anyone know anything about cleveland or silver spring?

soraya

Mon, Mar 27 2006, 8:45 pm

We are currently living in a certain city and we are not happy here. My husband recently asked at his firm if there were any openings in any other cities. His boss looked into it, and withing the next year, there will be openings in D.C. and Cleveland.

Can anyone tell me about these places (in terms of frumkeit- I know that DC is the capital! Very Happy

). We are a litvish family, and we are looking for a community with a lot of young people(one of the problems where we are now, not a lot of young people).
Also, we are a very growth oriented family, and we very much believe in being "mestapek b'me'at" (being satisfied on little). Meaning, we don't want to go to a town where everyone has really fancy homes, driving snazzy SUVs (where we are now)- but where people are more "pashut." we want a place with learning opportunities (shiurim) for both men and women, etc. If cleveland or silver spring wouldn't fit the bill, any suggestions (the NY metro area is out of the question!).

We've heard a lot of good things about Baltimore, but my husband is wondering if the commute to the firm would be a bit long.

any ideas? thanks!

amother

Mon, Mar 27 2006, 9:09 pm

The commute from Baltimore to D.C. is not great. I'd estimate about about an 2 1/2 to 3 hours round trip daily. I'm not sure if SS fits the bill of what you are looking for, but I can put you in contact with people there. IndyMom should be able to tell you more, or maybe EliseCohen. E-mail me at baltimoremom@hotmail.com if you would like some names and numbers of people.

amother

Mon, Mar 27 2006, 9:21 pm

We lived in Baltimore for 7 1/2 years. Great community, schools, shuls, rabbonim, and yeshiva!
We had a lot of friends who made to commute to D.C. by train each day...about 45 min-1 hour. It's an easy trip by train...we did a lot of sightseeing with the kids when we lived in Baltimore. Many people carpool together, too!
It has grown a lot in size since we moved there 10 years ago, but it's still a wonderful place to live. There is a big mix of people living there, just find where you fit in and you'll love it
I also have friends in Silver Spring and they enjoy living there. It's a small, friendly community. Close to D.C too! A lot of kiruv opportunites and a lot of young people.

soraya

Mon, Mar 27 2006, 9:59 pm

okay then, other than the traffic- what can people tell me about silver spring? It sounds like Baltimore might not be such a good choice if my husband would be working in DC.

I get the impression that Silver SPring is an older community, with the frum community being not as "yeshivish" as Baltimore. Any thoughts on that? Realistically, how long does it take to get from SS into DC- either by car or public transportation?

seniormom

Mon, Mar 27 2006, 11:10 pm

Soraya, from what you describe about your family and your interest in living a pashut lifestyle in a non-gashmius-oriented community, I would think that Cleveland would be very nice for you. It has Telshe yeshiva and Yavneh seminary--both litvish/yeshivish--setting the tone. The ppl I know there are very modest--in every sense of the word. They are smart yet simple, limited in income yet rich in middos. It is a svivah of yiras Shomayim and ahavas Torah.

Of course, like any community, you'd want to investigate the exact neighborhood you'd feel most comfortable in. I could connect you with someone there if you become seriously interested in moving to Cleveland.

You can PM me if you'd like to discuss this further. It would also help if I knew more about your and dh's backgounds and how comfortable your family would be in a fairly "narrow" community.

elisecohen

Tue, Mar 28 2006, 6:43 am

Silver Spring/Rockville is great and very young. Commuting time if you're working in the city is 1/2 hour door to door (technically most neighborhoods are about 3 miles from the city line I suppose).

Woodside (SS) is older, but has the Torah School and Girls' Yeshiva. It borders the city line. Metro and buses in neighborhood. Right now the old mikvah is there but it is being moved. Community is mixed, modern/litvish. Not but so many little kids.

White Oak is more black hat, on bus lines but no metro. No schools or kosher shops in the neighborhood, but regular groceries. It's large and fairly uniform in the sense of litvish, frummy. There's a shabbos mikvah.

Kemp Mill is the biggest neighborhood. It has some of the kosher butchers and bakeries. The boys' yeshiva is there. There is a mikvah and the new area mikvah is being moved there in a couple of years. It's a real mix of people, from chassidish to people who attend orthodox shuls but aren't really shomer mitzvohs yet. There is a choice of several shuls, which isn't really available in the other neighborhoods. There are a couple of day schools, but they are small and only partly frum (most children attending don't come from frum households but some do).

Aspen Hill is where we live. We have the rest of the butchers, bakeries, bookstores, restaurants, etc. We have the Hebrew Academy, which is n2-12th grade MO with many services. We are building a Shabbos mikvah, to be open soon IY"H. Our shul is in the Hebrew Academy. We are a very young community, only about 15 families so far but something like 30 kids grade school and younger already. We're right near 2 metro stations and plenty of bus lines, as well as very convenient easy commuting by car.

There's also Potomac, more upscale, with I think 3 shuls, and a very nice mikvah, but more upscale (expensive housing even for this area). No schools there but abundant car pools. No metro but not too far.

Please no one be offended by how I characterize their neighborhood--if I made a mistake, just enlighten me!

elisecohen

Tue, Mar 28 2006, 6:46 am

BTW, if you ever want to spend time with your husband, I personally do not recommend living in Baltimore and commuting to DC. You're talking 1 1/2-2 hours each way door to door at rush hour. If you're looking for a fairly insular community (compared to others here) I would look at White Oak, and if you're looking for a young community, look at Aspen Hill and Kemp Mill (which both have plenty of black hat families, just not as exclusively as White Oak).

Nothing against Baltimore, you're just setting yourself up for a particular life style if your husband is going to be doing that commute every day.

queen

Tue, Mar 28 2006, 9:15 am

Cleveland is a wonderful community. You have different areas to choose from- the "Heights," "Beachwood" and "Yeshiva" are the main areas.

Most people moving to Cleveland (unless they are in Kollel/newlyweds) move to either the Heights or Beachwood. Heights people are simpler and housing is very reasonable. (not more than $200,000 for a nice size house). Beachwood is the more "fancier" neighborhood with housing costing around $350/400. The two neighborhoods are only about 7-10 minute drive away from each other.

You have two main schools- The Academy and Mosdos. Mosdos is along the lines of a Chedar/the more "right wing" school where as the Academy was always the community school and accepts everyone. For post high school you have Yavne sem for the girls and Telz Yeshiva for the boys.

People are not trying to keep up with the Joneses as much as one sees it in NY which is refreshing to the eyes Smile

Be prepared however for very cold winters with much snow at times.

Feel free to PM me with more specific questions if necessary. (if you have a Q specifically for me- better to PM me as I don't read/reread most threads these days)

elisecohen

Tue, Mar 28 2006, 12:10 pm

Wow...hate to tell you this but single family homes in the Silver Spring/Rockville area start at around $450K. Potomac is more (upscale neighborhood), and so generally is Woodside. Townhouses are about $100K cheaper but there aren't always any available, except maybe in White Oak. It's not that these are fancy neighborhoods, it's just that the DC housing market is out of sight. One nice thing in Aspen Hill is that there are a lot of 5 bedroom houses available.

amother

Tue, Mar 28 2006, 12:48 pm

I live in Cleveland. Cleveland Heights is more to the right, but very wonderful. Houses there go for around $140k-$180k on average, although there are some for less (especially if you're willing to live on certain streets which aren't so heavily Jewish) and some for more (on Severn, which has larger yards).

We just moved to University Heights a year ago. UH is more of a mix of people. On our block we have chassidim and mizrachi people as well as others in the middle. I LOVE UH. We bought last year a very nice (5,000 sq ft 5 bedroom 3.5 bath) house for $240k, although there are certainly smaller houses here for $180k-$220k and larger for around $300k. Beachwood is right across Green Rd. from UH. Houses tend to be larger and more expensive - I'd say $300k-$350k is more typical. Generally speaking, there are very very few Mosdos kids in Beachwood, and not all that many in UH (may vary somewhat by grade), so if you're set on sending your kids to Mosdos, Cleveland Heights is probably a better choice. (Our oldest was at Mosdos, and when we moved there was only one kid in his class who lived in UH, so we ended up switching him to the Hebrew Academy, which is also a very nice school.) Really both Mosdos and HAC are good schools. Mosdos does have a no internet and no television rule you should be aware of.

As far as classes, I've found that unfortunately many classes for women meet during the day when I'm at work. (I'm on my lunch hour right now, before anyone jumps on me!). That being said, there are still some evening classes for women available, and many many learned ladies who will do chavrusa. Learning for men is phenomenal! Several kollels, lots of classes, really terrific. One great resource is Rabbi Nisenbaum at the Jewish Learning Connection - they have many classes, a tape library, etc. Nshei has a book/tape library as well which is very nice for the kids (and adults)!

Hope this helps.

soraya

Tue, Mar 28 2006, 1:55 pm

wow! everyone has been so helpful.
I think that maybe Silver Spring is not really what we are looking for. cleveland or baltimore (problematic b/c of commute) sound like they are more up our alley.
Another general (non-frum) question about Cleveland- what is the economy/ job market like there? This is not an issue for my husband, but more for me- I work part time in finance, and as far as I know, I don't think there are any large firms in my field in Cleveland. I would have to look for something else in my field. I am concerned about the economic growth, etc. of the city- anyone have any insights to that, or have any ideas where I can do some research on that?

Chani

Tue, Mar 28 2006, 5:18 pm

Job market in Cleveland - I would think that there'd be opportunities, although it depends on what level you are... There is a bank, Ohio Savings, which is owned by Jews, btw, and a lot of frum people work there. Progressive Insurance is headquartered here, and has about 20,000 employees in Cleveland, including numerous analysts. The Cleveland Clinic is another major employer...

My husband recently changed jobs (he's a software engineer) - he had numerous offers, and in fact was very selective about agreeing to interviews b/c he was overwhelmed with responses to his resume posting on Monster.com.

Hatzlacha,

Chani

P.S. If you decide to come visit, let me know and I'll be glad to help you however I can.

amother

Tue, Mar 28 2006, 8:35 pm

amother wrote:

In Baltimore (Greenspring area), modest sized homes run between 280K-450k.
We bought our house a year ago for 160k, and that's because the owner got it appraised a year before selling. It should have sold for about a 100k more! And now it would probably sell for a little over 300k.

Lucky you! Where about do you live amother?
(I live on Farringdon)