This year, JChats Season 2 is built around one idea: Choosing Joy. Not as a feeling you wait for. As something you practice — in conversation, in community, on purpose.

Six conversations. Across a full year. Each one an invitation to come curious and leave more connected than you arrived.

Choosing Joy starts here.

Explore the dynamic lineup we have prepared for Season 2. Categorized by theme instead of dates so please mark your calendars for each program.

It always has — a seat for everyone, a story in every dish. This season opens the way Jewish life always has: together, and hungry for more than just the meal.

AUGUST 27, 2026

Israeli culinary storyteller & educator
The voice behind 1.5 million Jewish kitchens. Sivan brings the food culture of modern Israel into conversation with diaspora Jewish life — exploring how a recipe becomes a form of memory that survives everything. Location provided upon registration.

Presented in Partnership with Kitchen Conversations: A meaningful Jewish culinary programming thoughtfully designed to explore and share how identities and stories travel through food. To deepen our understanding of how food relates and intersects with us as a people, how we gather and how it represents history, joy, tradition, pain, survival, love and sacrifice—a thread that documents deep enriching stories.

Presenting Sponsor: The Lazear Family

OCTOBER 22, 2026

Niki Russ Federman & Josh Russ Tupper
Since 1914, Russ & Daughters has fed the Jewish soul of New York’s Lower East Side. A conversation with the fourth-generation owners about food, family, and Jewish continuity — with recipes from the famed appetizing shop. Location provided upon registration.

We have always survived by telling our stories — at the table, on the page, on the screen. These are the moments that shape us.

NIGHT ONE · December 2, 2026
Adult Night: “Awaken Your Awesome”

How does Jewish wisdom empower us for greatness — even now? Disney storyteller Saul Blinkoff brings a night of resilience, identity, and purpose in a post-Oct. 7 world, exploring what it takes to find strength and meaning as a Jew today.
Recommended for ages 13+ 

NIGHT two · DECember 3, 2026
Family Night: “Awaken Your Awesome” + Drawing Workshop

A shorter, family-friendly take on Saul’s signature message — how Jewish wisdom helps us find our own greatness — followed by a hands-on drawing workshop with the Disney animator himself.
Recommended for ages 7+

Disney animator · speaker on faith, identity & creative life
Pocahontas. Mulan. Tarzan. Winnie the Pooh. Doc McStuffins. Saul has spent his career making stories that matter — and then living one. Equal parts comedy and meaning: a Hollywood career, a Jewish journey back home, and the discovery that the two were never as far apart as he thought. Location provided upon registration.

Choosing joy doesn’t mean looking away from what’s hard. It means carrying both — sometimes in the same conversation. Alongside our season of joy runs a thread of resilience, holding the weight honestly, because that weight is part of the story too.

OCTOBER 5, 2026

Senior Correspondent, The Jerusalem Post
Yonah Jeremy Bob has spent his career reporting from inside Israel’s most consequential moments—from its intelligence community and security establishment to its wars and political crossroads. He brings Columbus a ground-level perspective on a region shaping history, including insight into Israel’s upcoming elections and what these pivotal moments ask of all of us watching from afar. Location provided upon registration.

Spring 2027

Author of The Prosecutor
National Jewish Book Award Winner
Fritz Bauer was a gay, Jewish judge who survived the Nazis and spent his life forcing postwar Germany to confront its complicity — work that put the world on the trail of Adolf Eichmann. Jack Fairweather brings his story to Columbus at the moment in the Jewish year when it will be felt most. Justice, told here, is its own form of resilience. Location provided upon registration.

Season Finale – Spring 2027

The final conversation of Season 2 — built to send the community home with something to carry. Stay close. Details to come.

Why Support JChats? Your sponsorship brings powerful Jewish programming to life — helping to fund top-tier speakers, keep events accessible, and foster connection across our community.

Sponsorship Levels & Benefits Subject to Change 

Visionary Thinker – $10,000

8 reserved seating tickets per event
Access to pre-event VIP receptions
Prominent name/logo recognition on stage, screen and website

6 reserved seating tickets per event
Access to pre-event VIP receptions
Name/logo recognition on stage, screen and website

4 reserved seating tickets per event
Access to pre-event VIP receptions
Recognition on screen and website

2 tickets per event
Access to pre-event VIP receptions
Recognition on screen and website

4 complimentary event tickets
Recognition on website

Questions? Contact Eva Golden at egolden@columbusjcc.org

2026-27 Sponsors

Visionary Thinker

The Lazear Family