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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 untold battle against antisemitism in Hollywood and how you can help finish the story

The untold battle against antisemitism in Hollywood and how you can help finish the story

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished August 19, 2024

For over a century, Hollywood has been the stuff of dreams, synonymous with glitz and glamour. Yet beneath the surface lies a darker, largely untold history of antisemitism that has subtly but powerfully influenced the film industry. In his documentary...

Amy Fenster Brown

Notes From A Jewish Mother: When your firstborn leaves for college

Amy Fenster Brown, Special To The Jewish LightPublished August 13, 2024

It’s been said that God gives her toughest battles to her strongest soldiers. Parents sending their kids off to college are training in boot camp, prepping to march on the front lines of an emotional combat zone. We need the strength of a full platoon...

Then-President Donald Trump met with Kanye West in the Oval Office of the White House, Oct. 11, 2018. (Calla Kessler/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Trump says Ye (Kanye West) “Has a good heart” in interview with Jewish influencer

Andrew Lapin, JTAPublished August 6, 2024

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that Ye, the rapper whose antisemitic tirades prompted international furor and led to the collapse of his career, is “a really nice guy” with a “good heart.” Trump made the comments Monday during...

Dustin Lane Petrillo as Ken
and Christopher Harris as Rothko

“Rothko’s ‘Red’: Intense drama unfolds at NJT’s Wool Studio Theatre

BY GERRY KOWARSKY, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished July 29, 2024

“Red” provides 90 minutes of gripping drama in the excellent production at The New Jewish Theatre. The Tony Award–winning play by John Logan is about the great American artist, Mark Rothko. He was born Marcus Rothkowitz in 1903. His first dealer...

How to watch New Jewish Theaters 'Red' to better understand the story

How to watch New Jewish Theaters ‘Red’ to better understand the story

Jordan Palmer, Special To The Jewish LightPublished July 23, 2024

Welcome to a new frontier in entertainment storytelling. In a world inundated with reviews and critiques do you ever find yourself overwhelmed? Musical theater specifically always made me feel this way until I learned to give myself more information...

A 1958 photo of Jennie Grossinger and the kitchen staff at her eponymous Catskills resort is featured in a new exhibit at the Borscht Belt Museum in Ellenville, New York.

New showcase on Jewish food and humor puts the ‘borscht’ in Borscht Belt

Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTAPublished July 22, 2024

(New York Jewish Week) — “We honeymooned at Kutsher’s in late October 1968,” Barbara Gelman recalled in an oral history for the Borscht Belt Museum. “When we ordered dinner, the waitress enumerated all the desserts, and my new husband simply...

A campaign for Adidas features supermodel Bella Hadid wearing a reissue of sneakers from the 1972 Munich Olympics. (Photos courtesy of Adidas. Design by Jackie Hajdenberg)

Adidas removes 1972 Olympic sneaker ads, apologizes to Bella Hadid

Jackie HajdenbergPublished July 22, 2024

Amid backlash, Adidas has removed social media ads featuring Palestinian-American model and activist Bella Hadid from its new campaign for a reissue of a sneaker originally designed for the 1972 Munich Olympics, where 11 members of the Israeli team were...

The crowd erupts in laughter as Bob Newhart begins his show during the 47th Annual Benefit Dinner at Freed-Hardeman University on Dec. 2, 2011

When Bob Newhart was my rabbi — and I was his

By Rabbi Bob AlperPublished July 21, 2024

I’m six months shy of 80 and in two weeks I’ll head from Vermont to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to do 75 minutes of stand-up comedy. Why am I still out there? As Bob Newhart, who died this week at 94, explained, it was worth it to him to take his...

David Halpern with Adam Heller, Jill Abramovitz, Samantha Massell, Barrie Kreinik and Cheryl Stern

Jewish actors reveal emotional connection to ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ at the Muny

Bill Motchan, Special To The Jewish LightPublished July 21, 2024

The four actors playing the leads in the Muny Opera’s production of “Fiddler On The Roof” are all Jewish and they all find special meaning in their roles. That was one of the insights they shared during a behind the scenes panel discussion held...

Bella Hadid in an ad for the re-released Adidas SL72 sneaker. The company said it would revise the marketing campaign after backlash.

Another Adidas flub: Bella Hadid campaign sparks outrage over Munich Olympics shoe

By Louis Keene, The ForwardPublished July 18, 2024

For a company whose founder was a literal Nazi, you would think Adidas might tread lightly launching a shoe referencing the 1972 Munich Olympics, when 11 members of the Israeli delegation were killed after being taken hostage by a Palestinian terrorist...

Israeli and Palestinian Jerusalem Youth Chorus advances on ‘America’s Got Talent’ with performance of ‘Home’

Israeli and Palestinian Jerusalem Youth Chorus advances on ‘America’s Got Talent’ with performance of ‘Home’

PHILISSA CRAMER, JTAPublished July 17, 2024

(JTA) — A chorus of Israeli and Palestinian teens won hearts, applause and a chance at $1 million with a successful “America’s Got Talent” audition that aired on Tuesday night. The Jerusalem Youth Chorus performed Phillip Phillips’ “Home,”...

Norman Mailer

How Jewish intellectuals are still shaping our politics and culture (for better and worse)

By Yael Friedman, The ForwardPublished July 17, 2024

In Arguing the World, the 1998 documentary about Jewish men who helped define postwar intellectualism and politics, Diana Trilling muses, “Unless a man in that community was bent on sexual conquest he was never interested in women.” A new documentary,...

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