Joe Shlabotnik isn't a household name. He won no awards, isn't in any hall of fame, and is probably remembered by only a few aficionados...of a comic strip. Yes, Joe was the idol of the one, the only Charlie Brown of Peanuts fame. For some inexplicable...

Hundreds of people come through the main entrance of Missouri Baptist Medical Center every day. Four days a week, they are greeted by Phillip Fox, who sits, smiling, in his wheelchair, waiting to see how he might be of service."Every day, I get all sorts...

Not all of our Unsung Heroes are Jewish. Jim Lemen, for example, is Protestant, but he was chosen for this honor because of his foresight in championing a Holocaust studies curriculum at John Burroughs School. That and the fact he's an all-around nice...

"Extraordinary" is how Stuart Zimbalist describes Kenneth Rubin and his work at the Cedars at the JCA."It's very demanding," said Zimbalist, an attorney with Polsinelli Shughart who has worked with Rubin on the board of the JCA. "It's a very important...

Lolle Boettcher keeps memories alive, memories of tragedy and memories of triumph, memories that some may wish to forget and that others insist be examined in the hope that genocide end once and for all on this planet.Boettcher - who is a Presbyterian...

Ben Senturia has spent the past 30 years working on environmental, social justice and campaign reform issues at the local, state and national levels. He also has been a presence in the peace movement and interfaith organizations."I love interacting with...

The word "learning" comes up a lot in conversations with Dr. Harry Offenbach. The word "teaching" does, too. That's because he does a lot of both."I've been teaching Judaism ever since my bar mitzvah," said Offenbach sitting quietly in the University...

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of area schoolchildren have walked past the "The Flame," a picture-filled art quilt that hangs at the St. Louis Holocaust Museum & Learning Center. A memorial to the victims of World War II, the quilt was designed by the...

Where there's trouble - there's Carl Moskowitz.A member of Creve Coeur's Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), a disaster assistance employee with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and a member of the American Red Cross Disaster Action...

Sarijane Freiman never set out to be a social activist. In fact, she grew up at a time when "young ladies were supposed to marry well, make children, join Hadassah and work for (the temple) Sisterhood." Freiman did all those things. But it was as a mother,...

Growing up in Bethlehem, Penn., Dan Glazier observed his parents regularly practice tzedakah. His mother, a social worker, and his father, a dentist, made giving to others a priority. Glazier remembers his father's dental practice was "in some ways like...

There is no such thing as a short conversation with Margaret Gillerman. That's because Gillerman remembers everything about everybody she's ever met and likes to recall one or two or 14 of these fond memories when she meets up with them.She could well...