Jacob Shtull (1926-2002) served as rabbi of Shaarey Tikvah Congregation (Gates of Hope, Mayfield Temple, Mayfield Hillcrest Synagogue) in Beachwood, Ohio from 1957-1992. After his retirement he served as Emeritus Rabbi of the congregation.
Born in Montreal, Canada, he studied there at Sir George William College and then at the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, where he received his rabbinical ordination in 1953. His first pulpits were in Canada with Congregation B'nai Israel in London, Ontario, from 1953 to 1956, and at Congregation Beth Am, Downsview, Ontario, from 1956-1957.
Rabbi Shtull was Shaarey Tikvah's second rabbi and the first native English-speaking rabbi of the congregation that was founded in 1940 by German Jews who fled Hitler's Germany in the late 1930s. Shtull taught classes on Judaism and Holocaust studies at area colleges. He wrote articles for the Cleveland Jewish News and published A Kristallnacht Reader (1983) and The Life and Thought of Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk (1992). A political activist, Shtull was an ardent Zionist and an early vocal opponent of the Vietnam War.
Rabbi Shtull held national, regional, and local positions, including vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly of Retired Rabbis, regional director of the United Synagogue of America (both associated with the Conservative movement), and president of the Cleveland Board of Rabbis.
The Jacob Shtull Papers, 1948-1992, consist of correspondence, lectures, sermons, bulletins, newspaper clippings, notes, and reports.
This collection is of value to researchers interested in the view and concerns of congregational rabbis during the second half of the 20th century, in general, and Conservative movement rabbis in the Cleveland, Ohio, metropolitan area specifically. His thoughts on holidays, portions of the Bible, Israel and Zionism, and the Sabbath are reflected in his sermons. Shtull was the leader of Shaarey Tikvah Congregation as it moved from Cleveland Heights (his predecessor founded the congregation in Cleveland proper), then to Mayfield Heights in 1970, and then to Beachwood in 1986, as the Jewish community similarly moved east from Cleveland. The congregation bulletins document these moves. Shtull's eulogies will be of value to genealogists, particularly those researching German Jews who moved to Cleveland, Ohio before World War II, and Holocaust survivors who came after the war.
The collection is arranged alphabetically by document type, and then chronologically.
All photographs have been removed to the photograph and print collection.
Processed by Louis Rosenblum in 2003
None.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 4890 Jacob Shtull Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Jacob Shtull, 2001
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.