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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 Art

Anselm Kiefer, German, born 1945; “Brennstäbe” (Fuel Rods), 1984–87; oil, acrylic emulsion, and shellac on canvas with lead, copper wire, straw, iron, and ceramic; 130 1/4 inches x 18 feet 3 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pulitzer Jr., by exchange 108:1987a-c; © Anselm Kiefer

A viewer’s guide to the Jewish connections in SLAM’s biggest show ever

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished October 27, 2025

How to see “Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Sea”: A viewer’s guide Since introducing the Jewish Light audience to the Jewish connections behind the largest exhibition ever at the Saint Louis Art Museum, we've received dozens of emails asking if there's...

How a non-Jewish artist helped shape Jewish spaces across the Midwest

How a non-Jewish artist helped shape Jewish spaces across the Midwest

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished October 27, 2025

As I was walking up and down the front lobby of the Jewish Community Center preparing for the Jewish Light's 16th annual Unsung Hero Awards ceremony on Sunday, Oct. 26, I could not help but notice and re-notice the artwork that hung on the walls. All...

How our ‘neighborhood river’ shaped the Art Museum’s largest and most Jewish exhibition yet

How our ‘neighborhood river’ shaped the Art Museum’s largest and most Jewish exhibition yet

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished October 14, 2025

This is the second in our ongoing series on “Becoming the Sea,” the monumental new Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum. If you missed our first story, which introduced the artist and the Jewish and St. Louis roots behind the show,...

Acrobats
Max Beckmann
1937-39

Art of leisure through history — how painters found joy in stillness

BY NANCY KRANZBERG, Special To The Jewish LightPublished October 13, 2025

When I think of art with themes of leisure, I think of Claude Monet and his garden of water lilies in Giverny, Max Beckmann and his characters relaxing and frolicking at the beach, and George Seurat’s “Bathers at Asnieres.” The art of leisure...

Title painting — iconic, large-scale

SLAM’s biggest show ever takes over Sculpture Hall — with Jewish themes at its core

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished October 8, 2025

This month, the Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) will debut "Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Sea," its most ambitious solo exhibition in years and certainly one of the largest. Opening to the public on Oct. 18, the show features five monumental paintings by...

Two paintings believed to be by Ambrosius Bosschaert recovered by the Monuments Men and Women Foundation. (Courtesy Monuments Men and Women Foundation)

From Hitler’s headquarters to Ohio: Holocaust-looted art resurfaces

Grace Gilson, JTAPublished September 15, 2025

(JTA) — Two 17th-century paintings have been taken off the auction block after a Holocaust art restitution organization determined that they had been looted from a German Jew’s collection in France during World War II. The two paintings, believed...

St. Louis artist’s haunting boxcar sculpture deepens Holocaust Museum cattle car exhibit

St. Louis artist’s haunting boxcar sculpture deepens Holocaust Museum cattle car exhibit

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished September 11, 2025

The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum’s immersive exhibition “Hate Ends Now: The Cattle Car Experience” runs Sept. 10–14. While organizers expect strong attendance, the Museum notes that plenty of tickets remain available for Saturday,...

Visual arts teacher Ariel Bassano (L) stands next to a painting identified by Dutch newspaper AD as believed to be "Portrait of a Lady" by Italian baroque portraitist Giuseppe Ghislandi, stolen by the Nazis from a Dutch Jewish art collector, as it is displayed at the Public Prosecutor's Office in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on Sept. 3, 2025.(Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)

She tried to sell her Nazi father’s looted Jewish art. Then came the raid

Philissa Cramer, JTAPublished September 4, 2025

(JTA) — After multiple failed attempts, Argentine police have recovered a painting that the Nazis looted from a Dutch Jewish art dealer during the Holocaust. Dutch journalists first spotted the painting, “Portrait of a Lady” by Giuseppe Ghislandi,...

A real estate listing in Argentina featuring “Portrait of a Lady.” Source: Screenshot courtesy of AD/Used with permission.

From real estate ad to raid: Nazi-looted painting vanishes

Published August 28, 2025

(JNS) -- Law enforcement agents in Argentina on Tuesday raided a house south of Buenos Aires in search of a suspected Nazi-looted painting that surfaced online recently, but the object had been removed by the time they arrived, the El País newspaper...

Photo of Barbara Streisand from a 1975 television special Funny Girl to funny Lady. The special was to promote the film Funny Lady. (Public Domain)

Largest known Streisand collection heads to auction

By Benjamin Ivry, The ForwardPublished August 21, 2025

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward's free email newsletters delivered to your inbox. For Barbra Streisand fans in search of a metsiya, opportunity has arrived in the form of an auction of what’s being...

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...

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...

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