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

ABOVE: In a 2017 file photo, David Feit Mann, then a sophomore at Yeshiva Kadimah High School, closed a Student to Student presentation for an AP English class at Affton High School by explaining how a ram’s horn is used in Judaism.  Photo: Eric Berger

JCRC’s Student to Student program going national

ELLEN FUTTERMAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEFPublished January 20, 2022

The Student to Student program, founded 30 years ago by the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis, is going national. It will be headquartered in St. Louis, under the auspices of a new nonprofit, Student to Student Inc. “Given the bigotry,...

The Israeli flag (Wikimedia Commons)

JCRC, Federation’s Israel Center plan Oct. 19 kickoff for Invest in Peace Series

Published October 18, 2021

The Jewish Community Relations Council, in partnership with the Jewish Federation of St. Louis' Israel Center, is proud to present the Invest in Peace Series, which will provide monthly virtual programs that highlight organizations or initiatives within...

St. Louis Friends of Israel calls for JCRC to remain nonpartisan

St. Louis Friends of Israel calls for JCRC ‘to remain nonpartisan’

GALIT LEV-HARIR and TRACI GOLDSTEINPublished May 14, 2021

Over the past several years, leadership from St. Louis Friends of Israel (SLFI) has met with the Jewish Community Relations Council on several occasions to express our view that JCRC promotes a skewed left-wing bias to the community in its formal communications...

Maharat Rori Picker Neiss is executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council.

JCRC leader to speak at national J Street conference

By Ellen Futterman, Editor-in-ChiefPublished April 9, 2021

Maharat Rori Picker-Neiss, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, has been invited to speak on a panel at the virtual J Street National Conference April 18-19. The 2019 J Street Conference had over 4,000 attendees, including...

Gordon Bloomberg

Call to action to excise racism from health care system

By Gordon BloombergPublished February 25, 2021

When the COVID-19 virus stormed in nearly a year ago, not everyone was affected equally. People of color and other minority groups were the most vulnerable to an inadequate and unfair health care system, a system with cracks in its foundation rooted in...

TOP ROW FROM LEFT: Rabbi Hershey Novack, Debbie Bram, Maxine Weil, Mark Morgan and Erin Wolfman May. BOTTOM ROW: Alyssa Banford, Anita Kraus, Ashley Stockman, Diana Matthis and Bonnie Solomon.  

JProStl’s Annual Recognition event takes place online Jan. 28

Published December 31, 2020

Nine professionals have been chosen as honorees for the Annual JProStl Recognition Event, which will take place Thursday, Jan. 28, from 1 to 2 p.m. online. The theme of the program is “Seeing the Silver Lining.” JProStl, an initiative of the Jewish...

Tariro (Tari) Nussinov

No easy answers to heal a deeply divided nation

BY TARIRO NUSSINOVPublished December 17, 2020

Election results this year show the deep socio-political divide among demographics and identities. Regardless of the outcome  each of us desired, this is not a proud moment. The United States continues to be deeply divided, and it is apparent in election...

Lauren Abraham (left) has been hired to direct JCRC’s Student to Student program, succeeding longtime director, Fawn Chapel (right), who became the program’s national coordinator.

Student to Student adapts to connect teens virtually

BY ERIC BERGER, ASSOCIATE EDITORPublished September 24, 2020

The question from the Catholic high school student to the Jewish students could have been from any Student to Student presentation in the two decades since the program’s inception.“How do you go about choosing which branch of Judaism you belong to?”...

JCRC: Medicaid expansion measure deserves support

JCRC: Medicaid expansion measure deserves support

By Cheryl Adelstein, Nancy Solomon Desloge & Rachel ThimanguPublished July 30, 2020

So many of us feel powerless these days. Two inter-connected and seemingly intractable issues — the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the call for racial equity — challenge our Jewish values of preserving human life and protecting the vulnerable. It’s...

Event co-chair Julie Williams speaks to participants at the opening breakfast of last year’s Jewish-Muslim Day of Community Service  at Daar-ul-Islam mosque in West County. 

Jewish-Muslim Day of Community Service aims to create connections between faiths

Published December 12, 2019

Nine years after a small group of Jews and Muslims first gathered on Christmas Day to work side-by-side in community service, the annual interfaith effort returns in 2019 with a renewed focus on the popular program’s core mission: building strong community.The...

The Heartland for Human Justice coalition sings, chants and waves signs at Fort Sill in Lawton, Okla. 

Report: Army monitored interfaith St. Louis coalition that organized protest trip to Fort Sill

By Eric Berger, Associate EditorPublished November 14, 2019

The U.S. Army was monitoring a largely Jewish group of protesters who traveled in August from St. Louis to Fort Sill in Lawton, Okla., to protest the planned detention of migrant children at the facility, according to a report in The Intercept.The digital...

A JCPA delegation recently visited the southern U.S. border during a three-day fact-finding mission. 

JCPA delegation bears witness on the border

BY PAUL KRAVITZ, MAHARAT RORI PICKER NEISS & KAREN SHERPublished October 10, 2019

When we bear witness to acts of injustice and inhumanity against our fellow human beings, we have a responsibility to tell their stories. When we bear witness to a system that criminalizes children, women and men fleeing violence, corruption and poverty,...

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