Dear Readers: 

I want to wish you a very happy and healthy Jewish New Year!

It’s a very special year for us, as you know, for through 2013 we continue to celebrate our 50^th anniversary as an independent Jewish news organization. We hope you’ll join us on Oct. 6 for our Golden Light Gala at the Ritz-Carlton, St. Louis (visit www.stljewishlight.com/50Gala for more info).

In line with our continuing mission to inform, inspire and connect our community, we strive to give you the best Jewish content, and to do it wherever you look for news – in newspapers and magazines, on the web, by email and on your mobile devices.

We’ve added lots of content over the last several years:

• Editor Ellen Futterman’s News and Schmooze;

• Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Bob Cohn’s Cohnipedia feature about St. Louis Jewish history;

• Can We Talk? our combined news and discussion series;

• Israel Alive! About the amazing breadth of culture in the Jewish State;

• Largely expanded arts coverage;

• Our Teen Pages, Ohr Chadash, written by and for students.

• Our quarterly OY! Magazine, including the Guide to Jewish Life, out this week.

All this and more has enabled us to win 16 national and regional awards in the last five years alone!

But we’re not done with making the Light the best possible experience we can. So this fall we’re launching a variety of new benefits for our loyal subscribers, benefits that are included at no additional charge beyond your basic paid subscription:

• A brand-new mobile Jewish Light site, which you can use both on your smart phone and on your tablet.

• An e-edition, or digital fascimile, of our newspaper on our website, so if you prefer to read your digital news in the same format as the paper Light rather than click through a website, that choice will be available to you.

• Access to our OY! Magazine online, either through an e-edition or by reading individual stories on our website. This is the first time OY! has been offered electronically.

Because we’re a nonprofit community organization, we will continue to provide our regular website features without a paywall, and we’ll still provide a number of complimentary copies in community locations for those who find it difficult to afford the Light.

For our paid subscribers, however, we believe we should give you something new, different and special as our thanks for your loyalty and commitment to helping us be the best Jewish community news organization possible.

To those who already subscribe, we say thanks, and hope you renew at your earliest opportunity. For those who are considering subscribing, we trust these new and very useful benefits will persuade you to consider signing up.

And to everyone, L’Shana Tovah from all of us at the Jewish Light!

Sincerely, 

— Larry Levin, Publisher/CEO