Jewish American Heritage Month celebrated year-round at the Maltz Museum

May is Jewish American Heritage Month, a month set aside to recognize the historic contributions of Jewish people to American culture, history, science and the arts. It's a history in Northeast Ohio that is celebrated locally, not just in May but on a daily basis at the Maltz Museum in Beachwood.

"This is a museum that tells the story of the Jewish people in the United States through the lens of Cleveland," said Sean Martin, Curator for Jewish History at the Western Reserve Historical Society. "Really, from the settling of the community to today."

Its mission is to build bridges of tolerance and understanding by sharing Jewish heritage through the lens of the American experience. An experience in Cleveland began not long after the city's founding, with the first Jewish settlers arriving from Bavaria four decades after Moses Cleveland did. The neighborhood they settled in? What we know today as Gateway, home to Progressive Field and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

"Basically downtown and then they kind of move out to what we know as the Woodland neighborhood around 55th and Woodland," said Martin. "Just before then the area where Tri-C is located now used to be of course a much different area with bustling streets filled with immigrants from all kinds of different communities and then they move further out to Glenville, the Kinsman-Mt. Pleasant neighborhood and then on into the Heights and the eastern suburbs."

The Maltz Museum highlights the growth of the Jewish community both in numbers and influence.

"They're very active in the community really from an early age," Martin said. "So if we ask the question when was the first Jewish leader on city council, that's actually in the 1860s which is pretty early, I think probably earlier than most people would expect. So Jews are involved in city government early on. Kaufman Hays, one of the early important Jewish leaders helps to take the city out of bankruptcy in the 1880s, 1890s. They really are involved in all aspects of civic life."

Highlighted as well in the museum are the various industries they played a big part.

"The Garment industry was especially important here in Cleveland, these companies Joseph and Feiss, Richman Brothers, Bobby Brooks owned by Jewish immigrant families that really plays a role," Martin said.

The Maltz Museum opened in 2005 and, beyond telling the local story, features one of the world's greatest collections of religious art, ritual objects, sacred books and scrolls.

"We have the Temple-Tifereth Israel Gallery, which is regarded as one of the top Judaica collections in the world," said Museum Managing Director David Schafer. "This is where people come to understand and learn about Jewish holidays, religion, we have people coming in classes for comparitive religion of the intersection of all faiths."

The museum draws 30,000 visitors a year from all over the country and all over the world, but most importantly, a third of them are students.

"Our engagement with students from Northeast Ohio, 12 counties is I think vital. It's impactful. They are still the age where critical thinking is going on and you can impact, influence positively how they view themselves and how they view others and to reduce bias and hate," Schafer said.

Celebrated here are notable members of the community, the creators of Superman, Paul Newman and News 5's Dorothy Fuldheim among them. The Jewish community in Northeast Ohio is one of the most impactful in the country, numbering today around 80,000. But they still live under the words carried by those handful of settlers in 1839. The Alsbacher Document, as it is known, sits on display at the Maltz. They are the words written by a religious teacher in Bavaria that served as a guiding light to those early Cleveland settlers.

"It says basically that I know you will be tempted by the freedom that you find in this new country but remember that you are Jewish and that really is basically the mission of the community to settle and find their place in a new environment but to remember who they are," said Martin.

The Maltz Museum is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday and, in addition to its core galleries, features changing exhibits like the upcoming "A Celebration of Family," which opens June 2, exploring "the rich tapestry of families forming the fabric of society."

"We are a museum that's open to everyone because we want to share a Jewish heritage story and stories of courage through history," said Schafer. "We welcome everyone to come through our doors. The Maltz Museum is a gem nationally and certainly in Cleveland and if you haven't been to the Maltz Museum you have to walk through the doors."