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A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

Jewish Pop Culture

The band, "Native State" on state in 2024.

Guitar riffs and good deeds: Michael Staenberg’s ‘Battle of the Bands’ returns to rock Chesterfield

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished August 14, 2025

If you’ve spent any time in the St. Louis Jewish community, you’ve probably bumped into Michael Staenberg — or at least a project he’s helped bring to life. He’s a guy who gives a lot, but this September he’s giving in a way you can dance...

Blood splatters on the floor of a family's home in Nahal Oz in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, when some 75 people in the southern Israeli community were killed. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Toronto Film Festival backpedals after yanking Oct. 7 rescue film

Philissa Cramer, JTAPublished August 14, 2025

(JTA) — The head of the Toronto International Film Festival says he is still open to screening an Israeli documentary about Oct. 7 that had been yanked over concerns about disruption and, allegedly, about whether the filmmakers had the right to...

Bottom of the email photos

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished August 13, 2025

Shalom, and welcome to the new archive of all the bottom of the email photos. I get asked about them a lot and if I'm saving them. I wasn't, but now I am. Jordan Aug. 15 July 23 July 20   July 17 July...

From oceans to outer space, our trash is everywhere

From oceans to outer space, our trash is everywhere

BY NANCY KRANZBERGt, Special To The Jewish LightPublished August 12, 2025

Several years ago, I interviewed Andrew Newman, a member of the John Burroughs School faculty, about his work on what some call “Plastic Islands”—vast patches of ocean and river pollution composed mostly of floating debris. Newman is a professional...

Chat up a stranger, it’s a mitzvah  — but please wash your hands

Chat up a stranger, it’s a mitzvah — but please wash your hands

By Amy Fenster Brown, Special To The Jewish LightPublished August 12, 2025

True story. Recently I walked into a public restroom and saw a young mother with a little boy about 2 years old. He was rolling around on the ground — the bathroom floor! — looking under the occupied stall. I asked whether they were in line, and the...

Author of Rachel Gold mysteries takes  different path in ‘Gourmet Club’ novel

Author of Rachel Gold mysteries takes different path in ‘Gourmet Club’ novel

Ellen Futterman, Editor-in-ChiefPublished August 12, 2025

Those familiar with native St. Louisan Michael Kahn’s novels might be surprised to learn that his latest one, “The Gourmet Club,” does not include St. Louis lawyer and supersleuth Rachel Gold, save for a brief cameo. After all, 11 of the 14 books...

The Grapevine Tavern

A St. Louis bar. A Jewish family. A trail of secrets in the MLK murder files

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished August 12, 2025

When Nina Gilden Seavey was 12, growing up in University City, the Air Force building on Washington University’s campus burned to the ground. Her father, Louis Gilden, a Jewish civil rights attorney whose parents had fled pogroms in Ukraine before settling...

The Boxcar

From clay to canvas to steel: art takes over B’nai Amoona

Published August 11, 2025

The Art Gallery at Congregation B’nai Amoona’s new exhibit will feature the works of multi-media artists Cheri Hoffman and Cindy Larimore, ceramicists Beverly Aroh and Lisa Korenblat, painter Jerry Summers, and metal sculptor Dale Dicker. The...

Jewish Jokes: Did you hear the Henny Youngman's best lines, Top 10

Jewish Jokes: Did you hear the Henny Youngman’s best lines, Top 10

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished August 4, 2025

I was once asked by the mother of an old friend, “Why I do a “Jewish Joke of the Day.” I responded and she thought I should share my answer with you. I believe as Jews, we love to laugh. I believe Jews love to laugh at themselves and laugh at...

Chuck Winning as Zeblyan in ‘Two Jews Walk Into a War...’ Photo: Jon Gitchoff

Last Jews standing: Comedy and conviction in Kabul

GERRY KOWARSKY, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished July 28, 2025

The last word of the title is surprising in “Two Jews Walk Into a War…” The opening words suggest the last one will be “bar” and that a joke will follow. Playwright Seth Rozin thwarts only the first of these expectations. “War” is not the...

Workers paint and outdoor display next to a hotel wrapped in a Fantastic Four movie advertisement as San Diego prepares to host thousands of visitors for Comic-Con International, in San Diego, California, U.S. July 22, 2025.  REUTERS/Mike Blake

Marvel finally says it out loud: The Thing is Jewish, just like Jack Kirby who created him

By PJ Grisar, The ForwardPublished July 25, 2025

Fantastic Four: First Steps takes place in Marvel artist Jack Kirby’s world — literally. It’s only at the end of the film that it’s revealed that Earth-828, the version of our planet that Marvel’s First Family ends up saving, is a reference...

Mark Feuerstein plays Rabbi Mo Zaltzman (center), a small town Rabbi who has to unravel a complex conspiracy. Courtesy of Salvador Litvak

New film ‘Guns and Moses’ blends Western grit with Jewish faith and fear

By Olivia Haynie, The ForwardPublished July 24, 2025

This story contains spoilers for the film Guns and Moses. When a member of his congregation, Allan Rosner (Dermot Mulroney), is murdered, the police arrest a young neo-Nazi who has been harassing the congregation. But Rabbi Mo Zaltzman (Mark Feuerstein)...

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