Jacqueline Freedman

With great sorrow, we announce the death of Jacqueline (Jackie) Kahane Freedman of Shaker Heights, an award-winning artist and teacher, who passed away unexpectedly on Friday evening, April 11, 2025, in Cleveland, Ohio. She would have been 88 in June. Born to immigrant parents in Brooklyn, NY, in 1937, Jackie is survived by her loving children Stuart (Robin) and Rebecca, her grandchildren Elliot, Kara, Jasper, and Milo, nieces Carol and Bonnie, nephews Sam and Ken, multiple cousins, her best friend Elizabeth Unis “Libby” Chesko, her many “adopted extra kids,” and numerous beloved friends and respected colleagues. Jackie was predeceased decades ago by her husband Frederick, her parents, and more recently by her brother, Albert, and nephews Raymond and Robert. She was also predeceased by her companion of fifteen years, Don.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Jackie grew up in the back of her parents’ mom-and-pop grocery store in Park Slope (before gentrification), where she delighted in raising generations of store kittens. She became best friends with the little girl who lived below her, and she and Barbara were inseparable as they grew up, and were overjoyed to find each other again when the world went online. Jackie graduated from Midwood High School in Brooklyn in 1954, then went on to earn her BFA from Pratt Institute. She knew from the age of four that she wanted to be an artist when she grew up. In her 50s, Jackie went back to school and earned her MFA from Syracuse University.

Jackie met her husband, Fred, in 1960, and they married later that year. During that time, Jackie worked in art studios in New York City, designing textiles and advertising. After both children were born, the family moved to Los Angeles for several years before returning to NY to be closer to family. They lived in Poughkeepsie, NY, for about six years, during which time Jackie, who felt “having a mother wasn’t a luxury,” was a stay-at-home mom, occasionally taking freelance jobs. In 1973, the family moved to the Cleveland area, where Jackie lived the rest of her life in her home in Shaker Heights. Fred died suddenly in 1975, and wanting to afford her young kids some stability, Jackie stayed in their new home and continued raising two children on her own.

After Fred’s death, Jackie turned to teaching in order to have a work schedule that aligned with her children's schooling. Thus began a 31-year career teaching art at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) Eastern campus. She taught drawing, design, illustration, watercolors, and guided generations of artists into degrees and careers as working artists. In addition to winning the Besse Award for excellence in teaching, Jackie created transfer programs for Tri-C art students to continue their educations and earn Bachelor’s degrees at Pratt, Parsons, and the Cleveland Institute of Art.. Many of her successful students’ work has appeared in major New York museums, and their illustrations have been published in such venues as New York Magazine, and even as a cover in Time Magazine. Some of her own work was included in a recently released textbook on drawing where some of her views and methods of teaching are quoted.

Jackie was a huge fan of classical music and opera, especially. She fell in love with opera after stumbling across it on the radio at the age of twelve. From then on, for her entire life, she regularly tuned into the weekly Saturday broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. She knew the entire libretto and score to almost every opera ever produced, and taught herself a cursory knowledge of Italian, French, German, and other languages via her knowledge of opera. She also knew almost every major classical orchestral work by heart, possessing the encyclopedic knowledge of a passionate music lover and collector of recordings. Attending live concerts, operas, recitals, musicals, and plays, was her favorite pastime. She adored going to Blossom Music Center, and earlier in her life, Tanglewood. She also loved British movies and television, and was especially fond of shows including animals.

After Jackie’s children were grown, she began to enjoy opportunities to travel. She loved traveling, whether she went with tours, friends, her son, her daughter, or her late companion Don. Jackie and Don engaged in significant globetrotting together, exploring new places from Alaska to Greece to China. Jackie’s favorite place was Venice. She loved its music history, the Jewish Ghetto, and the Venetian glass and art. She also adored Italian gelato and moscato wine.

After her retirement from Tri-C, Jackie dove into a huge creative well. Her commissioned art included portraits and landscapes, and one of her specialties was the traditional Jewish Marriage Contract (the Ketubah), as well as other Judaica. A marriage canopy (Chuppah) she designed for her Cleveland area synagogue was the winner of a Cleveland Community Award for Judaic Design, and the cover she designed for a special supplement edition of the Cleveland Jewish News was also a design award winner.

Over the years, her many-faceted career included book jackets, advertising and editorial illustrations both in newspapers and magazines, as well as package and label designs. Jackie also built a reputation as the illustrator of a number of successful children's books, some of which have become collectors' items. Her clients included a number of major New York publishers.

Jackie’s later artistic explorations took her into the sphere of public art in Cleveland. Invited to enter the United Way’s “GuitarMania” competition in 2012, Jackie painted a 10-foot Fender Stratocaster model guitar in her signature detailed, floral style, naming it “Flower Power.” It was displayed in downtown Cleveland on E 9th St., then outside the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, and is now semi-permanently displayed prominently in Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. She later won a competition to design art to decorate utility boxes around the city of Shaker Heights. Jackie’s floral design with woodland animals can be seen in the median at Larchmere and Coventry Blvds.

Jackie may be best remembered for her hospitality. Over the years, she hosted countless Thanksgiving dinners, Passover seders, Rosh Hashana dinners, latke parties, birthday backyard barbecues, and parties for friends and visiting artists. She also frequently hosted artists and performers for various Cleveland area arts organizations. She made friends with many of her guests, and they often came back to her over and over. Jackie also “adopted” many of her kids’ friends, putting them up over school vacations, while finishing a thesis, while starting a new job, or upon moving into town. She rarely turned anyone down, and never threw friends out.

Always an active member of and volunteer in the Jewish community, Jackie especially embraced Jewish learning. During the Zoom-era lockdowns, she enthusiastically participated in online classes, and later continued as an active participant in-person as she was able. As one of her classmates put it, Jackie was not a wallflower.

Jackie was interred beside her beloved Frederick, in Beth Israel Cemetery in Woodbridge, NJ, attended by close family and friends. A memorial service is scheduled for Sunday, June 15, 2025, at 2:30 pm at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Pepper Pike, OH; all are welcome.

Suggestions for donations in her memory include:

The Cleveland Orchestra

The Metropolitan Opera

Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra

The Cleveland Museum of Art

B'nai Jeshurun Congregation

The Maltz Museum