Sunday, July 26 2026

Summerfair Continues Amid a Changing Coney Island Landscape

Summerfair looked different this year, but its creative spirit remained intact.

Long associated with the Old Coney grounds, the fine arts and crafts show returned in a more compact form as major changes continue across the property. The former Coney Island site is being transformed into the Farmer Music Center, a $160 million live-entertainment campus operated by a subsidiary of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. With construction reshaping familiar surroundings, this year’s Summerfair occupied a reduced footprint. Even so, the event still drew a good turnout, helped by great weather, shaded walkways, food vedors, and the kind of easily navigated booth arrangement visitors have come to expect.

A Cincinnati Jew in London

Hi American Israelites… It’s been a while. Let me re-introduce myself, if you’ve forgotten: my name is Eliana Garfunkel, I graduated from Sycamore High School in 2021 and since then I’ve been outside the states for my further education. First, I was in Milan then London studying fashion design and now I’m finishing a completely new degree from Royal Holloway University of London in Creative Writing and American Literature (I get why it’s funny). I lived in Surrey, where the university actually is, for the first two years of my degree, but I started to be more religious so I moved to Golders Green to be in the community. 

Jewish Federation of Cincinnati Marks 130 Years With $16.1 Million in Giving 

The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati held its 130th Annual Meeting on May 20, gathering roughly 300 community members for an evening that blended institutional history and fundraising results.

Board Chair Sherri Symson opened the program with a video narrated by Danielle Minson tracing the organization’s origins to three civic leaders who founded it in Cincinnati’sWest End in 1896. “Wow, 130 years in just five minutes,” Symson remarked after the video concluded. The evening’s framing leaned heavily on continuity: the Federation, Symson noted, had outlasted every individual who built it, which is the measure of any enduring institution.

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