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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

Otto Perl, who was dismissed from the Austrian Army in 1938 because he was Jewish, later immigrated to America. This photo shows his US Army unit at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, circa 1945. — US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Otto Perl

The Ritchie Boys could be awarded Congressional Gold Medal

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished November 1, 2022

Earlier this year, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum conferred its highest honor, the Elie Wiesel Award, on the Ritchie Boys, a little-known special World War II U.S. military intelligence unit that included many Jewish refugees from Nazism...

Tragic tale of the MS St. Louis takes the stage for the first time

Tragic tale of the MS St. Louis takes the stage for the first time

BY JUDITH NEWMARK, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished November 1, 2022

Among the myriad Holocaust narratives we tell, which almost always end in tragedy, the fate of the passengers on the MS St. Louis exerts a particular hold on our imagination. Of course, it does. The juxtaposition of strong, conflicting emotions —...

Janet Gillow

Lost memoir of St. Louis woman’s escape from Nazis found in storage container

By Bill Motchan, Special to the Jewish LightPublished November 1, 2022

Lilo Fauman was a Holocaust survivor, a proud grandmother, a talented writer and an extrovert. Born in 1923 in Munich, Germany, Fauman and her family narrowly escaped the Nazis during Kristallnacht and arrived in the United States in February 1939. Fauman...

New museum provides tools, space to preserve Holocaust artifacts

New museum provides tools, space to preserve Holocaust artifacts

By Bill Motchan, Special to the Jewish LightPublished October 31, 2022

The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum displays many timeless, sobering artifacts. Those visual reminders of the Holocaust provide visitors with a sense of history and offer a glimpse into Europe during the early 1940s. The museum has been collecting...

An evangelical GOP House candidate in Texas wrote a novel about Anne Frank finding Jesus

Andrew Lapin, JTAPublished October 31, 2022

(JTA) — The Republican nominee for Congress in Texas’ 7th district is a self-proclaimed history buff, but his take on Anne Frank is not one that most historians would endorse. Johnny Teague, an evangelical pastor and business owner who won the...

Nearly half of US adults believe America should be a ‘Christian nation’

Andrew Lapin, JTAPublished October 27, 2022

(JTA) – Forty-five percent of American adults believe the United States should be a “Christian nation,” according to the results of a new survey published Thursday by the Pew Research Center — the latest data point finding modern support for Christian...

Russian official calls Chabad ‘satanists,’ prompting unusual rebuke by a chief rabbi

Published October 26, 2022

(JTA) — In an usual move, a chief rabbi of Russia has accused a senior defense official of antisemitic hate speech in connection with the war in Ukraine, and a spokesperson for the rabbi warned of the onset of “a new era in Russia’s relations with...

Prominent Jewish YouTuber Ethan Klein makes Holocaust joke about Ben Shapiro, leading to his suspension

Andrew Lapin, JTAPublished October 21, 2022

(JTA) – Popular Jewish YouTube personality Ethan Klein was suspended from the platform for a week after he made a Holocaust joke about prominent right-wing Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro, escalating a war of words between two large Internet political factions...

Frances Levine to join St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum as Interim Executive Director 

Frances Levine to join St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum as Interim Executive Director 

Published October 21, 2022

Frances Levine has been appointed the Interim Executive Director for the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, the Museum announced today. Levine will lead the Museum as it searches for a permanent Executive Director, to be selected in the coming...

Photo by Bill Motchan

12 St. Louis Holocaust survivors among 90 photographed for new Wash U exhibit

Bill Motchan, Special To The Jewish LightPublished October 20, 2022

As a boy growing up in Mainz, Germany, Luigi Toscano was fascinated by World War II. But he was frustrated by a lack of detail about a dark period in the country’s history: the Holocaust. His history teacher offered little information, and his textbook...

Maybe Kanye West’s declining offer to visit a Holocaust Museum is for the best

By Mira Fox, The ForwardPublished October 20, 2022

There’s a formula when politicians and celebrities say something antisemitic. First, the news cycle goes wild. The public figure defends or clarifies their initial statement. Or they backtrack. Then, once it’s clear that there’s no turning back...

Boys enjoying a bowl of soup in a HaNoar Haoved summer camp. Photo: Benno Rothenberg, the Meitar Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, the National Library of Israel

The “happy mistake” that gave us the “soup almond”

Amit Naor, Special To The Jewish LightPublished October 13, 2022
How did a bureaucratic mix-up during Israel’s 1950s austerity period lead to one of Israel's most unique culinary innovations? How did an Ashkenazi Jewish Passover recipe end up on the holiday table of every Jewish Israeli, and where does the distinctive yellow color of the soup almond come from? In short, here is the story of Israel’s prized "shkedei marak"
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