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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

Opinion

Alan Spector is the author of five books and is working on books six and seven. His latest is “Body Not Recovered: A Vietnam War/Protest Movement Novel.” Spector also writes the stljewishlight.com blog “Retirement According to … Alan Spector.”

Two-Day Trippin’

By Alan SpectorPublished May 1, 2017

Do you love to travel?  Explore history?  Find fun new places to eat?  Enjoy a relaxing atmosphere?  Take in a winery or two or more?  Stay in a special B&B?  Relish spectacular views?  What do you love to do and experience?  This must sound...

Karen Aroesty is regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of Missouri/Southern Illinois. 

Why you should care about the Supreme Court, recycled tires and history

By Karen AroestyPublished April 28, 2017

I understand that that many people don’t see the personal relevance of anything that happens at the Supreme Court.  So, when I say that the world of constitutional law was rocked recently, bear with me.Last week, the United States  Supreme Court heard...

Stacey Newman is Missouri state representative of the 87th District, which includes Clayton and parts of Brentwood, Ladue, Richmond Heights and University City.

Reflections on Holocaust by a Jewish state legislator

Published April 27, 2017

St. Louis, along with numerous U.S. and Israeli cities, observed Yom Hashoah, the “Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust” this past week.  Signed into formal law by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in 1953, it is a yearly reminder for each of us to...

J. Martin Rochester, Curators’ Teaching Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, is author of 10 books on international and American politics, including  his latest book, “New Warfare: Rethinking Rules for An Unruly World.”

Today’s ‘angry minds’ can be found on the left

By Marty RochesterPublished April 27, 2017

Richard Hofstadter’s famous 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” long has been associated with the threat posed by the far right. However, Hofstadter started the essay by writing that  “American politics has often been an arena...

Steve Gallant is the new President  of the Jewish Light Board of Trustees.  Contact Steve at sgallant@thejewishlight.com

Guiding the ‘Light’ to a new tomorrow

By Steve GallantPublished April 27, 2017

Editor’s note: The following is adapted from a speech given at the Jewish Light’s recent Annual Meeting.I am excited and humbled by this opportunity to be president of the Board of Trustees of the St. Louis Jewish Light.  My parents, Paul and Diane...

Exhibit brings needed Israel discussion to WashU

By Aitan GroenerPublished April 21, 2017

In a few days, J Street U Wash U will be hosting an exhibition on the Washington University campus produced by Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organization. It is led by veteran Israeli Defense Forces soldiers who work to share their experiences of everyday...

Yom Hashoah is a call to assist the poorest survivors

Rabbi Yechiel EcksteinPublished April 21, 2017

(JTA) — This week, the State of Israel’s comptroller sharply criticized the government for neglecting the intense poverty of many of the state’s elderly Holocaust survivors.Like the sirens that will blare Monday in Israel on Yom Hashoah, Holocaust...

Trump creates new golden age of journalism

By Repps HudsonPublished April 20, 2017

When I was in graduate school in Washington, D.C., in the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon’s administration was entangled in the vast web of deceit that we have long known as Watergate.In 1973 and 1974, I worked part-time at the Kansas City Star’s...

Choosing to be a job hunting success

Alan LudmerPublished April 19, 2017

My clients and friends often give me books and articles on career management.  There is a plethora of such materials and they tend to vary widely in practicality and general usefulness.  However, a recent gift was a winner, and it wasn’t even on career...

Alan Spector is an author, business consultant, baseball player, traveler, and grandfather.  He has authored five published books, including, with coauthor Keith Lawrence, Your Retirement Quest: 10 Secrets for Creating and Living a Fulfilling Retirement (www.YourRetirementQuest.com).  Alan and Keith conduct workshops across the country helping prospective and current retirees plan the non-financial aspects of their retirement—to make the rest of their lives the best of their lives.  Alan’s latest book, Body Not Recovered, is a work of historical fiction from the Vietnam War/Protest Movement era, and it has deep St. Louis roots.

Retirement according to Bob Brauer

By Alan SpectorPublished April 14, 2017

Whether you are already retired or thinking about the possibility, can you envision a full and fulfilling retirement, that retirement you have worked so hard for all your life, that retirement you deserve?  Bob Brauer can.Bob lives in Millburn, New Jersey,...

Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and author or editor of 16 books about the Holocaust and Jewish history. His commentary was distributed by JNS.org.

U.S. action against genocide: A brief guide

By Rafael MedoffPublished April 13, 2017

President Donald Trump’s missile strike against Syria inaugurates a new chapter in the long and controversial history of American responses—and sometimes non-responses—to mass murder around the world.Although the killing of Syrian civilians by President...

Rabbi James Stone Goodman created Shalvah, an outreach on addictions, as a project of Congregation Neve Shalom. Neve Shalom also sponsors the Jewish Prison Outreach and JAMI StL, a compassionate approach to mental illness.

Breaking the stigma around mental illness

By Rabbi James Stone GoodmanPublished April 13, 2017

The week I am writing this, we launched another effort to break the stigma surrounding mental illness in St. Louis  (March 19 at the Jewish Community Center of St. Louis), the week after a well-circulated article appeared in The New York Times (“Table...

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