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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

Israel News

Gal Cohen-Solal

His family hid from Hamas for 30 hours. He’s coming to St. Louis Sunday to tell you how they survived

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished February 13, 2024

Following the events of Oct. 7th, misinformation and denial have proliferated, particularly on college campuses across the nation. The "Faces of October Seventh" project was created to combat this by bringing first-hand testimonies of what happened on...

Birthright’s current trips include all the typical highlights of the organization’s tours, including this jeep tour, but also offer opportunities to volunteer and bear witness after Oct. 7. (Oded Antman)

Birthright trippers find visiting Israel during war is a unique and invigorating experience

Elana Sztokman, JTAPublished February 13, 2024

When Alon Fishman visited Israel in early January on a group trip, it wasn’t his first time in the country. But Fishman, 23, had never seen Israel like this before. When his Birthright Israel group arrived at the Western Wall, they found it uncharacteristically...

Repair the World volunteers restore a community garden in Pittsburgh. (Repair the World)

Jewish service can support recovery efforts in Israel and sustain Jewish life in North America

Cindy Greenberg, JTAPublished February 13, 2024

It’s not hard to feel a sense of despair in these extraordinarily difficult times for Jews in Israel and around the world following the horrors of Oct. 7, the upsurge in antisemitism close to home, and the continuing loss of human life. In times...

Norberto Louis Har, 70 (left), and Fernando Simon Marman, 60, were rescued in a nighttime operation in Rafah.

IDF rescues 2 hostages as it steps up operations in Rafah

Ben Sales, JTAPublished February 11, 2024

(JTA) — The Israeli military has rescued two hostages in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the second such rescue since Hamas took hundreds of Israelis captive on Oct. 7. The overnight rescue operation, which was announced in the early hours of Monday...

Graves of Kibbutz Be'eri residents whom Hamas terrorists murdered on Oct. 7, at Kibbutz Revivim, south of Beersheva, Nov. 15, 2023.

35% of younger Americans believe Hamas’s false claims

JNSPublished February 11, 2024

After more than 100 days of fighting since the Oct. 7 massacre, Hamas issued an official document, in Arabic and English, to appeal to international public opinion and try to correct its negative image. A survey conducted by Dr. Irwin J. Mansdorf of...

2,800-year-old carnelian scarab featuring a griffon—a mythical winged horse—was discovered by a hiker in Israel’s Nahal Tabor Nature Reserve. Photo by Anastasia Shapiro, Israel Antiquities Authority.

IDF reservist unearths 2,800-year-old amulet on day off

Pesach Benson, JNSPublished February 7, 2024

An Israeli army reservist stumbled upon an ancient Assyrian scarab amulet while hiking in northern Israel’s Nahal Tabor Nature Reserve during a day off, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday. “I received a two-day leave from the...

Maor Elbaz-Starinsky, Consul General of Israel

Why the Consul General of Israel says St. Louisans should ‘come now’ to Israel

Bill Motchan, Special to the Jewish LightPublished February 7, 2024

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, the Israeli economy has suffered, said Maor Elbaz-Starinsky, Consul General of Israel on his visit to St. Louis this week. During an event sponsored and convened by the Jewish Federation of St. Louis on Feb. 7, Elbaz-Starinsky...

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (left) and Jordan’s King Hussein shake hands in front of U.S. President Bill Clinton after signing their peace treaty Oct. 26, 1994, in the Arava. By Ya’acov Sa’ar, Israeli Government Press Office

This week in Israeli history: Jan. 31 to Feb. 7

Center for Israel Education, israeled.orgPublished January 31, 2024

Jan. 31, 1922 — Hebrew ‘Dybbuk’ Opens in Moscow The Hebrew version of “The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds” begins its successful stage run at Moscow’s Habimah Theater. Written in Russian and then Yiddish by S. Ansky and translated into Hebrew...

More countries cut funding to UNRWA over allegations of involvement with Oct. 7 attack

More countries cut funding to UNRWA over allegations of involvement with Oct. 7 attack

RON KAMPEAS, JTAPublished January 30, 2024

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A growing number of countries has suspended funding to the main United Nations agency aiding Palestinians in the wake of allegations that a number of its staffers were involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. The U.N. Relief...

Karen Tal, right, visits with a student at an Amal school in Petah Tikva, Israel, Nov. 24, 2023. (Larry Luxner)

Amid war, this Israeli educator is finding new ways to promote Jewish-Arab coexistence

LARRY LUXNER, JTAPublished January 29, 2024

TEL AVIV — It only took a few minutes from the time the rocket fire from Gaza began on the morning of Oct. 7 for Karen Tal to field her first of many phone calls and messages with terrible news. The CEO of Amal, a secular educational network whose...

In his new book, “Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978,” he writes about an early, formative era before American Jewish institutions had unequivocally embraced Zionism, and when American Jewish leaders disagreed with the Israeli government over the fate of the 750,000 Palestinians displaced by Israel’s war for independence.

When ‘nice Jewish boys and girls’ first took up the cause of Palestinian rights

Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTAPublished January 28, 2024

(JTA) — In the four months since the Hamas attacks on Israel touched off war in Gaza, Jewish protesters have joined demonstrations in the streets of New York, San Francisco and other cities condemning Israel and demanding an immediate ceasefire. But...

Survivors of the Nova party massacre on Oct. 7, 2023 participate in trance therapy as part of a trauma recovery program at Kibbutz Hazorea in northern Israel, Dec. 27, 2023. (Larry Luxner)

Survivors of the Nova massacre on Oct. 7 work through trauma at unique Israeli therapy center

Larry Luxner, JTAPublished January 26, 2024

KIBBUTZ HAZOREA, Israel — Fifteen young men and women, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings and to each other, dance around a bucolic field, twisting their bodies to trance music blasting through their headphones. Beyond their earphones is silence,...

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