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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 Humor

Anxiety: The uninvited guest that doesn’t go away

Anxiety: The uninvited guest that doesn’t go away

By Amy Fenster BrownPublished July 24, 2023

Every year we invite Elijah to our Passover seders, setting out a glass of wine to welcome him upon arrival. The guy never shows up. Rude. But you know who shows up uninvited all the time? Anxiety. So rude.  It just pops in like a nosy neighbor who...

Comedian Marc Maron in a scene from his HBO special, "From Bleak to Dark." (HBO)

What Marc Maron’s comedy special can teach about laughter and Tisha B’Av

Published July 22, 2023

(JTA) — I’ve been teaching a virtual class on Jewish humor through our partner site, My Jewish Learning. I share classic jokes and bits and then discuss what they say about both the Jews who tell them and the Jewish audiences that enjoy them.  We...

Benyamin Cohen, author of the 2023 book "The Einstein Effect: How the World’s Favorite Genius Got into Our Cars, Our Bathrooms and Our Minds." Photo by Shoshi Benstein.

This author has Einstein’s brain on the brain

Alan Zeitlin, Jewish News SyndicatePublished July 7, 2023

(JNS) -- For the past six years, the journalist Benyamin Cohen has managed social media for the Albert Einstein estate. “The world’s favorite genius,” Cohen, news director at the Forward, writes on LinkedIn. “He has more than 20 million followers...

Alan Arkin, 2011.

Oscar winner Alan Arkin dies at 89

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished June 30, 2023

Academy Award winner Alan Arkin, who appeared in more than 90 films and headlined the 2011 St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, died on Thursday. He was the son of Ukrainian and German Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, where he was born in 1934. But over the...

Did you hear one about the guy explaining Jewish humor? Really, this is no joke

Did you hear one about the guy explaining Jewish humor? Really, this is no joke

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished June 26, 2023

Seriously now, this is no joke. Back in 2020, a survey from the Pew Research Center found that 5.3 million of the nation’s religious and cultural Jews cited humor as essential to their Jewish identity. Half of U.S. Jews say continuing family traditions...

It’s never too late to give up on your dreams

It’s never too late to give up on your dreams

Amy Fenster BrownPublished June 21, 2023

This is a true story. Several years ago at a school awards assembly, a teacher/administrator/principal type gave an opening speech. Said educator was known for being nervous when addressing big groups. That, combined with too many notecards, produced...

Courtesy of Stand Up NY

Comedians gather for ‘The Roast of Antisemitism,’ but who gets the last laugh?

By Louis Keene, The ForwardPublished June 15, 2023

Comedy roasts took off in this current era of unscripted cable television because they’re cheap to produce. The format is reliable, simple: A mix of comics and celebrities take turns lobbing potshots at each other and at the primary target, who finally...

Jerry Seinfeld bringing comedy tour to St. Louis

Jerry Seinfeld bringing comedy tour to St. Louis

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished June 9, 2023

Iconic Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld's four-arena comedy tour will make a stop here in St. Louis on November 11, at the Enterprise Center in downtown St. Louis. The tour, which will begin in San Francisco was announced today by both comedians on...

Remembering "summer breaks" of the past compared to today

Remembering “summer breaks” of the past compared to today

By Amy Fenster Brown, Special To The Jewish LightPublished June 9, 2023

School is out for the summer! Raise your hand if you loved summer break. Sleeping late, going swimming, camp, no homework. It makes me long for my youth. But kids these days do things differently than we did back in the 1900’s when we were young. Then We...

From left: Jen Weinman & Winston, Ed Reggi, Peter Barg and Julie Bieniek Brown.

For these comic actors, ‘improv’ also means ‘improvement’

By Bill Motchan, Special to the Jewish LightPublished June 7, 2023

Jen Weinman was going through a really hard time in her life. She was dealing with depression and had a bad breakup. Then she met a group of people who had a common interest: improv theater. “I asked them why they chose improv and one of them told...

Sarah Silverman

Sarah Silverman’s new special is her best argument yet for loving Jews (with digestive issues)

By PJ Grisar, The ForwardPublished May 29, 2023

Early in the pandemic, Sarah Silverman tried (and largely failed) to win us back with diarrhea. When Gal Gadot’s infamous “Imagine” video went off like a fart in shul — and Silverman’s own grunting contribution drew groans — the comic...

Amy Fenster Brown and the TV-inspired decor in her home office.

What’s TV good for? Learning life lessons, of course

By Amy Fenster Brown, Special To The Jewish LightPublished May 24, 2023

I love television so much that it inspired my home office décor, as you can see from this photo. Television can simultaneously be a huge waste of time, a way to stay informed, and educational, depending on what you’re watching.  Which category do...

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