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

‘Little Rose’

Political drama with romantic edge set in Communist Poland

By Cate Marquis, Special to the Jewish LightPublished June 6, 2012

The political, historic drama “Little Rose” is one of the many excellent films in this year’s St. Louis Jewish Film Festival. “Little Rose,” in Polish and French with English subtitles, is also one of several Polish (or part ly Polish) films...

President Obama presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Israeli President Shimon Peres in the East Room of the White House in Washington, June 13, 2012.

President Barack Obama’s remarks at Medal of Freedom ceremony

Published May 30, 2012

THE WHITE HOUSE  Office of the Press Secretary REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM CEREMONY East Room 3:45 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Everybody, please have a seat, and welcome to the White...

Daniel Levine, fourth-generation owner of Manhattans J. Levine Books and Judaica, says that while online booksellers such as Amazon hurt his business a decade ago, now hes been able to use the Web to boost his sales.

Jewish bookstores writing new chapters in competition with Internet

By Ben Sales, JTAPublished May 21, 2012

NEW YORK -- The books are in the back at J. Levine Books and Judaica. Before finding the volumes of Jewish titles at the midtown Manhattan store, customers encounter a rotating display of mezuzahs on the left, followed by shelves of kiddush cups and a...

Sam Weissman, then an assistant professor of chemistry, and Jonathan Townsen examine magnetic resonance data at Washington U. around 1962.

Washington U’s Manhattan Project braintrust

BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief EmeritusPublished May 16, 2012

Samtuel “Sam” Isaac Weissman, Ph.D., who died at 94 in 2007, was one of the six founders of the modern chemistry department at Washington University. All six were veterans of the Manhattan Project, which led to the assembling of the atomic bombs used...

The lower part of the Schindler factory next to a demolished 19th-century building.

Bankruptcy dispute, deterioration marring plans for memorial at Schindler factory site

By Eva Munk, JTAPublished April 25, 2012

BRNENEC, Czech Republic—The windows are smashed, the doors stand agape and the keys in the rusting padlocks have not been turned for years. Still, despite the plaster clinging to the crumbling bricks in leprous sheets, the front looks salvageable.The...

Ivan Ceresnjes of the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem at a Jewish tombstone that can been seen in the Roma village built on top of part of the Jewish cemetery in Nis.

Neglect, new construction squeezing historic Serbian Jewish cemetery

By Ruth Ellen Gruber, JTAPublished April 20, 2012

NIS, Serbia—In some alternate universe, it might be a Jewish dream: a Jewish cemetery with a restaurant and discount department store on its doorstep. But in this old Serbian town about 125 miles south of the capital of Belgrade, it’s more like a...

Jürgen Stroop, played by Gary Wayne Barker (left), is a Nazi war criminal who shares a cell with Kazimierz Moczarski, played by J. Samuel Davis, for nine months.

Knowing the enemy within

By Gerry Kowarsky, Special to the Jewish LightPublished April 18, 2012

What would you do if you were imprisoned with a Nazi war criminal, someone who you tried to assassinate during the war? Kazimierz Moczarski found himself in this exact position. As an officer in the Polish resistance, Moczarski avoided capture during...

Young Jews entering the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camp in Poland during the 2010 March of Living.

Marking 25 years, March of the Living uniting survivors with liberators in Poland

By Ben Sales, JTAPublished April 16, 2012

NEW YORK—Bernhard Storch grew up in a Jewish family in Silesia, near Poland’s border with Germany. Like many Polish Jews, he moved quickly from town to town as the Nazis advanced in 1939, trying to avoid capture. Before long he was caught and sent...

Eva Vavrecka contemplating the horrific living conditions that her mother and grandparents endured in the forest to survive World War II.

Monument honors helpers of Czech Jewish family that hid in woods from Nazis

By Bruce Konviser, JTAPublished April 10, 2012

TRSICE, Czech Republic -- Nearly 70 years after a Czech Jewish family sought refuge from the Nazis by retreating into a nearby forest and relying on non-Jewish locals for help, an American high school teacher has helped erect a permanent monument to their...

Shaare Emeth plans Mitzvah Day volunteer opportunities

Published April 4, 2012

Congregation Shaare Emeth is holding its 14th annual Mitzvah Day on Sunday, May 6.  Check-in begins at 8:30 a.m. followed by Mitzvah Day Kick off Ceremony at 9:15 a.m.  Under a theme of “One Mitzvah Leads to Another,” participants will have the...

Mack Daddyz

Reeling in the years

By Ellen Futterman, EditorPublished March 28, 2012

Mark Gubernik, Jesse Kavadlo and Steve Chervitz have taken the old adage “you’re never too old to rock and roll” and set it in action. Approaching middle-age, married and all dads, the three recently formed a rock band and will be playing their...

Demjanjuk to be buried in the United States

JTAPublished March 22, 2012

Convicted Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk will be buried near his home in suburban Cleveland. A German funeral home reportedly said the body of Demjanjuk, who died on March 17, will travel to Cleveland next week. The U.S. consulate in Munich confirmed...

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