I'm pretty sure, not where you live, either.

I haven't wanted to dim the afterglow or undermine the enormity of Obama's achievement, but I'm considering making bumper stickers saying, "I hate to crush your buzz, but this is NOT a 'post-racist' society."

I'd be feeling better about race in America if Obama's election didn't feel like such an anomaly.

I'd feel better about the safety of the Obama family if at any time during the 44 years since the Civil Rights Act, we'd seen a steady increase in the number of African-Americans elected to serve in our federal government.

But in fact there have only been three black senators since the post-Reconstruction period -- and one of them was Barack Obama. (His current seat was once held by Carol Mosely Braun, the only African American woman to have served in the senate).

OK, it's partly an issue of demographics. To be elected by a statewide electorate, any African-American candidate needs a lot of white votes. Even in the states with the highest African-American population, black people are still outnumbered by white people by two to one.

But the problem is more than a shortage of numbers. It's a shortage of narratives. Our national imagination is bereft of stories and images of capable, competent African-American in public office. Oh, praiseworthy African-American politicians exist -- it's just that no one has been singing their praises.

Just after Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones died, I tuned into a local NPR station discussion of who might take over her congressional seat and how that might be decided. One caller in particular stuck in my mind, a citizen who had been sought out by WCPN's "The Sound of Ideas" (9/10/08).

"In this entire mix, somehow it is completely forgotten that there are roughly 200,000 voters out in the eastern fringe of the 11th district that are white voters," said Marta Kirsch of Pepper Pike. "What I'm not hearing, not seeing, it has never been broached, is the possibility of nominating a white person for this job. There seems a disequity in that and it's very uncomfortable for me."

Fmr. Rep. Louis Stokes fielded her question with more patience that I would have, pointing out that the unique demographics of Ohio's 11th District make it the only Ohio district to elect ever elect an African-American Congressperson -- the first was Stokes himself, and the second was Tubb Jones, his handpicked successor (Jones succeeded by Marcia Fudge). Otherwise, Stokes said, it is unlikely that any African-Americans would have been elected to Congress from Ohio.

After the show ended I was haunted by the bald-face bias in the caller's complaint. She clearly did not believe that an African-American congressperson would look after the interests of the white minority in his/her district. It wasn't clear whether she thought an African-American congressperson would be unwilling to act on behalf of white constituents or unable.

The ludicrous implication is that white politicans can be trusted to act in the best interest of African-American constituents, but not the converse. If white people perceive Obama as the exception is due entirely to the man's formidable knowledge of government, his intelligence and authority.

Still I'd rather be launching our first African-American First Family, with its 2 little girls, into a much more tolerant and trustworthy world.

Our country desperately needs more images of and stories about competent, intelligent, creative and commanding Africa-Americans -- in government and everywhere else. We need to elect them, and then we need to brag on them.

If a college-educated liberal Democrat has that sort of biased understanding of the impact of race on leadership ability, I shudder to think what her opposite number (poorly educated, conservative and/or Republican?) imagines when she get a mental picture of an African-American leader.

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Ethnicity, family, Northeast Ohio, social justice-advocacy, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, African American, Louis Stokes, WCPN

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Add your vote to these fun polls: RealNEO's PD poll & Startup Weekend's poll

Go to RealNEO and take this poll. (It's in the left column; scroll down)

How would you grade the Cleveland Plain Dealer since Egger became Publisher and Goldberg Editor:

• A: Under this superstar team, the PD has transformed print media and grown the new economy here
• B: In a tough industry and time, the PD and Cleveland.com survive and thrive - I wouldn't start my day without it
• C: Shrinking City - Shrinking PD. What is left of the paper is as good as ever - the website is good - what's not to like?
• D: thin paper, thin news... Fat Cats - it seems local interests are not well served by distant bosses and ownership
• F: More like WTF - I canceled my subscription in protest... I'll tell you why, if you have all night

Like most respondents I voted for "D." ("A" made me snort coffee through my nose, thank you very much.)

But I'm rapidly descending to "F." Only the fact that my DH feels "it's not civilized not to subscribe to at least one newspaper" has kept me from cancelling.

As for "C," the city may be shrinking but the region sure isn't, which suggests that the PD is overlooking -- both in print & online -- some important potential audiences.

And then head to http://startupweekend.com/cityvote/. Startup Weekend, an "intense 54-hour event bringing together brilliant tech minds (developers, designers, marketers, ect.) to create a company (or as many as the community wants) from concept to launch," is selecting where to hold its next event -- and your vote counts!

What a year 2007 was for Startup Weekend! Now, the biggest struggle is choosing communities to go to next. Why not let you decide! Below you will see the most requested cities of 2008. Pick the one (or a couple) that you would like to go to and vote with your email address. We will set future dates using this format. Happy voting!

Hattip to George Nemeth, who tweeted the URL this morning (along with this little hint: "use diff email addys"). Read more here: The Goal Of Startup Weekend

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As Ohio Votes: fresh local election stories

Fresh election stories:

Credit: Plain Dealer

• Obama crowds flood Ohio cities as finish line nears
• Now It's Clear Why Some People Are Scared of Early Voting: Because It Empowers People  
• [video] Early voting in Cleveland: “I’m here to make change."
•  Obama remains a bit too 'different' for some in Ohio.
• Tracking Ohio vote on election night: what counties to watch 
• [Slideshow] Cuyahoga Co. Voters Wait in Long Lines 

Obama crowds flood Ohio cities as finish line nears, by Mark Naymik/Plain Dealer Politics Writer. Posted 11/02/08. Obama, within reach of becoming the first black president in U.S. history, found rapturous crowds in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati that spilled out of parks and stadiums and into surrounding streets...

Now It's Clear Why Some People Are Scared of Early Voting: Because It Empowers People By Pam Kapoor, AlterNet. Posted November 2, 2008. Vote Today Ohio shows that you can bring marginalized people to vote early, and really challenge the powers that be.

[video] Early voting in Cleveland: “I’m here to make change." By Jill Miller Zimon, Writes Like She Talks. Posted 11/02/08. In some ways, I wish I could have recorded the more than two hours I spent listening to and talking with the people I met while waiting to vote in Cleveland yesterday.

Obama remains a bit too 'different' for some in Ohio. By David Lightman. Miami Herald. Posted 11/02/08. Undecided voters in this crucial swing state are torn: Can they overcome their fears about Barack Obama and vote for someone they regard as culturally "different," or will they back John McCain and the shaky status quo?

Tracking Ohio vote on election night: what counties to watch. By Stephen Koff, Plain Dealer Bureau Chief. Posted 11/02/08. Without knowing more about which precincts or counties the votes are from - and which ones have not been counted - these incomplete results are a poor predictor of whether Barack Obama or John McCain will win.

[Slideshow] Cuyahoga Co. Voters Wait in Long Lines at BoE. By NewsNet5.

Technorati tags: Election 2008, Northeast Ohio

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In brief: Your Voting Rights in Ohio

Your Voting Rights in Ohio from the AFL-CIO

• Voter ID. BRING ID. You must provide ID before you will be allowed to vote. Acceptable forms include an Ohio driver’s license, military photo ID, utility bill, bank statement, paycheck or other government document that contains your name and address. ID cannot be expired.

• Change of residence. If you are a registered voter who recently moved and you have not updated your registration, you can do so at the polling place in the precinct in which you currently reside on Election Day.

• Clothing, buttons, caps and other accessories. Do not wear campaign materials. To avoid unnecessary delay, make sure you can easily cover or remove any clothing, button, sticker, etc., that supports a candidate or political party. You may not be allowed to vote until such materials are removed or covered.

• No-electioneering perimeter. No electioneering is allowed within 100 feet of the polling place.


Don't live in Ohio? Get a brief list of your state's voting rights here.

Technorati tags: Ohio, voter rights, Election 2008, vote suppression

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Voter suppression tactics: Know what you could be up against

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast of Steal Back Your Vote have written a succinct account of the voter suppression methods to look out for. The short article in Rolling Stone magazine is called "Block the Vote: Will the GOP's campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots determine the next president?"

Read it online, or download a pdf version to give to your friends. If your friends aren't readers, tell them to watch Palast's behind the scenes video at Rolling Stone or this excellent video made by independent news organization truthout:





Or watch Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s 30-second public service announcement on YouTube:






Finally, Here's a page from the investigative comic book Kennedy refers to in the PSA: Palast's Steal Back Your Vote.

Also worth watching: Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s appearance on the Rachel Maddow show.

Technorati tags: Election 2008, Northeast Ohio, voting: rights: laws, YouTube

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Cleveland's poverty: second only to Detroit

I could resist the temptation to blog about today's Plain Dealer story about Cleveland distinguishing itself as the 2nd poorest major city in the nation.

But what I couldn't resist was the chance to w00t this comment by PD online reader LilGittup, who suggests that the newspaper industry itself might play a role in the ongoing deprecation of Cleveland's economy.

"Does the PD take any credit for inflating our poverty numbers? Keep downsizing and outsourcing, you're really helping the city. In addition to all of the layoffs, the PD went ahead and raised their price by 50%. Great job, great reporting. Well worth it."

LilGittup isn't just being snarky -- locally, the number of lost media jobs is climbing:

"The online Cleveland Leader blogger/writer Roldo Bartimole said his sources expect a cut of 35 pages a week from the PD's news pages and 20 percent reduction of its workforce. Two weeks ago, Sun Newspapers eliminated its circulation department and its route carriers and the 22 editions are now being delivered by PD route drivers.

The Sun editions are being inserted inside the PD on Thursdays to subscribers who also get the PD. The PD is the Cleveland area's only daily newspaper.

In April, eight of Ohio's largest newspapers, including the PD, The Columbus Dispatch, The Cincinnati Enquirer and The Toledo Blade, formed a state-wide partnership, calling themselves the Ohio Newspaper Organization, according to the PD's Ted Diadun.

The papers have been sharing stories and bylines in print and online on their Web sites.

Thursday's alleged cuts follow a 2006 cut of 17 percent of the PD workforce through voluntary buyouts.That buyout was to employees 50 or older with at least 20 years of service and included 2-1/2 years' worth of pay and health-care benefits." Source: WKYC.

Things are tough all over.

The Cleveland Jewish News recently stripped employees of their one free subscription to the paper (home-delivered papers, that is; employees can still take the paper home from the office on Fridays for free).

Now CJN employees must pay for the paper, although they do get a discount (which might make a cynical person wonder whether the staff, knowing exactly what's in the paper, refused to pay full price). I'm sure the massive savings there is just what is needed to solve the paper's snowballing financial problems. I wonder if the Plain Dealer has considered that solution?

Update:

For more on newspaper layoffs, check out the Newspaper Death Watch.

Also, in Adding Up the Newspaper Cutbacks, Mark Potts of recoveringjournalist.com crunches the numbers and finds that:

• More than 6,300 employees at the 100 largest newspapers have lost jobs through buyouts or layoffs in the past year.
• More than half of those cutbacks have come since the beginning of June.

Technorati tags: Cleveland, Cleveland Jewish News, justice, media, Plain Dealer, poverty

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Stephanie Tubbs-Jones passes away

Big bummer: Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones passed away about 90 min. ago.

Family, hospital confirm congresswoman's death - (The Plain Dealer)

There's a great set of photos of STJ on the PD's website here.


Also from the PD:
Stephanie Tubbs Jones' life was filled with many "firsts": first African-American woman to serve as Common Pleas judge in Ohio, first to serve as Cuyahoga County prosecutor, first to represent Ohio in Congress.

And PD reporters Olivera Perkins, Robert L. Smith, and Margaret Bernstein do a great job of conveying Tubbs Jones's popular appeal in

Stephanie Tubbs Jones leaves a legacy of friendship

Even people who didn't know U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones responded to her as if she were a friend.

"Stephanie, Stephanie," was the constant refrain that followed the congresswoman as she traveled her district.

It could have come from a voice in the crowd at public events, like the annual 11th Congressional District Labor Day picnic in Luke Easter Park. Or maybe it was from the person behind her on line at a local takeout. Despite the air of familiarity, people calling out her name often barely knew her.

That didn't matter to the congresswoman. She always responded with that high-wattage smile that drew people to her -- a smile that made them feel comfortable enough to start off on a first-name basis. So Wednesday, when they learned that Tubbs Jones was gravely ill, many people felt as if a close friend had fallen.

That describes my reaction to the news that she'd been hospitalized. I didn't know the congresswoman personally. I did hear her speak a few times and admired her competence: this was a politician who could get things done. The PD called her " both principled and pragmatic," which seems exactly right.

Technorati tags: Cleveland, politics

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University Circle road closings are making me nuts!

For months now, routes through University Circle have been closed or narrowed, with bottlenecks wherever traffic crosses Euclid Ave.

I know, I know, this is all for the Euclid corridor project, and it's going to be lovely when it's done, blah blah.

But seriously, from my home on East Blvd., I have to drive through University Circle every day -- usually twice a day -- and I've had more than enough.

What used to be 5 minute detour around the heart of Univ. Circle can now take 15-20 minutes to traverse, expecially if you get stuck at that awful place where traffic on MLK is supposed to yield to traffic on Stearns. That weirdly engineered bit of traffic was always difficult, especially during morning rush hour when thousands of CWRU students and workers are trying to get into Univ. Circle. But now, reduced to 2 lanes at Euclid, it is a complete nightmare.

The only pressure valve for traffic on MLK/Stearns is Stokes Blvd., which can be reached from MLK or Chester, just east of E. 105th. It's been a bottleneck too, for the past eight weeks, since it has been reduced to a single lane.

Now Stokes Blvd. will be closed completely, as the Plain Dealer reports. Only for 4 weeks, but during these particular 4 weeks, students will return to CWRU, increasing traffic exponentially.


My traffic nightmare:

Part I: the traffic circle where East Blvd., Mt. Sinai Drive, and Martin Luther King Blvd. intersect has gotten a cure that worse than the original disease. The East Blvd. spur off the circle has been closed permanently and other entry points have been narrowed. The result: morning backups on E. 105th St. north of the intersection and afternoon backups on MLK south of the circle.

Coming south on E. 105th St, you have to turn left into the circle. Naturally, you try to turn left at the first light.

But that's not where they added a left turn arrow. The turn arrow is at a second traffic light 20 feet south of the first traffic light. Even if people wanted to turn their, light is timed all wrong: no one is there to use it when the turn signal goes green.

Part II: Stokes Blvd. north of Euclid is closing for four weeks, as the PD reports. And all the alternatives -- the streets running parallel to Stokes -- were narrowed weeks ago from 4 lanes to 1 lane.

Stokes Blvd. was the release valve for the bottlenecks caused by the narrowing of Stearns Rd. and E. 105th St. south of Chester. So where do they expect us to go now?

No alternatives: I've tried crossing Euclid at Mayfield, but that intersection has been severely narrowed to accomodate the Euclid Ave. construction, and anyway, going through Little Italy is never speedy. The Cornell Rd. bridge on the Case campus is still closed, so you can't take that as an alternate route.

I've taken Superior north through Glenville and into Cleveland Heights, but that leaves me too far north of where I need to be (Beachwood). And then I'm faced with the excruciatingly slow drive south on Lee Rd. from Mayfield Rd. to Van Aken or Chagrin Blvd.

I've been forced to take 90 to 271, and with gas prices this high, the extra mileage hurts.

Yeah, I know things will improve when the Euclid Ave. construction is complete (judging by the progress of construction closer to downtown, that could be many months from now).

But right now, for the first time in 15 years, I truly hate living on the edge of University Circle and wish we'd bought a house in the chalk zone near Shaker Square instead.

Technorati tags: absurdity, advocacy, Cleveland by car, environment, University Circle

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Federation relocation: "The past has a vote, not a veto"

Another perspective on the possible relocation of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland:

Cleveland Jewish History webkeeper Arnie Berger takes a look at where, historically, the Federation has been located vis-a-vis the city's Jewish population.
(Read the Cleveland Jewish History pages about the Federation in their entirety here.)

Since Federation was founded it has made nine decisions about its location. We describe its choices on these pages, noting where the Jewish community and its major institutions were located at the time.

It's worth remembering that even in 1965, when Federation moved into its present location on Euclid Ave., most Jews no longer lived the city proper, and few if any Jewish children were in the Cleveland School System. Their website History page says of their decision to be located in downtown Cleveland:

... In 1965, when the Federation erected its own building, the organization's leaders chose a site downtown at 18th and Euclid to symbolize the Jewish Community Federation's commitment to the greater community.

Cleveland Mayor Ralph Locher told the Cleveland Jewish News that the new Federation building represented "more than bricks and mortar - it is a symbol of humanity and philanthropy in a city that cares."

Since that time, Berger says, Federation's staff has grown 160 percent — from 50 to more than 130.

The organization is now considering relocating. An active discussion is underway, asking if the new home should be in downtown Cleveland, or in a suburban location close to the center of the Jewish population."

Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan wrote 70 years ago "The past has a vote, not a veto." We believe that if these history pages tell of the past, specifically the history of where Federation has done its work over the years and how the current facility came to be, they may help inform the discussion.

If you're interested in hearing about the group advocating that Federation remain downtown, visit their website: www.KeepJCFinCLE.com

Technorati tags: advocacy, Cleveland Jewish community, Cleveland Jewish News, Judaism, local history

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Try the "Select a Candidate" Tool

This cool widget is from American Public Media

(A tip of the hat to Carrie Rosenfelt via Facebook.)

The survey is a little squished here;
it looks better on the WCPN website.

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Planned Parenthood Action Alert in Green, Ohio

New NE Ohio Abortion Clinic Faces Eviction Because Pro-Lifer Protesters Disturb the Peace



According to a story in the Akron Beacon-Journal, G & H Healthcare (formerly Ohio Women’s Center) is being evicted from its new location in the suburban Corporate Woods Parkway office complex in Green, Ohio.



Beacon Journal medical writer Cheryl Powell reports:

GREEN: Protesters might be close to scoring a victory in their efforts to force an abortion provider out of a new suburban location.



Green Mayor Dick Norton said on Wednesday that the owner of a Corporate Woods Parkway office complex is evicting a business known as G&H Healthcare because of disturbances, including demonstrations outside the complex.



G&H Healthcare had been known as Ohio Women's Center before it relocated this month from Akron to Green. The Ohio Women's Center's Web site says that it offers nonsurgical abortions.



Right to Life of Summit County has been urging its members to call or e-mail the mayor's office and to hold ''peaceful and prayerful'' protests outside the business since last week, said Gregory D. Frank, the group's executive director.

The Green clinic provides ''medical abortion,'' which is a nonsurgical termination of a pregnancy (using a combination of medicines, including Mifeprex, also known as RU-486) in ''a private doctor's office setting,'' according to its website.



In a recent Action Alert, Planned Parenthood adds that "G & H Healthcare provides a wide range of women's health services, including birth control, well woman care and early medical abortion. They are even laying the plans to offer breast cancer screenings and adoption services."



From the Action Alert: What can you do?



You can call the city law office at 330-896-6615 and let them know that you support the medical center being in Green, and that the women of Green and the surrounding area deserve access to comprehensive medical treatment. After you make the call, please send us an email to let us know how it went!



From the Beacon Journal: Photos of the scary Anita-Bryant-ish protestors (photos by (Karen Schiely/Akron Beacon Journal)

Technorati tags: advocacy, family, gender, social services, health, abortion, Akron

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May is Jewish American Heritage Month!

Jewish American Heritage Month thrives online



by Lila Hanft, CJN, 05/15/08

For Purim, you have the megillah; for Passover, the haggadah. And for Jewish American Heritage Month, you have the Internet.



In the three years since Jewish American Heritage Month was established, Cleveland, like most major U.S. cities, hasn’t done much to honor or recognize it. And this year the holiday, celebrated in May, has been overshadowed by Israel@60 celebrations.



In the virtual world of the Internet, however, Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) is going strong, thanks to the online museum curators, Internet librarians and digital historians who for the last decade have been preserving and democratizing Jewish American history by putting it online.



A growing number of websites not only preserve historical evidence of Jewish life in America (photos, personal stories, songs, news footage, home movies, diaries and newspaper clippings), but organize and present it in creative and thought-provoking ways.



The Yahoo directory contains about 2,800 listings for Jewish-American history websites, which, naturally, vary greatly in quality and usefulness. The best of them, like the websites of the Library of Congress and the Jewish Women’s Archives, contain a treasure trove of online information you could take weeks or months to pore over. Fortunately, in addition to online access to their holdings, ings, these sites also offer carefully- curated, interactive, multimedia exhibits that guide browsing visitors through new terrain.



The Library of Congress



The Library of Congress’s website “The American Jewish Experience” is a state-of-the-art online exhibit built upon “From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life,” its acclaimed 2005 exhibit. A colorful interactive “Timeline of American Jewish History” can be accessed from the homepage (see list of links, below). “Interactive,” used in regard to online exhibits, means that the viewer has the opportunity to control how he moves through the online exhibit, whether chronological or in some other linear way, taking sidetrips to see additional photos or to read supplementary text.



Excerpts from the 1790 correspondence between Moses Seixas and George Washington can be enlarged so the viewer can read the two men’s declaration of American tolerance — “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” n in their own handwriting.



The exhibit also contains Yiddish and English posters, sheet music, Rosh Hashanah cards. and prayerbooks intended to appeal to late 19th- and early 20th-century Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. There are similar artifacts in the sections on anti-Semitism, nationalism, Zionism, and development of the Jewish social-service system.



In addition to the main exhibit, the Library of Congress has other material related to Jewish-American history (Sephardic music, interviews with Jewish WW II veterans) that can be reached from the Jewish American Heritage Month homepage.



The Jewish Women’s Archive



Founded in 1995, The Jewish Women’s Archive (JWA) collects historical material by and about American Jewish women, offering a vast array of unique online material you would be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.



“Women of Valor” is a series of multimedia Web exhibits which use photographs, documents, and historical artifacts to spotlight trailblazing Jewish women like Henrietta Szold and Bella Abzug, who overcame social, cultural and religious barriers and made meaningful contributions to their communities.



The multimedia exhibit “Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution” looks at the many ways Jewish women contributed to the feminist movement. It also examines how feminists changed their own Jewish communities.



JWA also archives The American Jewess (1895-1899), which described itself at the time as “the only magazine in the world devoted to the interests of Jewish women.” The first English-language periodical targeted at American Jewish women, The American Jewess covered a surprising and controversial array of topics that ranged from women’s place in the synagogue to whether women should ride bicycles. Read the JWA’s blog “Jewesses with Attitude” for posts that use excerpts from The American Jewess to examine whether the concerns of Jewish women in the 1890s resonate with Jewish women’s experiences today.



The Triangle Factory Fire



Websites with a narrow focus can have a powerful impact. For example, the Triangle Factory fire website, created by Cornell University’s School of Industrial Labor Relations, uses layers upon layers of material to bring to life not just the fire, but the extended public outcry which followed. Testimonials from factory workers, speeches by labor leaders, and newspaper coverage of the fire and the trial (in which the factory owners were ultimately found innocent) create an intense, engaging experience.



Vivid evidence of the outrage and distress that followed the fire is seen in the speeches, editorials, political cartoons, popular music and calls for reform.



ClevelandJewishHistory.net



It doesn’t have fancy graphics or much depth of material yet, but ClevelandJewishHistory.net promises to be a singular resource for Cleveland’s Jewish heritage.



Arnie Berger started the website in 2006 because “so little of (Jewish Cleveland’s) nearly 170-year history (is) on the Web.” To address this deficit, Berger has been developing new content and encouraging Jewish organizations to present their own histories online. He has gathered links to little-known resources for Cleveland and American Jewish history, like “The History of Jewish Life in Cleveland” page on the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland’s website, and the online version of the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.



A newer addition, more than 30 pages about Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver along with 70 photos, is the largest Silver archive online. Berger hopes to add audio files so the user “can experience his eloquence.”



ClevelandJewishHistory.net also offers a photo archive of historic Cleveland synagogues. The archive includes images of the Wilson Avenue Temple, the Euclid Ave. Temple (with its Tiffany windows), and the Morison Avenue Bath House and the Cleveland Jewish Center in Glenville.



Berger will soon add a section on Cleveland’s contributions to the Soviet Jewry movement, and is soliciting images and memories for an upcoming section on Jewish Glenville. ClevelandJewishHistory.net is a labor of love for Berger, who hopes the site will be a catalyst for others to put their local Jewish history online.

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Additional sites to visit during Jewish American Heritage Month



1. From the Jewish American Heritage Month homepage you can find visit other content related to Jewish-American history in the Library of Congress’s collection, including:

• Life After the Holocaust: oral histories of six Holocaust survivors who emigrated to the U.S. after the war


• National Park Service Jewish American Historical Places has images of more than a dozen sites of Jewish interest.


• In the music archives, you can watch singer Flory Jagoda’s concert of Sephardic music performed in Ladino, Italian and Serbo-Croatian


• Watch a webcast of Susan Weidman Schneider, editor-in-chief of “Lilith,” discussing her experiences at the helm of the controversial Jewish women's magazine.


• Fighting Nazi Germany contains interviews with and wartime correspondence from Jewish-American soldiers who served in World War II.

2. In a similar vein, The Center for Jewish History’s Letters from the Front: Jewish War Heroes commemorates of the special role played by Jewish soldiers in the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in World War II. At the same site, visit the exhibit Jews in America: Our Story.



3. The mission of the Goldring-Woldenberg Institute on Southern Jewish Life is to present a history of every congregation and significant Jewish community in the South. Currently, they have completed Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee - and will add other states in the future.



4. The Jewish Museum has several online arts-related exhibits:

• Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976


• From The New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig


• Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey


• Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting

5. At the Photo Galleries of the American Sephardi Federation, there are photos by Sephardic artists as well as works with Sephardic content, like the the portraits of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.



6. A Perfect Fit: The Garment Industry and American Jewry, 1860-1960 at the Yeshiva University Museum traces the early thread of 19th-century Jewish immigrants seeking success in America.



7. The American Jewish Committee Archives’s tagline is “Making History Instantly Accessible,” and its multimedia archives include

• interactive archival timelines


• AJC radio broadcasts (1939-1955)


• historic films and TV shows


• the American Jewish Year Book (1899-present)


• and oral histories.

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Innovative Clevelander gets AVI CHAI Fellowship

Aharon Horwitz is one of the first AVI CHAI Fellows



Lila Hanft, CJN, 05/15/08



Even with e-mail, voice mail, and cell phones, it’s been hard to catch up with Cleveland native Aharon Horwitz, 28, this week.



On Monday he was in New York with collaborator Ariel Beery to receive an AVI CHAI Fellowship of $225,000 over three years. Tuesday it was back home to Israel to attend a multi-day president’s conference, and on Thursday, Horwitz was scheduled to speak on a panel titled “Israel and the Diaspora: Aliyah and the Special Relationship.”



Horwitz, who lives in Jerusalem, and Beery, who lives in New York, co-founded and co-direct the PresenTense Group. Their winning fellowship proposal is to expand their flagship project, PresenTense magazine, and the PresenTense Institute for Creative Zionism (PICZ), an incubator for socially minded entrepreneurs.





The AVI CHAI Fellowship, which identifies “emerging Jewish leaders,” was awarded to only four other recipients in addition to Horwitz and Beery. Horwitz says, via e-mail from Jerusalem, that “Ariel and I are excited, inspired, and grateful to The AVI CHAI Foundation for this fellowship opportunity.”



But he adds that part of their project is the belief that “ultimately what the Jewish Community needs is not necessarily ‘leaders,’ but rather doers who are ready to roll up their sleeves and engage in the hard work of future building.” The PresentTense Group’s projects are all “permeated” with this attitude, which Horwitz identifies as “the Zionist ethos -- and the business startup culture ethos.”



Read the rest at the Cleveland Jewish News!



Future Vision: Hear Aharon Horwitz's & Ariel Beery's project pitch.

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Commentary: "Passions run high" on Federation move

(Note: the opinions expressed within are LilaTov Cocktail's and do not represent those of the Cleveland Jewish News, which has no responsibility for this content.)



In Poll or vote? Debate persists on Federation leaving city (Cleveland Jewish News, 4/18/08), Marilyn Karfeld reports that "passions continue to run high on the issue many call a landmark decision that will affect the Jewish community for years to come."



On the surface, what's at issue is whether to move the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland headquarters from downtown to an eastern suburb.



But below the surface, recent discussions of where Federation should relocate has some fundamental flaws in Federation's relationship with the larger community.

1. Who will have a say in the decision to relocate?


2. How can the public --those who are not Federation insiders -- affect the outcome?

David Goldberg, co-chairman of AmTrust Bank and a Jewish communal leader, has organized opposition to the move. His group argues that it's critical that Federation survey "those currently involved with the Jewish community and those who are not and have moved away."



In particular, he wants to engage the younger generation, that group least likely to be in positions of power within the Jewish community.



Sure, a Federation headquarters on the corner of Richmond and S. Woodland would better suit the comfort zone of the suburban-dwelling Jews, with SUVs and children and aging parents. Better (and free) parking alone would make them happier. If Federation moved to Beachwood, most employees would have shorter drives to work. And suburbanites of all races, colors, and creeds are more comfortable when they don't have to encounter people with less money and/or more melatonin than they have.



But what does relocating Federation to Beachwood say to Gen J, that sought-after demographic of young urban Jews in their 20s and 30s. Living downtown unencumbered by children and synagogue affiliation, but by their own admission desperately seeking greater connection with Judaism, these are the guys who are supposed to be revitalizing every aspect of Jewish Cleveland.



So far, Federation leadership has not welcomed the suggestion of bringing your average (and apparently woefully ignorant) Jewish community member into the relocation decision-making process.



Federation president Stephen H. Hoffman told the CJN that it’s unlikely the Federation will survey the Jewish community on the issue. In stark contrast to Goldberg, Hoffman says that the “location of an office building” isn't momentous enough to merit that approach.



David Heller, chair of Federation’s government relations committee and a Federation officer, put his objection to a survey more baldly:

"You run the risk of gathering the opinions of people who may not have an understanding of what the Federation is or how it conducts business. If you follow that path, the community could ultimately end up making a poor decision.” (my emphasis)

Heller's statement should set off warning bells for everyone. Something's deeply wrong if the community which funds Federation -- and whose needs Federation is pledged to meet -- don't have "an understanding of what the Federation is."



The phrase "how Federation conducts business" is an odd one. Doesn't Federation conduct its business the same way everyone else does? Is there some secret, arcane method to the way Federation conducts business that the rest of us wouldn't know about?



In a word, yes. It seems to me, as a community member and a reporter, that Federation often "conducts its business" behind closed doors.



While there's financial transparency, motives and relationships seem intentionally opaque. It seems there's always some privileged information the rest of us hoi polloi don't know about and which affects Federation business. Not being privileged, we can only accept the assurance that if we knew what they -- the presidents and directors and big donors -- knew, we'd agree with them completely. And thank them for their wisdom.

From urban

(Euclid & 18th St.)



to suburban

(Richmond & S. Woodland)

Click to enlarge

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