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.
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
Location Provided Upon Registration
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.
OCTOBER 22, 2026
Location Provided Upon Registration
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 deli.
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 · DEC 2
adult Night
Same Saul. Different conversation. Built for grown-ups who want to be moved.
NIGHT two · DEC 3
Kids Night
Bring the kids. Bring the grandkids. Features the “Anyone Can Draw” Disney workshop.
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.
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
Location Provided Upon Registration
Senior Correspondent, The Jerusalem Post
Yonah Jeremy Bob has spent his career reporting from inside Israel’s most consequential moments — its intelligence community, its security establishment, its wars. He brings Columbus a ground-level account of a region in the middle of history, and what it asks of all of us watching from afar.
Spring 2027
Location Provided Upon Registration
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.
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
Inspiration Builder – $5,000
6 reserved seating tickets per event
Access to pre-event VIP receptions
Name/logo recognition on stage, screen and website
Learning Leader – $2,500
4 reserved seating tickets per event
Access to pre-event VIP receptions
Recognition on screen and website
Community Connector – $1,000
2 tickets per event
Access to pre-event VIP receptions
Recognition on screen and website
Conversation Starter – $500
4 complimentary event tickets
Recognition on website
Questions? Contact Eva Golden at egolden@columbusjcc.org
2026-27 Sponsors Coming Soon
