A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

‘The Art of Conflict: Tales from the Courtroom’ by Michael A. Kahn and Alan C. Kohn; paperback, 218 pages, $14.95.

A blend of legal fact and fiction in ‘The Art of Conflict’

BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief EmeritusPublished June 6, 2019

Over the years, I have reviewed and enjoyed the entire series of Rachel Gold novels by St. Louis attorney and author Michael Kahn, which chronicle the adventures of the formidable but endearing female lawyer and her brilliant, foul-mouthed sidekick Benny...

“kaddish.com” by Nathan Englander; Knopf, $24.95, 203 pages 

Kaddish-by-proxy at core of Torah-rich novel

By Dale Singer, Special to the Jewish LightPublished May 16, 2019

Let’s clear up the obvious question right away.Yes, there really is a website with the name Kaddish.com. Fire up your browser, enter the address and you’ll find this message:“Although many of us wish to say kaddish for our loved ones, we often find...

Longtime docent Irl Solomon leads a tour at the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center in 2012. File photo: Mike Sherwin

Biography tells story of longtime Holocaust Museum docent

BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief EmeritusPublished May 16, 2019

Full disclosure: I have known Irl Solomon for at least 65 years, dating back to our days as fellow students at the Congregation Shaare Emeth Religious School and as classmates at University City High School (Class of 1957).If there is a consistent thread...

‘Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel’ by Matti Friedman, Algonquin Books, 248 pages, $26.95

Israel’s first spies illuminate origin of stalemate

By Repps Hudson, Special to the Jewish LightPublished April 25, 2019

Sometimes we read books that fill in details about a particular moment in the history we care deeply about, and we learn so much.Matti Friedman has written such a book about the Jewish spies who spoke Arabic as their native language because they had grown...

“My Dear Ones: One Family and the Final Solution” by Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, Harper Collins, $35

Fading letters reveal family’s Holocaust story

By Burton Boxerman, Special to the Jewish LightPublished July 26, 2018

While Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg of New North London Synagogue was in Jerusalem visiting his father’s family, his father’s sister, Steffi, passed away. After Steffi’s burial, Wittenberg and his cousin Michal (Steffi’s daughter), began to clear...

Then-IDF Chief of Staff Ehud Barak (at right) and Jordanian army Chief of Staff shake hands after the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty signing ceremony in October 1994. Photo: Ohayon Avi/GPO

Autobiography details Ehud Barak’s fascinating military, political career

By Repps Hudson, Special to the Jewish LightPublished June 7, 2018

As many readers may know, Ehud Barak is Israel’s most decorated military man. He grew up on a kibbutz in what became northern Israel after independence in 1948 and rose to chief of staff before leaving the military and going into politics on the Labor...

Author chronicles Zionist woman’s spy ring during WWI

By Repps Hudson, Special to the Jewish LightPublished April 26, 2018

“The Woman Who Fought an Empire: Sarah Aaronsohn and Her Nili Spy Ring” by Gregory J. Wallace, University of Nebraska Press, 293 pages, $32.95On June 28, 1914, a Serbian nationalist named Givrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, presumed...

Black Hearts, White Minds

STL lawyer’s Southern novel ‘needed to be told’

Ellen Futterman, EditorPublished January 24, 2018

About a dozen years or so ago, when his son Sam was at sleep-away camp, Mitch Margo decided that instead of writing typical dad letters — “Everything’s fine at home; hope you’re having fun” — he would write Sam a serial story about a 12-year-old...

Played by Michael A. Kahn

Author reveals how the legal game is ‘Played’ in latest mystery

BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief EmeritusPublished July 13, 2017

St. Louis lawyer Michael A. Kahn has entertained mystery novel fans for more than a decade with his series of nine books centered on the career of Rachel Gold, whose St. Louis legal activities often move from the mundane into the territory of classic...

How Hank Greenberg took on Hitler in the summer of 1938

By Elaine Durbach, New Jersey Jewish News via JTAPublished June 8, 2017

WHIPPANY, N.J. — With a lifetime of loving and writing about sports, Ron Kaplan has many topics he can sink his teeth into. Add to that passion his time working for the American Jewish Congress and then for nearly a decade for the New Jersey Jewish...

“Have I Got a Story for You: More Than a Century of Fiction from The Forward,” edited by Ezra Glinter, W.W. Norton, $27.95.

Sparkling fiction from Yiddish newspaper spans 20th century

By Curt Leviant, Special to the Jewish LightPublished April 20, 2017

It must have been a prodigious effort by editor Ezra Glinter to look through countless Yiddish Forward microfilms going back more than 100 years and come up with this superb collection of short fiction.Unlike contemporary American newspapers, Yiddish...

 

Politics, diplomacy are personal, Jack J. Schramm shows in memoir

BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief EmeritusPublished March 15, 2017

Native St. Louisan Jack J. Schramm chronicles his half-century as a public servant at state, federal and international levels in a comprehensive memoir, “Passionate Purpose: A Global Governance Journey” (New Insights Press, $20). Schramm, who now...

Load More Stories