Jewish Vocational Service

The Jewish Vocational Service (f. 1939), located in Cleveland, Ohio, was created as the result of a joint recommendation of the Jewish Social Service Bureau and the Council Educational Alliance. Those agencies had provided vocational guidance and job placement services but both recognized the need for one agency devoted solely to these concerns. Job placement was especially important at that time since job discrimination against Jews and other minorities was common and legal. Particular attention was given to providing services for recently arrived refugees from Nazi Germany. During and after World War II, the agency assisted veterans and other refugees to locate employment. As a result of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and the consequent legislative banning of discrimination in the workplace, the need for the job placement component of the agency shrank radically. From the 1970s to the early 1990s, the agency increasingly focused attention upon creative programs in career counseling, job seeking, and the needs of recently arrived Jewish immigrants from what was then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for the Jewish Vocational Service

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