Stan Shanker can barely knock on the front door before he’s greeted with excited yelps of “Uncle Stan! Uncle Stan!” They come from the four children of recent immigrants Ali and Israa, who range in age from 11 to 3. The older ones like to high-five...

Jay Umansky can still recall an elderly Russian army veteran he helped many years ago. The man was in his late 80s and spoke little English but needed a divorce from a younger woman he’d married who apparently just used him to obtain American residency. “Just...

About four years ago, Lenore Pepper and Susan Balk were at a board meeting for Camp Sabra, a Jewish overnight camp, when Pepper recalls getting “on the subject of things that were hateful.”“I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness, I have got a story, too,’...

After Stan Shanker, 72, heard Rabbi James Bennett deliver a sermon about the plight of Syrian refugees, the Shaare Emeth congregant knew he wanted to get involved in helping them. He eventually contacted the International Institute of St. Louis, where...

The St. Louis Jewish Light is seeking nominations for the paper’s 2017 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 Performing Arts Center. The nomination...

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...

Harvey Ferdman of Chesterfield is surprisingly calm for a man dealing with officialdom’s glacial response to what everyone agrees is a serious, perhaps imminent threat: a fire under a landfill that is adjacent to a radioactive waste site. He sighs;...

Ann Frank, a volunteer at Project Backpack, will ask others on her trips to collect toiletries from their hotel rooms so she can donate them to the organization’s clients. “She brings in bag and bags of toiletries,” said Judy Pearlstone, executive...

Shirley Mosinger’s bookshelves are filled with impressive volumes, from Irving Howe’s “World of Our Fathers” to a book of Chinese poetry her father gave to her when she was a child.Books and learning were cherished in her Jewish household when...

Her motto is “To Live Life Joyfully.” Recently, her students surprised her by showing up at one of her fitness classes wearing T-shirts that read, “We Are Living Joyfully.”The “Joy” in “Joyfully” also is the first name of Joy Millner,...

If Marvel created a superhero for volunteering, she’d probably look like Susan K. Goldberg. A self-described professional volunteer, Goldberg learned at a young age from her parents, Nancy and the late Jerome “Jerry” Kalishman, the importance of...

When Philip Deitch was in junior high school, his father came home from work one night after meeting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He asked Philip and his sister what they would do to fight racial injustice.So, in the eighth grade, Philip Deitch founded...