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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 History

Buried history uncovered! The shocking Nazi death camp escape you’ve never heard of!

Buried history uncovered! The shocking Nazi death camp escape you’ve never heard of!

Alan Zeitlin (JNS)Published March 20, 2025

There have been many powerful films about the Holocaust, so if one opts to create a new one, one must “bring something new to the conversation,” according to the Israeli-American director Lior Geller. Geller told JNS that the new film “The World...

The Pentagon logo is seen behind the podium in the briefing room at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., January 8, 2020. REUTERS/Al Drago

Holocaust remembrance pages removed in Pentagon’s DEI purge

Grace Gilson, JTAPublished March 20, 2025

When she was five years old, Kitty Saks’ home in Vienna was commandeered by the Nazis, leading her family to flee to Brussels, where she was hidden in a convent until the Allies liberated Belgium. Twenty-seven members of her family were killed in the...

An image of Adolf Eichmann, from the Tuviah Friedman Archive, the National Library of Israel

Argentina’s Nazi secrets could soon be exposed

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished February 28, 2025

In a historic decision, Argentina has granted the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) full access to previously sealed Nazi-era financial archives. The move, ordered by President Javier Milei, is an unprecedented step toward uncovering how South American banking...

Ancient Wisdom Unlocked: Decoding the Talmud in just six weeks

Ancient Wisdom Unlocked: Decoding the Talmud in just six weeks

Published February 19, 2025

What is the Talmud, and why does it remain a cornerstone of Jewish learning after 1,500 years? Beginning Tuesday, Feb. 25, at 6:30 p.m., Rabbi Avi Rubenfeld will lead “Decoding the Talmud,” a six-week course offered by the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute...

The Weber Siblings at the New York Harbor, May 20th, 1946; Front Left to Right: Renee, Judith, Bela Back Left to Right: Gertrude, Alfons, Senta, and Ruth.

How seven siblings survived the Holocaust — and how the next generation is telling their story

By Olivia Haynie, The ForwardPublished February 18, 2025

Alfons Weber recorded every detail of how he and his six siblings survived the Holocaust, and distributed copies of the typed memoir at a family reunion in 1996. His niece, actress Beth Lane, couldn’t bring herself to read it for years. “Every...

Deportation of Jews in Bielefeld, Germany, on Dec. 13, 1941.

Newly discovered photos of Nazi deportations show Jewish victims as they were last seen alive

Wolf Gruner, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesPublished February 17, 2025

The Holocaust was the first mass atrocity to be heavily photographed. The mass production and distribution of cameras in the 1930s and 1940s enabled Nazi officials and ordinary people to widely document Germany’s persecution of Jews and other...

Al Schwimmer

Hollywood to Spotlight Al Schwimmer: “America’s Greatest Gift to Israel

The American Technion Society (ATS), Special To The Jewish LightPublished January 28, 2025

In an exciting collaboration, award-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and Warner Bros. are set to bring the extraordinary life of Al Schwimmer to the big screen. Schwimmer, an American World War II veteran, is celebrated as the father of the...

JAN. 28: President Shimon Peres, who in 1996 was the target of protests over the dumping of Ethiopian-Israeli blood, visits the Reshit school in Jerusalem in January 2012 in response to other episodes of discrimination toward Ethiopian Jews. By Amos Ben Gershom, Israeli Government Press Office, CC BY-SA 3.0

This week in Israeli history: Jan. 27-Feb. 2

Center for Israel Education, israeled.orgPublished January 27, 2025

Jan. 27, 2006 — U.N. Holds First Holocaust Remembrance Day The first U.N.-recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Day is held on the 61st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The president of the U.N. General Assembly, Jan Eliasson, says...

Ari Richter depicts his visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in his graphic memoir "Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz." (Fantagraphics Books, Inc.)

A gift shop at Auschwitz? New films and a graphic memoir explore the contradictions of ‘dark tourism’

Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTAPublished January 26, 2025

In a fraught moment in the film “A Real Pain,” Kieran Culkin, playing the more volatile of a pair of Jewish cousins who go on a roots tour of Poland, berates his fellow travellers for riding in a first-class train car in a country where so many Jews...

What reading the names of Holocaust victims means to me

What reading the names of Holocaust victims means to me

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished January 24, 2025

For the past several years, I’ve sat at a table in a conference room of the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum and read the names of Holocaust victims aloud for 15 minutes. It’s only 15 minutes—a fleeting moment compared to the immeasurable...

Elon Musk's gesture during an Inauguration Day rally ignited debate over whether he intended to deliver what looked like a Nazi salute, Jan. 20, 2025. (Screenshot)

Elon Musk’s straight-armed gesture at inauguration event ignites comparisons to Nazi salute

Philissa Cramer, JTAPublished January 20, 2025

When Elon Musk gave his own victory speech following Donald Trump’s inauguration, it was something he did — rather than something he said — which ignited the biggest reaction. The billionaire, who was Trump’s top donor during the 2024 election,...

Abba Kovner and the Vilna resistance in Lithuania Courtesy of Ghetto Fighters Museum

Buried secrets uncovered: How a hidden tunnel revealed untold stories of Jewish resistance

By Olivia HayniePublished January 20, 2025

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward's free email newsletters delivered to your inbox. For biblical archeologist Richard A. Freund, who excavated dozens of Holocaust sites, it was critical to not disturb victims’...

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