jewishinstlouis.org, the online gateway to the St. Louis Jewish community, launched anew on June 15. A service of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, jewishinstlouis v.3 will ramp up its service to the community with new technology and visual components that will provide easy access to information, news and Jewish life. The site’s wide variety of content will make it easier for readers of all ages to personalize their experience on the site.

Since its inception in June, 2005, jewishinstlouis.org, a service of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, has become one of the most successful Jewish community websites in the country. The website includes participation from more than 150 agencies, congregations, organizations and Jewish groups. To date, jewishinstlouis has welcomed more than 1 million visitors, with a 650+ Jewish community Facebook group, 12,000 e-newsletter subscribers and 260+ “jewishinstlouis Works” group members on the professional networking site, Linkedin.com.

jewishinstlouis v.3 features include:

• An expanded Jewish Community Directory —

With excellent new tools to help organizations, congregations, agencies and Jewish groups promote themselves.

• New Community Events Calendar —

Featuring more control and visibility for hundreds of agencies, organizations, congregations and Jewish groups.

• Expanded e-Kitchen — with more features, recipes and recipe archives.

• New columns and blogs for Jews of all ages, denominations and interests.

• Jewish Television Network – jewishinstlouis partnership – see unique online Jewish Television, featuring news broadcasts, Jewish cooking, Jewish music videos, user-created videos for Jews of all ages and much more

• New jewishinstlouis sponsors — The Rams, SLU Billikens and AW Health Care join St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Maryville University and Washington University – to name a few.

The extensive jewishinstlouis extensive redesign project is supported by a generous gift from the Louise Golman Endowment for Jewish Federation. Louise and her husband, Sam, both deceased, stipulated that their three daughters would administer their philanthropic funds. The Golmans’ daughters designated that one of the funds would be used to take jewishinstlouis to the next level. Said Allison (Golman) Burgess, “If we’re going to continue to attract the next generation, we have to reach out to them in ways that appeal to them.”

Nancy and Randy Green and Karen and Mont Levy, founding funders of jewishinstlouis, all agree that the website continues to be a trendsetter for building Jewish community. Said the Greens: “The redesign is a new chapter in its development that will bring many exciting new offerings and even greater value to our community – with particular emphasis on teens, young adults and social networking.” The Levys added, “We knew this project was important from the outset, but jewishinstlouis has exceeded everyone’s best expectations. We’re delighted the community has embraced the site and made it a real part of how we gather together in this millennium.”

Debbie Warshawski, jewishinstlouis project manager, explained “The new design is guided by five years of extensive community participation and feedback. Our website administrator, Angelo Sgouros, took that feedback and factored the community’s needs into the new design. As a result, we’ve got an incredible new online tool that will take our Jewish community and Jewish Federation to the next level. With the new design, we can continue to represent a thriving St. Louis Jewish community – while we promote all of our Jewish agencies, programs, services, activities and more.”