As a Jewish faculty member at UMSL, I was delighted to read in the Oct. 8 edition (“Rabbi returns to St. Louis to serve at Hillel”) that St. Louis Hillel — whose mission is to serve Jewish students attending all St. Louis institutions of higher education — has recruited a new rabbi to serve at its helm. What Rabbi Gerson may not totally appreciate is that a great deal has changed since his departure from St. Louis: there are now between 400-600 (best guess) Jewish students at UMSL and a growing Jewish presence at Maryville University and other local colleges. I would like to invite Rabbi Gerson to visit our campus and meet some of our inspiring and inspired Jewish students who, like their Wash U counterparts, are “bright…engaged…[and] passionate.” Moreover, upon graduation, UMSL students tend overwhelmingly to remain in the St. Louis region, thereby reinvigorating our Jewish community and leadership. Welcome to the St. Louis Hillel, Rabbi Gerson.

Professor Susan Feigenbaum, Ph.D.

Department of Economics

University of Missouri-St. Louis 

Keeping focused on Iran

Regarding the Oct. 8 story “What a GOP Senate would mean for the Jewish Communal agenda”:  If the Republicans control the Senate after the November mid-term elections thus assuring a GOP controlled Congress, one thing’s for sure. Iran will be put on a short leash, that if it doesn’t mitigate its nuclear program it faces the likelihood of military action.

With ISIS dominating the world’s headlines, it’s important to take note that Iran is still the number one threat to world peace. It must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon to be used against Israel, the U.S. and the international community, so one can see that such a threat is confined not only and specifically to the Jewish communal agenda.

No doubt, a GOP controlled Senate and Congress would bode well for America’s foreign policy , and by extension, Israel’s foreign policy as well, as it would become more hawkish towards Iran and its bellicose mullahs. 

Lest anyone forget the danger to world peace posed by Iran, one must only go back to 2005 in which that terrorist state unequivocally promised that its goal was to wipe Israel “off the face of the map.” This existential threat  cannot and must not be ever taken lightly. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in all of his eloquence, summed it up best, when after the interim agreement was signed in January of 2014, called such a document “an historic mistake.”   

That said, here’s hoping that the GOP re-takes the Senate and control of the Congress in the November elections and that U.S. foreign policy regains its dominance and superiority on the world’s stage.

Gene Carton

Olivette