May is "Mental Health Month" and the goal of many organizations in St. Louis and around the nation is to raise awareness of trauma and the impact it can have on the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of children, families, and communities. Mental...

To help people cope during this time of social distancing, Jan Nykin, a licensed clinical social worker, suggests that people could “say a morning prayer such as Modeh Ani or the Shema or words of prayer from your heart.”Nykin and Sylvia Nissenboim,...

These days, Rabbi James Stone Goodman spends a whole lot of time checking in with folks. “I make myself carry my 50-pound phone around and I call more people every day to see how they are doing,” said Goodman, who is affiliated with Central Reform...

In the groups that I lead for Shalvah on Addiction and No Shande on mental health and mental illness, we are familiar with the subject of suicide. Whenever it comes up it tends to take over the meeting. The meeting is basically a teaching and a sharing,...

With warm brown eyes and a playful sense of humor, Kevin Dietl was a caring and compassionate person who preferred to greet people with a bear hug over a handshake. As a promising medical student at A.T. Still University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine...

Sitting around the table in the Central Reform Congregation library earlier this month, the meeting of No Shanda, a mental health group led by Rabbis Susan Talve and James Goodman, was about to start. Several of the participants chatted with one another....

We practice mental health in a specific way on the first Sunday of every month at Central Reform Congregation, with my wife, Rabbi Susan Talve, and myself presiding. We practice mental health this way for a variety of good reasons:As a response to a felt...

“We are in the midst of a mental health crisis, and we are trying to deal with it in a proactive, integrated, eyes-open response,” Rabbi James Stone Goodman writesI was conversing with Maimonides’ father, Maimon ben Yosef, who introduced me, when...

Time to nominate your Unsung Hero!This week, the Jewish Light begins to once again accept nominations for our Unsung Heroes, who will be honored in our OY! Magazine and at a special reception the evening of Monday, May 22 at the Jewish Community Center’s...

Earlier this month, I struck up a conversation at party with a 20-something woman who is Jewish. When she learned I was editor of the Light, she asked if I knew of a young woman in the local Jewish community named Samantha who had recently taken her own...