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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

The Holocaust

Dark comedy “The Anne Frank Gift Shop” to make streaming debut

Dark comedy “The Anne Frank Gift Shop” to make streaming debut

Published May 29, 2025

A darkly funny, Oscar-shortlisted short film about Holocaust memory and modern marketing is heading to ChaiFlicks, the Jewish themed streaming service. Starting June 12—Anne Frank’s birthday—viewers can stream “The Anne Frank Gift Shop,” a 15-minute...

B’nai B’rith’s final gift to St. Louis: A plaque, a legacy, a quiet goodbye

B’nai B’rith’s final gift to St. Louis: A plaque, a legacy, a quiet goodbye

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished May 29, 2025

It wasn’t a ribbon-cutting or a gala. There was no long list of speeches, no formal program. Just a small group gathered quietly near the Kindertransport section of the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum on Wednesday morning, May 28 to dedicate...

Jazz in Nazi Germany: The music that wouldn’t die

Jazz in Nazi Germany: The music that wouldn’t die

By Joe Alterman, Special To The Jewish LightPublished May 28, 2025

This story was originally published on Moment.com. Sign up for the Moment Minute.  Music, at its core, is freedom. It cannot be caged by ideology or controlled by propaganda. The Nazis understood that, which is why they tried so desperately to suppress...

Alex Kor, son of Holocaust survivor Eva Kor

Could you forgive a Nazi? She did—for herself

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished May 28, 2025

While listening to the incredible program that was last month's Yom HaShoah Holocaust Commemoration 2025 at Congregation Temple Israel, I thought I had heard all the stories one could hear about surviving the Holocaust. I was wrong. The featured...

The band 'Kiss,' including Gene Simmons, shown here, brings 'The End of the Road World Tour' to Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023, in Indianapolis.

Gene Simmons meets 100-year-old veteran who liberated his mom from Nazi camp

Jonathan Duschnitzky (JNS)Published May 27, 2025

An extraordinary moment unfolded Monday evening in Washington when Gene Simmons, the 75-year-old frontman for legendary rock band KISS, encountered Harold “Hal” Urban, a 100-year-old World War II veteran who participated in the liberation of the...

St. Louis is invited to meet 'the art spy' who saved Europe’s stolen masterpieces

St. Louis is invited to meet ‘the art spy’ who saved Europe’s stolen masterpieces

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished May 18, 2025

You might not know her name, but Rose Valland helped save part of the soul of Europe. And she did it while the world’s most ruthless art thieves—Nazis in their knee-high boots and pressed gray coats—stormed through Paris, stealing and crating up...

German Nazi doctor Josef Mengele standing at a train window in his SS uniform. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

From Mengele to money trails: Argentina unlocks Nazi-era rat-line files in explosive release

By Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished May 6, 2025

As the Jewish Light first reported on Feb. 28 in an exclusive interview with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Argentina had pledged to open its sealed Nazi-era financial archives. Now, that pledge has become reality. In a historic decision, Argentina...

Doug Emhoff

Doug Emhoff fired from Holocaust Memorial Council

Grace Gilson, JTAPublished April 29, 2025

Douglas Emhoff, the Jewish former second gentleman, was fired from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council Tuesday along with a number of other board members appointed by former President Joe Biden. Emhoff, Kamala Harrs’ husband, was the first Jewish...

He survived the Nazis, married in a camp, and forged for the Mossad—now his story hits the screen

He survived the Nazis, married in a camp, and forged for the Mossad—now his story hits the screen

Published April 29, 2025

Before he was a Mossad forger, before he became one of Israel’s animation pioneers and long before his cameo in “Schindler’s List,” Joseph Bau was just a guy in a Nazi camp who fell in love. His real story—equal parts horror, romance and resistance—is...

Erika Schwartz

Born in a ghetto, one day before it was sealed: Her story moved St. Louis to tears

By Bill Motchan, Special to the Jewish LightPublished April 27, 2025

“I was born Erika Hornstein on April 23, 1944, in the Nyíregyháza, Hungary ghetto. Two weeks later, all of the women and children in my family were transported to Auschwitz to be murdered.” – Erika Schwartz The St. Louis Yom HaShoah (Holocaust...

Donald Trump and Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun light a candle during an Oct. 7 remembrance event at the Trump National Doral Golf Club, in Doral, Florida, Oct. 7, 2024. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Trump issues Yom Hashoah proclamation

JNS StaffPublished April 24, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday issued a proclamation to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) in Israel. Below is the full text: April 23, 2025 By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation On Yom HaShoah, Holocaust...

Leo Wolf, Tom Green and Bill Kahn.

They built a museum so we wouldn’t forget—now it’s our turn to remember

By Greg Yawitz, Myron FreedmanPublished April 22, 2025

“We can’t let people ever forget,” said Leo Wolf, chairman emeritus of the St. Louis Holocaust Committee and a Holocaust survivor, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s 1995 coverage of the opening of the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center. “We...

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