Shaker-Lee Synagogue
For more than 60 years, the building at 3688 Lee Road has been
home to religious and cultural institutions that have contributed
to and supported the thriving and diverse community around it.
In the early 1950s the Jewish Community Federation identified
the 6,600 square-foot space as suitable for their Drama
Department and reconfigured it into a 175-seat playhouse,
which included a stage, dressing rooms, rehearsal areas,
and workshop space. It was dedicated in 1954, and the
following month raised its curtains for Jan de Hartog’s
“Skipper Next to God.”
The space was also used for banquets, religious
ceremonies, fundraisers, and dances, and provided the
only large Jewish-operated facility in Shaker Heights prior
to the opening of Temple Beth-El in 1957. It served as an
important cultural and recreational center for the Moreland
neighborhood. Just two years after its dedication in 1954,
with membership falling and the Jewish population shifting
towards Cleveland Heights, the Drama Department was
closed and consolidated in the old Jewish Community
Center facility on Mayfield Road.
In 1961, three religious institutions in the area that were
faced with dwindling membership merged and the property
became the Shaker-Lee Synagogue. Following the tradition of
civic support, Mayor Wilson G. Stapleton welcomed the new
Synagogue to the City in an address to a large crowd.
The Shaker-Lee Synagogue Sisterhood in 1970, presenting a
donation of $1,500 to the Israel Emergency Fund, which was
launched in 1967 by the United Jewish Appeal.
Source: Cleveland History Center of the Western Reserve
Historical Society.
Like Temple Beth-El, Shaker-Lee was an important part of
the neighborhood and created a connection that is still felt by
its former members. Jerry Greenberg wrote on the Growing
Up in Shaker Heights Facebook page, “I grew up on Menlo
and was bar Mitzvah’d at that shul in March 1962. What a
great neighborhood!” Lib Davis wrote, “We went there and my
grandparents went there for many years. We called it our shul.
Our grandfather went there, making the minion, until it was
closed and sold to a church.” With membership diminishing
by 1970, the remaining congregants were moved to Cleveland
Heights, and the building was indeed sold.
Throughout these many transitions, the building has
retained its identity as a religious sanctuary as it evolved from
a Synagogue into a church beginning in 1970 and continuing
today. Since 2001, it has been home to the Chapel of Hope
Christian Fellowship, which, as Raponi writes, continues
“along a storied path of community outreach and faithbased
service.…” The building “acts as a reminder of the
many religious communities that helped define the distinct
character of the Moreland neighborhood.” SL
Richard Raponi’s articles may be viewed here:
clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/838
clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/839
To read more about the history of the Moreland neighborhood,
visit: shakerlibrary.org/local-history/research/morelandneighborhood
history.
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