Before she became a lawyer, Nancy Schmidt majored in art history in graduate school, but in her career she has turned her attention to larger canvases—those of people’s lives. For almost 15 years, Schmidt, who is not Jewish, has provided free...

Marion Lipsitz may be an Unsung Hero, but almost everyone sings her praises and has a story about her – and many of those stories are worth retelling. For example:In 1938, Walt Disney chose Lipsitz as the ideal Snow White for the campus Snow White Ball...

Driven is a word that could easily describe Charles Baron. “What drives me at the moment are primarily issues affecting the city of St. Louis and its future,” said the Temple Israel congregant. “I see evidence of the city’s collapsing....

The myth is that every Jew excels and succeeds. The reality is that those who fail, by conventional standards, are sometimes forgotten. A Jewish prisoner — a seeming contradiction in terms to many — wrote a letter several years ago to the Jewish...

“There are two ways of helping,“ says Rabbi Zvi Zuravin, executive director of the Vaad Hoeir. “There is helping because you have to and then there is helping because you want to. That’s Merle. She is an extremely selfless person who does...

Though pleased by the recognition from the St. Louis Jewish Light, Fran Cohen disputes the term “unsung.” Laughing, she says, “Lately I’ve been sung quite a bit — and I’m kind of surprised about it.” Cohen recently was inducted into the...

Dr. Rebecca Aft spends her days in surgery, in hospital rooms guiding cancer patients to recovery, in classrooms, in a research laboratory — and, at the end of each busy day, at home with her husband, her teenage daughter and her 2-year-old daughter....

She champions the causes about which she is passionate — and there are many — with gale-force determination and vigor. Friends describe her as a “human dynamo” with the energy of someone half her 81 years. What’s clear after spending time with...

Sometimes play can be serious business. It is for Maris Berg when she is helping children with problems in the classroom.“I actually take the child aside and I find out the most about what’s going on in the child’s life by playing with them,”...

In 1972, when David Oughton was in college, he traveled to Europe and went to Dachau. “Going there grabbed me emotionally, and that visit changed my life,” says Oughton.“Since then, I have tried to learn as much as I can about the Holocaust, what...

Had Jack Cohen and his wife, Laura, not relocated to St. Charles, they likely would still be attending temple only on the High Holidays.Instead, because of the street where they moved and the neighbors they met, Jack Cohen is being honored as a founder,...

Ten years ago this October, Phyllis Cantor was named chair of the Social Action Committee at Congregation B’nai Amoona. The position is a perfect fit. “I am all about tikkun olam, repairing the world,” says Cantor. “I believe we have a moral obligation...