Pamela Geller opened her story with tartar sauce. Frisch's tartar sauce, specifically. A Cincinnati kid, born and raised, she started with a familiar taste of home.

Geller is the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati's Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. She has spent years telling this community's stories, but at cincy jewfolk's Stories from the Tribe, she was able to tell her own.

Her story was about a difficult time in her life and the community that helped Geller and her daughter through it. Like the other 11 women who spoke that evening, the story was about how People showed up. Friends and neighbors wrapped their arms around her family and held them up.

Geller was one of twelve women who took the stage October 26, 2026 in the Amberley Room of the Mayerson JCC to share true stories about Jewish motherhood and family life. The other storytellers each brought a different chapter: a teacher, an Israeli-born chef, a Navy veteran, a scientist, and a comedian who picked up the mic at sixty-eight. There were hard days and funny moments, and the pride that gets passed from one generation to the next.

Federation was proud to sponsor the evening. Evenings like this remind us that the strength of this community is in its people, and in the willingness to say out loud what we have lived through and who carried us.

Their stories are our stories.