Jewish life in nineteenth-century Cincinnati was described by Ohio's "wandering historian," Henry Howe, as "a sort of paradise for the Hebrews." Although Cincinnati's Jewish community in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is modest in size, between 1850 and 1880, Cincinnati was home to the third largest Jewish population in the country. This wealthy and significant Midwestern community - one of world's fastest growing cities during the first half of the nineteenth century - gave rise to institutions that shaped the religious history of the Jewish people in the United States and around the world. This legacy of vision and innovation makes the history of Cincinnati Jewry one of enduring significance to the American Jewish experience.