Looking to say “Happy Valentine’s Day” to someone you love and do right by Haiti, too? Leslie Caplan, an enterprising daughter of longtime Jewish Light columnist and dynamo Lois Caplan, has just the gift for you.

For a mere $5, Leslie, who truly has a voice like an angel, will sing a song of your choice to your Valentine. The money will go to Haitian relief efforts.

All you need to do is email Leslie your request at [email protected], and be sure to include the name of your Valentine, the telephone number and type of song desired, and best time to call. She will call on the day you choose, which doesn’t have to be the 14th, and sing for you. She will then identify you as the sender (or not).

You can pick virtually any type of song you’d like: romantic, operatic, funny, questionable taste or Jewish-oriented.

“I had a really adorable request from somebody wanting to know if he could order a song for himself,” Leslie says. “Is that the cutest? I told him it would be my privilege.”

Just send your $5 to Central Reform Congregation (make check out to CRC and put Haiti in the subject line), 5020 Waterman Ave., St. Louis, Mo. 63108.

Presidential selection

Congratulations to Judge Audrey Goldstein Fleissig, who was recently nominated by President Barack Obama to the United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri. She is one of five judges the president named to serve on the U.S. District Court bench. The nomination will now be sent to the U.S. Senate for confirmation.

“I am honored to nominate these five distinguished candidates to the United States District Court bench,” said Obama. “They represent some of the best in American jurisprudence and they will serve the American people with integrity. I am grateful for their commitment to public service and look forward to their appointment to the federal bench.”

Judge Fleissig, who is a member of Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel, is currently a magistrate judge for the Eastern District of Missouri, a position she has held for the last eight years. Prior to taking the bench, Fleissig was a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District, where she also served as the Senate-confirmed United States Attorney for approximately one year. Before joining the United States Attorney’s Office in 1991, Fleissig was in private practice at the St. Louis firm of Peper Martin Jensen Maichel and Hetlage (now Husch Blackwell Sanders), first as an associate from 1980 to 1989 and later as a partner from 1989 to 1991. She is the former President of the Women Lawyer’s Association of Greater St. Louis and is a member of the National Association of Women Judges. In 1980, she received her J.D. from Washington University School of Law, where she is an adjunct professor.

Honoring a veteran

In a memorial to their brother, the two sisters of Richard “Rick” David Chorlins, a captain in the U.S. Air Force who was killed in Vietnam, have donated Cpt. Chorlins’s uniforms, medals and citations along with pictures and a biography to the Natural History Museum in Forest Park. The exhibit opened in late January and will remain on permanent display.

The son of Ruth H. and the late Joseph I. Chorlins, Cpt. Chorlins was a 1963 graduate of University City Senior High School and became a bar mitzvah at United Hebrew Congregation. He was a 1967 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and a 1969 cum laude graduate of Georgetown University. He was killed in action in January of 1970.

His sisters say they hope those who knew Rick, as well as those who did not, will have an opportunity to visit the exhibit and share in their tribute to his life, his memory and the memory of all who served in Vietnam.

DisAbility Project performs Mark Twain classic for ‘Big Read’

For more than a decade, Joan Lipkin, artistic director of That Uppity Theatre, has been working with local actors on the DisAbility Project, which has won several prestigious awards including the Missouri Governor’s Council on Disability Enhancement Award. Lipkin explains that an ensemble from the group will perform an interpretation of Mark Twain’s classic novel entitled “The Assorted Short Adventures of Tom, Huck and Becky” at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 18 and Feb. 25 as part of St. Louis’ “Big Read” project. The shows will take place at Washington University’s Music Center, 560 Trinity Avenue in University City.

Suitable for all ages, “The Assorted Short Adventures of Tom, Huck and Becky” was written and directed by Lipkin and Aarya Sara Locker. The production includes audience participation and original songs by local songwriters and folk musicians Steve Givens and Mike Hall. Most of the actors use wheelchairs due to the nature of their disability.

Admission is free, but seats are limited and they must be reserved in advance. To make reservations, phone Erin Vlasaty at 314-863-2865 or e-mail [email protected].