Reflecting on her younger years isn’t always easy for 79-year-old Helene Meyer, especially when she compares them to now. Today, she feels fulfilled. Productive. In the moment.  As artistic director of Slaying Dragons, a nonprofit whose mission is...

As an idealistic teenager, Amy Kuo Hammerman thought about a career as a lobbyist after seeing the movie “The American President.” Annette Bening played a glamorous lobbyist, Sydney Ellen Wade, who was also the love interest of Michael Douglas, the...

Murray Bresler is the kind of guy who will help people he’s never met. They could be people in St. Louis, in another city or halfway around the world. He’s also the kind of guy who finds a way to help a nonprofit organization facing a challenging...

It was just an average March morning at Dorris Intermediate School in Collinsville. Elizabeth “Betty” Baumgartner’s sixth-graders were filing back into her room after music class when she saw a boy make a gesture that she had never seen a student...

It wasn’t long ago that the St. Louis Jewish educational community faced a crossroads. The lack of a beis midrash — a post-high school yeshiva to provide advanced Torah study —meant some families were moving out of the area and others chose not...

Michele Friedman Siler describes herself as “unsung” by nature, a person who “hides from cameras, ditches photo opps and doesn’t look for publicity.” The idea of being honored by the Jewish Light as an uppercase Unsung Hero just doesn’t sound...

It’s easy to pick Olivia Adams out of a crowd. She’s perpetually smiling. Adams is an upbeat, optimistic person who shares her positivity with everyone she meets. That includes many women and their families who have fallen on hard times. Adams is...

If there were a buddy movie made about tikkun olam, Nathan Goldstein and Ben Horwitz would have starring roles. The two 17-year-olds, who are seniors at Ladue Horton Watkins High School, led a successful effort to plant 1,000 trees in the St. Louis region...

Avi Adler was hospitalized after an accident in June 2020. Adler, 18, recovered, thanks in part to a child life specialist, a key member of his healthcare team. Adler’s older sister, Tamar, was intrigued by the work that goes into helping children...

After four decades as a teacher and guidance counselor, Julie Frankel retired in 2014. Like many people, she was unsure what she would do next. “I felt like I had lost my identity,” said Frankel, who spent 20 years as a guidance counselor in the...

For those who are lucky enough to go away to summer camp, the experience can be transformational. It becomes a part of your identity, of who you are. When this happens, you become a lifer. Camp is woven into your DNA. Like many in St. Louis, Sam Deutsch...

Mia Kweskin doesn’t actually work in journalism per se, but as senior communications strategist at Edward Jones, strong writing and interviewing skills are vital to her job. She credits working on the Jewish Light’s Ohr Chadash teen page during her...