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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

Commentary

Slippery slope of aging begins with trying to beat the crowd

Slippery slope of aging begins with trying to beat the crowd

Amy Fenster BrownPublished June 5, 2025

Baseball great Satchel Paige has been quoted as saying, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” The answer would be an alarmingly high number for some friends and me after a recent lunch.  Let me process the trauma.  Seven...

Israeli politics in an era of polarization: What WashU students have to say

Israeli politics in an era of polarization: What WashU students have to say

Ayala HendinPublished May 30, 2025

For the past two years, I’ve had the privilege of developing and teaching a course titled “Israeli Politics in an Era of Polarization” at Washington University, as an Israel Fellow in the Department of Jewish, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies...

Jerusalem isn’t the problem, it’s the key to the solution

Jerusalem isn’t the problem, it’s the key to the solution

Kathryn OwensPublished May 30, 2025

Though I have always cared about the future of Israel and Palestine, studying the conflict used to cause me to feel hopeless and powerless. I felt like I would never know enough to be able to contribute to nuanced discussion, much less reimagine the...

A new status quo?

A new status quo?

Olivia FishmanPublished May 30, 2025

What should Israel do when the Status-Quo is anything but? When David Ben Gurion drafted the Status-Quo Agreement following Israel’s independence in 1948, it aimed to codify Israel’s identity as a home for observant Jews: It asserted Shabbat...

I do…but not in Israel

I do…but not in Israel

Rachel BeckerPublished May 30, 2025

Imagine sitting in the crowd of a wedding as two women exchange vows, or witnessing a Jewish partner pledge their commitment to their Muslim beloved. Envision next a ceremony unbound by ritual in which two secular Jews join in matrimony through legal...

D'var Torah: Living our values in daily life can turn the mundane to sacred

D’var Torah: Living our values in daily life can turn the mundane to sacred

RABBI ANDREW H. TERKELPublished May 29, 2025

My friend has a little wooden sign in her kitchen that says, “Sorry for the mess, but we live here.” It always makes me smile because it acknowledges that life is often a messy business. Between the kids leaving crumpled up homework,...

D'var Torah on Tazria-Metzora: It’s not personal

D’var Torah on Tazria-Metzora: It’s not personal

Rabbi Jared Skoff, Congregation B’nai AmoonaPublished May 1, 2025

I get sinus infections. I often get them more than once a year. By the time my symptoms go from bad to worse, I’m on antibiotics, an antihistamine, a steroid inhaler, a nasal spray, a nasal rinse, an anti-inflammatory, an antacid, and chicken soup....

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...

Deportees wait to be processed at an immigration facility after a flight carrying illegal immigrants from the U.S. arrived in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

Two Missouri bills are despicable, very un-Jewish

BY RABBI SUSAN TALVEPublished April 3, 2025

Amidst the sea of suffering the current administration is perpetrating on people here and abroad, I call your attention to anti-immigration legislation in Missouri: SB 58 and SB 72.  SB 58 does a couple of highly problematic and unconstitutional things....

Deportees wait to be processed at an immigration facility after a flight carrying illegal immigrants from the U.S. arrived in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

Should illegal immigrants be deported?

By Rabbi Ze’ev SmasonPublished April 3, 2025

To most people, the 2005 movie “Wedding Crashers” is a lighthearted comedy romp in which two lovelorn bachelors crash weddings to meet women. But imagine the following scenario: At your daughter’s 500-person wedding, a concerned friend informs you...

Washington Post faces major departures: Is Miss Manners next?"

Washington Post faces major departures: Is Miss Manners next?”

Richard WeissPublished January 23, 2025

Dear Miss Manners, I saw recently that columnist Jen Rubin was next in the long line of brilliant journalists who have left the Washington Post and then on Tuesday, Jan. 22, she was followed by Philip Rucker, WaPo’s renowned national editor. I fear...

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