Like many other U.S. cities, Cleveland, Ohio has a long and diverse Jewish history. The first Jews emigrated to the United States from Germany in the 19th century. They arrived mainly in the cities of the American East Coast. Either they started a new life there or they continued on to the Midwest to cities like Cleveland, Chicago or Minneapolis.
After the pogroms in 1881 and the subsequent riots in the Russian Empire, the first wave of Jew*s from the "settlement rayon" came to America. Between 1880 and 1925, their numbers in Cleveland increased from about 3,500 to 85,000, including Samuel Udisky and his kin.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, a thriving Jewish textile industry developed in Cleveland and numerous synagogues and businesses were established. The Conservative congregation Anshe Emeth, founded in Cleveland in 1869 by a Polish Jew, is believed to have been the congregation to which Samuel Udisky belonged. The congregation's present home is in the Park Synagogue, built in 1950, in east Cleveland Heights. In Samuel's time, however, the congregation still met in a member's private home. Later, beginning in 1903, regular prayers were held in a synagogue in downtown Cleveland. The building is now used by a Baptist church.
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