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At Z3 Cincinnati, Young Jews Aren’t Walking Away—They’re Asking Hard Questions
One of the hallmarks of Jewish culture is open communication. Furthermore, it is asking hard questions and being willing to hear the answer, even if you don’t agree. This ability to ask, listen, argue, and eventually agree to disagree was on full display at the inaugural Z3 Cincinnati Conference. In Keynote speaker Zack Bodner’s presentation,
Mimouna: One More Night
The moment Passover ends, something different happens in parts of the Jewish world. Homes open up, people start coming and going, and the night turns into something that feels like an extension of the holiday rather than the end of it.
Mimouna is a Moroccan Jewish tradition that takes place right after Passover. Friends, family, and neighbors stop by throughout the evening. There’s no real formality to it. You show up, you’re welcomed in, you eat, you talk, you stay as long as you want. The kitchen is active again after a full week of restrictions, and we make mufletta, a quick, easy, slightly oily flatbread, hot off the pan and gone just as fast. Tables are filled with sweets, nuts, pastries, and anything that brings a sense of abundance back into the home.
Cincinnati Turns Out for Jewish Comic Modi
If there was any doubt about the vitality of the Cincinnati Jewish community, Thursday night’s turnout for the comedian Modi put it to rest. In what has become a recurring trend of successful Jewish acts visiting the Queen City, the local comedy club was pushed to its literal and figurative limits.
University of Cincinnati Kicks Off Shifting Paradigms
On Sunday, April 19th, the University of Cincinnati (UC) chose to lean into complexity rather than retreat from it. The kickoff of “Shifting Paradigms,” a three-day conference, served as more than just an academic gathering; it was a powerful reminder that constructive, nuanced conversation about the Middle East can still thrive on a modern campus. Hosted by UC and supported by the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, the Academic Engagement Network, and the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the event brought together diplomats, scholars, and local leaders to examine the Abraham Accords not as a static historical moment, but as a transformative pivot toward a new regional future.
Yom HaShoah Commemoration Calls Community to Remember—and to Speak
In a city where history is not merely preserved but actively told, the Yom HaShoah Community Commemoration on Sunday, April 12, at the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center offered a solemn and necessary charge: remembrance must be honest enough to include not only the crimes of perpetrators, but the silence of those who stood by.
Mercy: A Movie Review
As collaboration between humans and machines accelerates, complexity grows—and so does the unpredictability of unintended consequences. That concern fuels Mercy, Timur Bekmambetov’s sleek sci-fi courtroom thriller starring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson. On the surface, the film presents a tense, near-future drama about a police detective forced to stand trial before an artificial intelligence he helped create. Beneath the action, however, Mercy raises a far more troubling question: when we delegate judgment to machines, whose morality are we truly enforcing?
Cincinnati 2030 Refocused: Choosing Jewish Cincinnati
For many Jewish communities across the United States, the central challenge is no longer building institutions. It is providing clear pathways for engagement with them. That dilemma was the driving force behind the March 10th gathering at the Mayerson Jewish Community Center (JCC), where more than 100 leaders convened for a program titled “Cincinnati 2030 Refocused: From Aspiration to Action.” Leading the talk were Danielle Minson, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, and Brian Jaffee, CEO of the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati—two institutions that, as Jaffee put it plainly, “are the two main institutional funders of this Jewish community.”
Joshua Blatman: A Parent’s Reaction to the Shooting at Temple Israel
“Would you be interested in writing about how today’s shooting made you feel as a parent?” said the text message from my publisher.
“Oh man… I haven’t heard about it yet” I replied, startled.
Nazi Caricatures Are Returning to Ohio
On Tuesday, a sticker of a hook-nosed caricature, a relic of Der Stürmer, pointing at the rising price of unleaded at an Ohio gas station. Underneath, in dripping red letters, is a blunt, ancient accusation: “THE JEWS DID THIS!” This is not Nazi Germany. It is Ohio in 2026.
Iran Is Not a Debate For the Persian Jews of Cincinnati
For many Jewish Cincinnatians, Iran exists as a headline—another distant conflict, another geopolitical problem to be debated and then set aside. For Persian Jews of Cincinnati, it is something else entirely. It is memory. It is exile. And for some, it is a home they can never return to.