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

My dad, Howard Futterman, at left, shortly before he entered the U.S. Navy at the age of 18.

Letter from my Dad to his speaks movingly across the decades

Ellen Futterman, EditorPublished November 8, 2017

Last week, I got an unexpected and delightful surprise, just in time for Veteran’s Day.A cousin passed away last year, and his daughter had gotten around to cleaning out his things. In doing so, she had stumbled across a photo album from my aunt and...

Georg Elser (Christian Friedel) plants the bomb he hopes will kill Hitler, in ‘13 Minutes.’Photo: Bernd Schuller/Sony Pictures Classics

‘13 Minutes’ that failed to change history make taut thriller

By Cate Marquis, Special to the Jewish LightPublished August 16, 2017

We all know that attempts were made to assassinate Adolf Hitler in Germany late during World War II. But what if he had been assassinated in November 1939? Think how history would have changed, particularly for Jews.Such an assassination attempt actually...

Major Frank Friedman served in the Army Air Corps during World War II.

My Uncle Frank: A tribute to a local Jewish WWII hero

BY STEVEN M. FRIEDMANPublished June 1, 2017

The morning of June 11, 1943, U.S. forces launched an air offensive against Japanese forces occupying Kiska, one of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Japan had attacked a Naval weather station there a year earlier.B-24 and B-25 bombers and P-38 and P-40...

‘M.S. St. Louis’ vigil planned in support of refugees

Published June 1, 2017

Seventy eight years ago, the M.S. St. Louis set sail from Germany carrying 937 passengers, most of them Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution. Turned away from the Cuban, United States, and Canadian borders, the ship was forced to return...

The men and women featured in the upcoming book, ‘The Boys Of Brookdale.’Photo: Andrew Kerman

Local writer works to record veterans’ stories

By David Baugher, Special to the Jewish LightPublished June 1, 2017

An upcoming book is set to chronicle the lives of veterans who reside at the Brookdale Senior Living Center on Craig Road.“The Boys of Brookdale” will be an examination of World War II stories from 16 individuals who live in the Creve Coeur apartment...

Burghart Klaussner as Fritz Bauer in ‘The People vs. Fritz Bauer,’ which opens in St. Louis on Friday.

German thriller keys on real-life Eichmann hunter

By Cate Marquis, Special to the Jewish LightPublished September 7, 2016

“The People vs. Fritz Bauer” opens with a short video of the real Fritz Bauer, a kindly looking white-haired old man talking about how German children should be taught all of their country’s history, good and bad. “The People vs. Fritz Bauer”...

Cillian Murphy stars as parachutist Josef Gabcík in director Sean Ellis’ film ‘Anthropoid.’ Photo: James Lisle / Bleecker Street

‘Anthropoid’ falls flat as historical WWII thriller

BY CATE MARQUIS, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished August 11, 2016

“Anthropoid” sounds like the title of a science fiction movie but is in fact the title of a film about a secret World War II mission, code named “Operation Anthropoid,” to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking SS officer.Heydrich, nicknamed...

John Demjanjuk in Israels Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Demjanjuk was accused of concealing a past as a Nazi concentration camp guard. File photo: Flash 90

Genocide criminals faced justice in 2011

By Eric Mink, Special to the Jewish LightPublished January 4, 2012

It was a good year for genocide. Or, more precisely, 2011 was a good year for pursuing, prosecuting and punishing mass murderers, torturers, sadists, rapists and exterminators-and the ideologues, strategists and functionaries who enable the dirty work...

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