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

Changing her focus: Animal photographer turns to capturing faces of older St. Louis women

Changing her focus: Animal photographer turns to capturing faces of older St. Louis women

ELLEN FUTTERMAN, Editor-in-ChiefPublished August 11, 2021

Editor's note: This is a more complete story of a version that ran online earlier this month. One familiar refrain we women of a certain age hear is that we’re invisible. It’s not that anyone actually says that out loud, but we feel it from...

Max & Louie Productions brings Tiny Beautiful Things to the stage July 29-Aug. 8. Photo: Dan Donovan

Lived advice from the heart animates ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’

ELLEN FUTTERMAN, Editor-in-ChiefPublished July 25, 2021

Sydnie Grosberg Ronga wasn’t supposed to be directing “Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar” because the play, presented by Max & Louie Productions, was supposed to be performed last summer. Of course, we know that...

Gateway Arch photo by Brittany Moore/Pexels

The land can serve as the stuff of great art

NANCY KRANZBERG, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished July 16, 2021

Walking through nature’s work of art in parks all over during these crazy times, I started thinking about artists and how they interpret the beauty and grandeur of it all in their own ways. Landscape art is the most obvious, but land art or earthworks...

The Factory is 52,000-square-foot music venue set to open next month in Chesterfield.

Staenberg’s Factory manufactures striking concert setting

ELLEN FUTTERMAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEFPublished June 17, 2021

Steve Schankman admits he was apprehensive at first when his buddy, philanthropist and developer Michael Staenberg, said he wanted to build a music venue in Chesterfield.  Staenberg figured that Schankman, whose production company has booked and...

Hannah Wilke with Ponder-r-rosa 4, 1975 Photograph © 2021 Scharlatt Family, Hannah Wilke Collection & Archive, Los Angeles / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

New exhibition explores work by Jewish artist Hannah Wilke

ELLEN FUTTERMAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEFPublished June 13, 2021

Earlier this month, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation opened “Hannah Wilke: Art for Life’s Sake," the first major presentation of this unconventional Jewish artist’s work in more than 10 years. Wilke, who died in 1993 at the age of 52 from lymphoma,...

Gateway Arch photo by Brittany Moore/Pexels

Retiring leaders of local museums, arts groups deserve community’s thanks

NANCY KRANZBERG, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished June 7, 2021

I’m usually giving a warm, welcoming hello to art directors, curators and others who are coming to St. Louis to head our art institutions. I’m always telling them how culturally rich St. Louis is and how I know they will be happy here. Today, I’m...

Cry
Choreography: Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Photo: Paul Kolnik

2021 Summer Arts Guide

ELLEN FUTTERMAN and MIKE SHERWINPublished June 4, 2021
While this summer might not quite be a complete return to how things were pre-COVID — many arts organizations are maintaining social distancing precautions and performing outdoors or waiting until fall to open — there’s no shortage of fun arts and entertainment activities for all of us to enjoy this summer.
Love it was Not

Jewish Film Festival: Documentary tells strange tale of survival in Auschwitz

CATE MARQUIS, Special to the Jewish LightPublished June 4, 2021

“Love It Was Not” is a Shoah survivor’s story about a young woman who was at Auschwitz, but it is also a strange tale about obsession, love and survival. The documentary opens with an old photo. We see a picture of a healthy, pretty, young woman...

Photo of artist Joan Levinson

St. Louis artist explores intersection of literary and visual arts

ELLEN FUTTERMAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEFPublished June 4, 2021

Joan Levinson’s current show at the Kranzberg Arts Foundation’s High Low Gallery in Grand Center, “Language Arts” is about the connection between literary and visual arts. Her works display certain words – “prologue,” “insistence” and...

The Anne O’C. Albrecht Nature Playscape in Forest Park opens June 2. Photo: forestparkforever.org

Coming in June: a new Forest Park playscape, Shakespeare Fest, STL food tours

ELLEN FUTTERMAN, Editor-in-ChiefPublished May 26, 2021

School is over, or almost over. Camp hasn’t begun. And already you and the kids are close to getting on each other’s last nerve. What’s a parent to do? The good news is that there’s a lot more to do these days compared to a year ago, when most...

Jeremy Schonfeld premiered his rock opera Iron & Coal at the Strathmore in North Bethesda, Md.

St. Louis native mines relationship with Holocaust survivor father for rock opera

Eric Berger, Associate EditorPublished April 20, 2021

The day Dr. Gustav Schonfeld, a Holocaust survivor and Washington University physician, died in 2011, his son Jeremy finished mastering his album, which aimed to tell both his father and his stories. The studio album, “Iron & Coal,”...

Israeli artist Dana Levy brought rescue birds to north St. Louis and shot video of them at and around abandoned buildings for her new exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum.

This Israeli artist found inspiration in north St. Louis for new exhibit

BY ERIC BERGER, ASSOCIATE EDITORPublished March 4, 2021

Before artist Dana Levy came to St. Louis, she didn’t think the city would provide an “extreme” enough setting for her work. But when the Israeli-born artist traveled in 2019 to north St. Louis, she had never seen a place like it, she recalled.If...

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