Source: The New York Times
On August 13, 2000, The New York Times reported on a dispute in Beachwood, Ohio between Orthodox and Reformed Jews. "Fifteen years of history led to the evening [in 1997] when a Cleveland suburb that was 83 percent Jewish would decide whether to allow its Orthodox residents to construct several religious buildings. In the language of municipal land use, it required a shift in zoning from U-1, A-2 to U-5, from residential to institutional, from four unkempt houses and a stretch of brambly woods to a landscaped campus of two synagogues, two ritual baths, a girls' day school, two playgrounds and three paved parking lots. Nearly two hours into the meeting, the chairman polled his members...Seconds later, when the roll call was over, all six members, every one a Jew, had voted against the project. David Gottesman, a Modern Orthodox Jew, has devoted the "last seven years to the campus project, seen the land bought, the architects hired, the papers filed and refiled to address every civic concern. After all that, he heard some campus opponent angrily say the previous week that the Orthodox were going to turn Beachwood into a 'little Jerusalem.'"
79-year-old Si Wachsberger "spent nearly half of his life serving on either Beachwood's school board, recreation board or City Council, and he had more recently put his energy and contacts into assembling opposition to the Orthodox campus. He cast the issue as one of preserving Beachwood's residential character, but the religious aspects were undeniable, and they galled Si. He had won a Jewish community service award, served as executive director of his Reform temple for a decade, taught in its religious school for eight years. Who was anybody to tell him he wasn't Jewish enough? 'If you want to move in, move in,' Si said in the meeting's aftermath. 'But when you bring all the baggage with you -- two synagogues, the mikvah, the school, the whole shtick -- you're taking over.'
"The last few years have brought lawsuits, lawn signs, more petitions, more raucous meetings, even a municipal plebiscite. And today, the controversy, still unresolved, may be headed to the Ohio Supreme Court. The land-use dispute has resisted settlement by all means because the issue has never been about land use at all. Agenda item 96-63, the Orthodox campus, was about the collision of two irreconcilable versions of American Jewish identity, as personified by Si Wachsberger and David Gottesman."