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

Was Howard Cosell Jewish?

Was Howard Cosell Jewish?

Team JONJ, In partnership with the Jewish LightPublished August 15, 2021

It’s a right of Jewish passage to wonder who out there in the world is Jewish too, especially famous people like actors, singers, athletes, and even social media stars and YouTubers. It’s just something we do. So, to better answer the question...

Letters to the editor, week of Aug. 8, 2012

Published August 8, 2012

Romney speech perpetuates stereotypeMitt Romney managed to put both feet in his mouth at the same time this week. Not only did the Palestinians express umbrage at his comment about Israeli culture being at the root of economic success but those of us...

Rabbi Josef A. Davidson serves Congregation B’nai Amoona.

Community’s embrace opens heart to God

By Rabbi Josef A. DavidsonPublished August 1, 2012

Many years ago when I was a hospital chaplain providing pastoral care to Jewish patients and residents of all of the local hospitals and nursing homes in the Denver area, I met a young woman in a locked psychiatric unit who had attempted suicide.  I...

A swastika spray-painted on a window of Temple Beth Israel in Hackensack, N.J., Dec. 10, 2011.

State Dept. report describes ‘rising tide’ of anti-Semitism

By Ron Kampeas, JTAPublished July 31, 2012

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. State Department’s report on religious freedom described a “global increase” in anti-Semitism and said the “rising tide of anti-Semitism” was among the key trends of last year. The executive summary of the report for...

Standing in the Old City of Jerusalem, Rabbi Hersh Novack lectures to a group of Washington University and St. Louis area college students during a recent Taglit Birthright Israel trip. Birthright Israel is a partnership between the Jewish Federations, the Jewish Agency, and leading individual philanthropists.

Birthright Israel: hardship, happiness and history for the Modern Jew

By Rebecca KriegmanPublished July 11, 2012

At the end of my first full day in Israel, my Birthright Israel group made a Friday night Shabbat visit to the Western Wall. As we approached the dim glow of early evening and saw women in their dress skirts and men in their kippahs, all joyously coming...

Sid Roth

Messianic book targets local Jewish homes

By Repps Hudson, Special to the Jewish LightPublished July 4, 2012

A few weeks ago, an unsolicited book, “They Thought for Themselves: Ten Amazing Jews,” by Sid Roth, arrived at the homes of an unknown number of St. Louis area Jewish residents. No one seems to know how many copies of the 237-page paperback were...

Lt. Col. Bernhard Fischer, a Jewish officer in the protocol branch, in his office at the German Federal Ministry of Defense.

Germany’s Jewish patriots find a home in the military

By Toby Axelrod, JTAPublished June 26, 2012

BERLIN -- In an office amid a labyrinth of hallways in Germany's Ministry of Defense, a short jaunt from where Claus von Stauffenberg was executed in 1944 for trying to kill Adolf Hitler, sits Bernhard Fischer, lieutenant colonel and Jew. What’s a...


Rabbi Justin Kerber serves
Temple Emanuel and is a member of the St. Louis Rabbinical
Association. 

The lost art of spontaneous prayer

By Rabbi Justin KerberPublished June 20, 2012

Every so often, the people in the Torah pray. Maybe not as often as we might expect from such a holy text, but they pray, and sometimes with breathtaking intensity. Patriarchs and Matriarchs, lowly servants, great kings and humble shepherds, prophets...

Alexis Kashar has dedicated herself to activism and pro bono work on behalf of the deaf since moving to suburban New York in 2004.

Spurred by a Torah portion, Alexis Kashar is breaking down barriers for deaf Jews

By Lisa Keys, JTAPublished June 13, 2012

NEW YORK -- It was an ancient sentence -- a fragment, really -- that changed everything for Alexis Kashar. An attorney specializing in special education and disability rights, she has successfully argued high-profile litigations, including one against...

When General Grant Expelled the Jews, (Schocken, $27.95) by historian Jonathan D. Sarna 

Scholar Sarna says Grant ‘redeemed’ himself after anti-Jewish edict

BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief EmeritusPublished June 13, 2012

In his latest book, “When General Grant Expelled the Jews,” (Schocken, $27.95) historian Jonathan D. Sarna details the notoriously anti-Jewish “General Orders No. 11,” in which General Ulysses S. Grant in 1862 ordered the expulsion of all Jewish...

Hyim Shafner

Shelach: Running from reality

By Rabbi Hyim ShafnerPublished June 13, 2012

In this week’s Torah portion, Shelach, the Jewish people have completed the short trek from Mount Sinai to the Land of Israel. God tells them to send the heads of each tribe as spies to spy out the Land of Israel. After 40 days the spies return. Ten...

Obama’s same-sex marriage nod echoes historic Catholic-Jewish debate

By Ben Sales, JTAPublished May 24, 2012

NEW YORK -- When President Obama publicly endorsed same-sex marriage two weeks ago, most secular Jewish leaders applauded while some religious ones disagreed -- the latter group joining their Catholic counterparts. In doing so, these representatives...

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