We’ll endeavor to put up information in a broader context because we know that very little news is born at the moment it comes across our wire.— Will McAvoy, HBO’s “The Newsroom,” Episode 3, “The 112th Congress.”Andrew Rehfeld will join...
Last week, Jewish Federation’s 2012-13 Planning & Allocations Committee recommendations were presented and approved by the Board. (See story on page one.) These allocations were guided by Federation’s strategic plan. Crafted in 2010 with extensive...
BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
• Published June 13, 2012
Irwin B. “Hefty” Hoffman, retired former president and co-owner of the Gale-Sobel clothing manufacturing firm and former chairman of the Jewish Federation Annual Campaign in the 1970s, died Thursday, June 7, 2012. He was 94 and had been a resident...
By David Baugher, Special to the Jewish Light
• Published June 13, 2012
Like many 11 year olds, Yelli Smason is happy, very sociable and loves animals. She is deeply spiritual as well — a fact her father, as a rabbi, is proud to relate.“On Thursday evening, when we’d talk about the upcoming Sabbath we’d say Shabbos...
SOFIA, Bulgaria -- The stories – some months or years in the making -- started trickling in last year. Young successful families were showing up desperate. As Bulgaria’s program director for the American Joint Distribution Committee, Julia Dandalova...
NEW YORK – If the Talmud were written today, would it look like Facebook? First, the rabbis of the Mishnaic period post a Jewish legal rule. Then, Talmudic sages weigh in with their comments, all pithy and lacking punctuation. Almost immediately, the...
WARSAW -- Fifteen years ago, Pawel Bramson was a skinhead shouting anti-Semitic and racist slogans during soccer matches. He hated Jews and blacks – simply, he says, because you need someone to blame for what’s wrong in the world. These days he...
BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
• Published May 9, 2012
The New Jewish Theatre closes out its 2011-2012 season with “Jacob and Jack,” acclaimed playwright James Sherman’s delightfully funny and nostalgic look at the decline of American Yiddish theater and the desperation of down-on-their luck actors....
By Robert A. Cohn, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
• Published May 2, 2012
One recently published book that came across my desk is local radio maven Frank Absher’s “KMOX: The Voice of St. Louis” (Arcadia Publishing, Images of America Series, $21.99). Absher himself was part of KMOX history, hosting such shows as “At...
“Jacob and Jack,” the final production of the New Jewish Theatre’s 2011-2012 season, combines elements of contemporary and Yiddish theater in a classic marital farce complicated by dual role-playing. It will be presented from May 3-20 in the Wool...
Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel’s Education Committee is presenting a lecture by Professor Hillel J. Kieval on the roots of Conservative Judaism on May 11. Kieval is Gloria M. Goldstein Professor of Jewish History and Thought in Washington University’s...
WASHINGTON -- For decades, the American Jewish community has debated the advisability, constitutionality and necessity of government aid to Jewish (and other faiths’) parochial schools. But with the United States still experiencing tough economic challenges,...
