At a press conference on Thursday, Sept. 2 at the recently refurbished Chestnut Street Cemetery, plans for the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial year were announced. In 1821, a few years after the first Jewish person, Joseph Jonas, had arrived in Cincinnati, a Jew, Benjamin Lape, died in the city. He had expressed a desire to be buried in consecrated ground, and in order to effect this, land for a cemetery was obtained at the corner of Chestnut Street and Western Row. This was the first Jewish cemetery west of the Allegheny mountains, and the first formal Jewish institution in Cincinnati; in honor of its founding two hundred years ago, a year of celebrations of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial have been planned. Read More >