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

Top Story

The grand opening of a new 1904 World’s Fair exhibit.

Honoring the forgotten Jewish legacy at the 1904 World’s Fair as new exhibit opens

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished April 22, 2024

On Saturday, April 27, nearly 120 years after the 1904 World’s Fair opened, a new exhibit commemorating this cornerstone event in St. Louis history will open at the Missouri History Museum. The exhibit features a 1:400 scale model of the fairgrounds,...

Pres. George H.W. Bush and Peter Maer during a 1989 Oval Office interview.

Remembering a St. Louis area native’s Yiddish moment with a U.S. president

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished April 22, 2024

As the nation braces for the 2024 presidential election, Jean Becker, former Chief of Staff to President George H.W. Bush, shares reflections on leadership in a new book, "Character Matters: And Other Life Lessons from George...

Dafna Revah, MaryAnn Smyly Sabin and Andrew Goldfeder.

JFed of St. Louis announces ‘2024 Evening of Impact Award’ recipients

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished April 22, 2024

Jewish Federation of St. Louis has announced the award winners to be honored at the 2024 Evening of Impact to be held Thursday, May 9. Dafna Revah and MaryAnn Smyly Sabin have been chosen as the recipients of the 2024 David N. and Roselin Grosberg Young...

Peacock’s ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ tackles a Holocaust love story based on real events

Peacock’s ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ tackles a Holocaust love story based on real events

Shira Li Bartov, JTAPublished April 22, 2024

(JTA) — A Holocaust romance, sparked when a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau is forced to tattoo a number on another prisoner’s arm and they fall in love at first sight, sounds almost implausibly uplifting for a story set in a concentration camp. But...

Anti-Israel activists protest outside Columbia University in New York City on April 20, 2024. (Photo by Leonardo Munoz / AFP) (Photo by LEONARDO MUNOZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Rabbi at Columbia U urges Jewish students to leave campus

Philissa Cramer, JTAPublished April 21, 2024

(JTA) — An Orthodox rabbi at Columbia University has encouraged students to leave the campus until further notice, saying that he does not believe the university and city police can be counted on to keep Jewish students safe. “What we are witnessing...

PHOTOS: The Passover Project is the musical seder sensation of the future

PHOTOS: ‘The Passover Project’ is the musical seder sensation of the future

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished April 19, 2024

The Jewish Light's first ever “The Passover Project: A Musical Seder” was a sold out masterpiece of creativity. With more than 300 tickets sold, the audience packed the City Winery St. Louis at the City Foundry in Midtown for a night of music, featuring...

Robin WIlliams at the Happy Feet Two Australian Premiere 4 December 2011,

Robin Williams’ hilarious Exodus retelling is a must-see Passover tradition

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished April 19, 2024

Robin Williams was not a Jew, but perhaps it was because of his lifetime friendship and professional partnership with Jewish comedy legend Billy Crystal that many people think he was indeed Jewish. Williams, who died in 2014, embraced Jewish culture...

Part of a delivery of tactical helmets to the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade, which were donated earlier this week in memory of Tomer Grinberg, a soldier killed in combat in December.

Six months into war, Israeli soldiers still count on donations for basic supplies. Why?

Asaf Elia-Shalev, JTAPublished April 18, 2024

(JTA) — When Aaron Moshe Shalman was recalled for another round of reserve duty in Israel’s army last month, he took to Facebook, seeking help for his 35-member paratrooper unit. “We are in dire need of equipment: tactical helmets, tactical uniforms,...

Launch of #LetOurPeopleGo campaign presses for hostages release

Launch of #LetOurPeopleGo campaign presses for hostages’ release

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished April 18, 2024

As the St. Louis Jewish community as well as Jews throughout the world prepare to gather around the seder table to commemorate the Exodus and freedom from bondage, we cannot forget the 133 hostages who remain captive in Gaza. To seize...

Israeli army flares fall over the northern Har Dov area on Mount Hermon on Nov. 13, 2023, amid increasing cross-border tensions between Lebanons Hezbollah and Israel as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)

Survey: Jews feel close to Israel; its government, not so much

By Ron Kampeas, JTAPublished April 18, 2024

(JTA) — As of early March, five months into Israel’s war with Hamas, American Jews felt close to Israel but were also likely to feel uncomfortable with its government’s actions, according to a Jewish Federations of North America poll. Almost...

Minouche Shafik, president of Columbia University, testifies about Jew-hatred on campus before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024.

Columbia University leaders grilled about campus Jew-hatred

Andrew Bernard, JNSPublished April 17, 2024

Columbia University’s president, its two board co-chairs and a co-chair of its antisemitism taskforce testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Wednesday about Jew-hatred on campus since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. Student...

Marilen Pitler holds her special seder plate.

Unveiling the some of the quirkiest seder traditions in St. Louis

BY ELLEN FUTTERMAN & BILL MOTCHAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished April 17, 2024

No doubt when Passover begins at sundown Monday, April 22, thousands of St. Louis Jewish families will be marking the holiday with a seder that evening and possibly the next during the eight-day holiday. Just as likely as the seder itself is having a...

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