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

U.S. Ambassador David Friedman (right) joins Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aboard a U.S. Navy warship making a port call in Ashdod on Oct. 11, 2018. Photo: Kobi Gideon, Israeli Government Press Office

This week in Israeli history: Dec. 14-20

Center for Israel Education, (israeled.org)Published December 14, 2023

Dec. 14, 1981 — Israel Annexes Golan Heights The Knesset votes 63-21 to pass surprise legislation to annex the Golan Heights and apply Israeli law there in place of military administration. The Labor Party boycotts the vote because of the bill’s...

Guy Stern, who escaped Germany in the run-up to the Holocaust, speaks to a group of lawmakers in Hanover, Germany, May 14, 2019.

St. Louis war hero, WWII ‘Ritchie Boy,’ Guy Stern dies at 101

Andrew Lapin, JTAPublished December 13, 2023

(JTA) — Guy Stern, a German Jewish refugee who was one of the last known surviving members of the celebrated World War II military intelligence unit known as the “Ritchie Boys” and who became an accomplished Holocaust scholar after the war, died...

Roberto Benigni in a scene from his film Life is Beautiful.

Remembering when ‘Life is Beautiful’ hit US theaters 25 years ago and rocked Hollywood

Stephen Silver, Gabe Friedman, JTAPublished December 11, 2023

(JTA) — Ferne Pearlstein re-watched “Life is Beautiful,” Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning Holocaust film, around 2015. She was working on her documentary “The Last Laugh,” which focused on the possibilities — and limits — of Holocaust humor. Pearlstein...

Blue Bus Productions

Two Holocaust survivors, reunited after 80 years apart

Published December 5, 2023

(New York Jewish Week) — In March 2022, Jack Waksal thought he recognized Sam Ron, the keynote speaker at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual South Florida dinner in Boca Raton. But he couldn’t quite place him — after all, at 97, Waksal...

The Boxcar

St. Louis artist shares story behind this haunting piece of Holocaust art

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished November 27, 2023

As a young boy growing up in St. Louis, metal sculpture artist Dale Dicker, 74, was surrounded by many family members who survived the Holocaust. His grandfather, Joseph Barg, saw the rise of Nazism early on and successfully got his wife Yetta's family...

Exploring American Jewish history through Kugels & Collards

Exploring American Jewish history through “Kugels & Collards”

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished November 27, 2023

Food can be a vehicle for telling stories, connecting with people, and understanding our history—including the uncomfortable parts. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Jen Richler heads to Charleston, South Carolina to learn about Southern Jewish history...

What is Neturei Karta, the Orthodox group at many pro-Palestinian protests

What is Neturei Karta, the Orthodox group at many pro-Palestinian protests?

By Mira Fox, The ForwardPublished November 26, 2023

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward's free email newsletters delivered to your inbox. Photos of pro-Palestine rallies in the U.S. since the outbreak of the war often feature a group of Orthodox Jewish men,...

From “Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust.: Romani activist demonstrate in front of a USHMC meeting in Washington D.C. in 1984.

Revealing the forgotten ties between Jews and Romani victims of Nazi atrocities

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished November 13, 2023

In 1989, then Washington University Chancellor William H. Danforth created the Holocaust Memorial Lecture series. Since then, the series has been held annually on or near the date of Nov. 9, the anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogroms in Nazi Germany. The...

The Bornplatz Synagogue in Hamburg, Germany once held 1,200 congregants before it was destroyed in Kristallnacht.

St. Louis Holocaust Museum labels Hamas attack a ‘pogrom’ on anniversary of Kristallnacht

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished November 9, 2023

In a powerful statement issued on the 85th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom, the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum is labeling the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel as a "pogrom," drawing chilling parallels between the darkest chapters...

An image from the Holocaust history virtual reality experience being developed by the Conference of Jewish Claims Against Germany.

From virtual reality to digital synagogues, tech adds new dimension to Kristallnacht commemorations in Germany

Toby Axelrod, JTAPublished November 9, 2023

(JTA) — Nov. 9 marks several historical anniversaries in Germany, including Adolf Hitler’s failed putsch in 1923 and the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. But the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938 eclipses them all, in terms of public significance. In Germany...

The Bornplatz Synagogue in Hamburg, Germany once held 1,200 congregants before it was destroyed in Kristallnacht.

On 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Holocaust survivors say they fear familiar antisemitism

Philissa Cramer, JTAPublished November 9, 2023

(JTA) — The comparisons are easy to draw: broken glass, burned buildings, shuttered businesses, dead Jews. Eighty-five years after Kristallnacht, the anti-Jewish riots that marked a brutal turning point in the Nazi campaign of persecution in Germany,...

A group from Explore St. Louis visits the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum’s Impact Lab in late October.

St. Louis Holocaust Museum celebrates one year anniversary

Bill Motchan, Special To The Jewish LightPublished November 8, 2023

One year ago, St. Louis became a major hub of Holocaust awareness and education when the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum opened. The 36,000-square-foot facility began welcoming visitors on Nov. 2, 2022, following a 2½-year, $21 million renovation...

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