“Did you hear about the Nazi drag queen?” a friend asked me a few days after Cincinnati Pride.

For the past year, I have written about antisemitism and anti-Zionism in Cincinnati because I grew tired of the silence. Since October 7, Cincinnati has had its share of incidents: banners stretched across the interstate, desecrated Jewish cemetery, Hillel students trapped inside a campus building, a Jewish man assaulted after removing antisemitic graffiti and more. Each new incident generated a few uncomfortable conversations before fading away. Cincinnati is not New York, people told themselves. True antisemitism does not happen here.

That denial had already shaped Cincinnati Pride’s relationship with the Jewish community. In 2024, an anti-Zionist pressure campaign culminated in the resignation of Pride’s Jewish board members after being harassed and doxxed. Despite extensive discussions with the Board about the matter, Jewish participants were ultimately advised to march from an undisclosed location and refrain from wearing visible Jewish symbols. 

This year appeared different. After months of difficult conversations, the Mayerson JCC bus returned, draped in rainbow flags. Off stepped rabbis, retirees, parents and teenagers wearing rainbow kippot, Pride shirts and Star of David necklaces. It felt as though two difficult years had finally led somewhere.

Then Cincinnati Pride featured drag artist Judith Iscariot as “Schutzstaffel Sam” – a deliberate reference to the Schutzstaffel (SS), who........

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