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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

What Queen Elizabeth meant to a British Jew like me

JEREMY HAVARDI, JTAPublished September 9, 2022

(JTA) — The death Queen Elizabeth II after 70 years on the throne is a devastating loss for Britain, the Commonwealth and the free world. It is hard to overstate the sense of grief that will be felt at her passing, including from within the Anglo-Jewish...

What happened in Vegas isn’t staying in Vegas

What happened in Vegas isn’t staying in Vegas

AMY FENSTER, Special For The Jewish LightPublished September 9, 2022

When you think of a wholesome family vacation Las Vegas probably doesn’t top the list. So that’s exactly why we went there. Jeff loves Vegas, but Davis, Leo and I had never been. With two teenage boys, Sin City sounded like a good option. (Mother...

Saving the soul of the  nation, one vote at a time

Saving the soul of the nation, one vote at a time

By Rabbi Susan Talve and Sara RuizPublished September 7, 2022

“Ashrei,” is the first word in the Book of Psalms.  Often translated as “happy,” “ashrei” can also mean forward and upward.  For 38 years, Central Reform Congregation has worked to move our region forward on a path towards justice and dignity...

Photo by Benjamin Kruger

Spark of Judaism flickers near Pettus Bridge in Selma

BENJAMIN KRUGER, Junior, Parkway Central High SchoolPublished August 31, 2022

I’m part of a teen social justice group called Cultural Leadership, through which we learn about oppression through the lens of the Jewish and Black experiences. Earlier this summer, we traveled through the country, mainly in the South, and found ourselves...

Amy Fenster Brown (left) writes, "My BFF Nancy isn't actually taller than me, I just put her on a pedestal.

School is back in session; life lessons begin

Amy Fenster Brown, Special For The Jewish LightPublished August 29, 2022

The majority of St. Louis area students are back at school. That routine brings a good amount of order back into families’ lives. While most kids don’t love mornings getting ready and evenings doing homework, structure is actually really helpful to...

‘Quiet quitting’ sounds sort of … Jewish?

‘Quiet quitting’ sounds sort of … Jewish?

Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTAPublished August 28, 2022

(JTA) — I hadn’t heard of “quiet quitting” until about 10 minutes ago. Since then every major news outlet has done a story on this purported trend, defined as a movement among office workers to draw firmer work-life boundaries by doing less work....

David McCullough in 2019, near the cedar shed he built in the backyard of his home in West Tisbury, Mass., on Martha’s Vineyard, where he did much of his writing. Photo: Maria Thibodeau/Vineyard Gazette

Journalist, historian connected by the Brooklyn Bridge

ERIC MINKPublished August 25, 2022

I met David McCullough for the first time in 1983. Over breakfast. In Phoenix. As the television critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I was in Phoenix in June that year with several dozen of my counterparts from other papers across the country covering...

What’s up? Your eyesight? Bunions? Hemorrhoids? Medical maladies for age-defiers

What’s up? Your eyesight? Bunions? Hemorrhoids? Medical maladies for age-defiers

Published August 23, 2022

As we age, ailments suddenly surface like ungainly weeds. Although we try to tamp down these non-life-threatening, sometimes odd, conditions and ailments with lotions, potions, OTC (over the counter) remedies, exercise, good eating and even Physical and...

The Catskills meet Mount Sinai at a night of Jewish comedy

The Catskills meet Mount Sinai at a night of Jewish comedy

Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTAPublished August 21, 2022

(JTA) — Back in 2000, Spike Lee made a concert film starring four of the most popular Black comics of the day: Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric The Entertainer and the late great Bernie Mac. “The Original Kings of Comedy” was a revelation for...

Judaism without God? God forbid, says this rabbi

Judaism without God? God forbid, says this rabbi

Published August 18, 2022

(JTA) — In a recent Jewish Telegraphic Agency column, Andrew Silow-Carroll identified a trend in American Jewry, which he described as “fictionalism.” In the article, he defines it as “pretending to follow a set of beliefs in order to reap the...

When Judaism considers the long term, it looks to the past

When Judaism considers the long term, it looks to the past

Ari Wallach, JTAPublished August 15, 2022

He asked them “Who is called a ‘wise man’?” They responded to him, “The person who sees the consequence of their action.” (Babylonian Talmud 32a) (JTA) — Many years ago I was asked to speak, on short notice, at a symposium in Geneva...

Who is more anti-Semitic: The right or the left?

By Mitchell Bard, JNSPublished August 10, 2022

(JNS) In the current poisonous political atmosphere, many accusations are made by the right and left, each asserting the other is most responsible for all evil in the world. This is equally true regarding campuses. As with so much political rhetoric,...

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