(JTA) — On June 20, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a four-story-high cross on government land abutting a major road — brightly lit at night and maintained by taxpayer funds — can continue to loom over drivers because the monument has stood for...
(JTA) — The other day, my Catholic mother-in-law again implored me, her sole Jewish daughter-in-law, to watch “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” The third season of the award-winning show is expected to air in a few months, so I dutifully resigned myself...
Did you know that the U.S. Air Force is the smallest it has been since 1947 and that we have the smallest navy in almost a century? Do you care? You may recall a slogan that Bill Clinton’s campaign used during his 1992 run for the presidency: “It’s...
We, the undersigned Jewish community leaders, take a public stand against the abortion ban (HB126) which Missouri Governor Mike Parson recently signed into law. The ban threatens the lives of women, their families, Missouri’s economy and our future. We...
LOS ANGELES (JTA) – Thursday is World Refugee Day. And according to the United Nations page devoted to this commemoration, every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror.I am one of those people.In 1948, when I was...
MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. (JTA) – Last summer, I was on the phone with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer assigned to Armando Rojas, our deported synagogue custodian of two decades, assuring him that I could vouch that he is not a flight risk or...
WASHINGTON (JTA) – In May, Pope Francis issued a detailed ruling on how officials in the Roman Catholic Church must handle cases of clerical sexual abuse, the first official codification of the church’s global policy.Though abuse survivors have criticized...
Readers respond to ‘political correctness’ commentary Regarding columnist Marty Rochester’s May 29 commentary, “The wrongness of political correctness,” I must admit that I cringe whenever I hear anyone use the term “political correctness.” It...
Despite my grizzled appearance, I want to assure you that I did not know the first Joseph Pulitzer. He died in 1911, just before my time.And yet I knew him.And I didn’t know the second Joseph Pulitzer. He died in 1955, when I was four years old.And...
By Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS
• Published June 13, 2019
The irony is so great that it’s almost too obvious. The very week that a milestone was achieved in the state of Israel when a gay man became a cabinet minister, a leading gay organization in the United States banned Jewish symbols from its annual pride...
It’s been two months since Andrew Rehfeld departed as president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis to become president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. This seems like a good time to brief our community on where Federation...
By Rabbi James Bennett & Rabbi Andrea Goldstein
• Published June 6, 2019
We are grateful to our colleague Rabbi Seth Gordon for his articulate and thoughtful op-ed in the St. Louis Jewish Light on May 23 (“Jewish law, abortion and born v. unborn life”) laying out an argument that provides food for thought based on his...
