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

The art of coming up with just the right grandparents name

The art of coming up with just the right grandparents’ name

Ellen Futterman, Editor-in-ChiefPublished March 22, 2023

During an interview in 2016 with author Dawn Lerman about her new book “My Fat Dad: A Memoir of Food, Love, and Family, with Recipes,” we got to talking about her maternal grandmother who Lerman would spend Friday nights with as a child. Each Shabbat...

Image courtesy of meltonschool.org

Did you know Melton courses are open to everyone?

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished March 22, 2023

You do not need to be a Talmudic scholar to wonder "what does it mean to be Jewish in 2023?" You just need to have a bit of curiosity and then know where to go to find some answers. One good way to learn more about being Jewish is to take a Melton course. Melton...

(JTA illustration)

Inside the auction house driving the rare-book craze in the Orthodox world

Asaf Elia-Shalev, JTAPublished March 22, 2023

(JTA) – Israel Mizrahi joined dozens of fellow connoisseurs of rare Jewish books last December to watch the livestream of Genazym, the hottest auction house in the market. A bookdealer by trade, Mizrahi was also on the phone being paid to advise a wealthy...

Holocaust survivor Larisa Graypel lights a candle of remembrance at the 2019 Yom HaShoah Community Commemoration organized by the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center of St. Louis and held at Congregation Shaare Emeth.  

Yom HaShoah 2023 commemoration will return to in-person format

Published March 21, 2023

This year’s Holocaust commemoration, Yom HaShoah 2023: Voices of Resistance, will be presented at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 16 at United Hebrew Congregation. As in past years, this program will honor the victims, remember the survivors, and educate...

Image courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society and the Library of Congress.

When Harry Houdini came to St. Louis

by Andrew Wanko | Public HistorianPublished March 20, 2023

Mention “Erich Weiss,” to a random St. Louisan, and you’re likely to get a shrug. But use Erich Weiss’s more famous adopted name—Harry Houdini—and you’ll get a different reaction. The most famous magician in history, Harry Houdini’s image...

The Nazis made the yellow badge infamous around the world, but its roots are much older. Roger Viollet/Getty Images

Wash U professor traces the long history of antisemitic badges

Flora Cassen, Washington University in St LouisPublished March 16, 2023

Growing up in Belgium, I’d hear the story of how my grandparents married during the Nazi occupation. It was not a time for celebrations, particularly for Jewish families like theirs. Naively, though, they thought marriage would protect them from being...

Jodi Picoult and her daughter Samantha Van Leer pose at the opening night of the musical Between The Lines, July 11, 2022 in New York City. (Bruce Glikas/Getty Images)

Florida school bans Holocaust novel by Jodi Picoult, other Jewish authors too

Andrew Lapin, JTAPublished March 13, 2023

(JTA) – A Holocaust-themed novel by bestselling author Jodi Picoult was among dozens of books removed from a South Florida school district library’s circulation last month, in the latest example of books with Jewish themes getting swept up amid a...

Undertanding The Jews of Summer

Undertanding “The Jews of Summer”

Rebecca Brenner Graham, Special To The Jewish LightPublished March 9, 2023

As a child growing up in a predominantly Protestant town, I was never heavily involved in the Jewish community, and instead chose to attend an all-girls YMCA camp five years in a row. Back at home in Rhode Island, I opted out of starting Hebrew study...

Applications being accepted for Holocaust education funding

Applications being accepted for Holocaust education funding

Published March 8, 2023

The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum announced the opening of the spring funding cycle for the Rubin and Gloria Feldman Family Educational Institute to promote Holocaust education. Interested individuals and organizations can apply for funds...

A gravestone in a Louisiana cemetery for Louis Moses Rose, said to be the sole survivor of the Alamo. Photo by O. Thomas Welch

Was a Jewish soldier the only man to get out of the Alamo alive?

By Beth Harpaz, The ForwardPublished March 7, 2023

Remember the Alamo? The storied battle took place during the Texas war for independence from Mexico. Frontiersman Davy Crockett was among 200 men holed up in an old Spanish mission used as a fort during a 13-day siege by thousands of Mexican soldiers....

From Berlin to St. Louis, the incredible story of the doll Eveline

From Berlin to St. Louis, the incredible story of the doll Eveline

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished March 6, 2023

Artifacts are tangible pieces of history that can tell a unique, often personal, story.  Nearly all of the artifacts at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum have been donated by survivors, their descendants, veterans and others since the museum...

An academic paper found that a dedicated group has for some 15 years manipulated Wikipedia in ways that lay blame for the Holocaust on Jews and absolve Poland of almost any responsibility for its record of antisemitism. (JTA illustration)

Wikipedia’s ‘Supreme Court’ tackles alleged conspiracy to distort articles on Holocaust

Asaf Elia-Shalev, JTAPublished February 28, 2023

(JTA) — When a pair of professors earlier this month published a paper accusing a group of Wikipedia editors from Poland of revising articles to distort the history of the Holocaust, their research went viral. Most academic articles are seen by dozens...

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