Unsung Heroes

Ram Lakshmanan: Hindu’s untiring interfaith work earns him big love in Jewish spaces

Ellen Futterman, Editor-in-Chief

Published November 30, 2024

So genuinely engaged, enthusiastic and supportive is Ram Lakshmanan about the Jewish Community Relations Council’s interfaith work, he’s affectionately known as Rabbi Ram.

“He has earned the nickname through his unwavering presence within Jewish communal spaces, as well as his ability to graciously hold space for others across any lines of difference,” Scott Shafrin, executive director of the JCRC, said of Lakshmanan, who is originally from India and is an active member of the Hindu Temple of St. Louis and the interfaith community.

Lakshmanan serves as a core member of the Newmark Institute’s Interfaith Breakfast Dialogue group and has been very involved with the planning of the Aurelia Konrad Community Seder, Shafrin said.

“For the past three years, (Lakshmanan) has been part of the interfaith head table to lead the seder, bringing his wisdom, kindness and occasional joke to this annual event,” Shafrin said.

So who is Ram Lakshmanan, and what drives him to be so connected to the St. Louis Jewish community? First, a little background.

Lakshmanan, one of seven children, grew up in southern India and attended Loyola College in his hometown of Chennai before attending the Indian Institutes of Management in Bangalore, where he received his first master’s degree in business administration. Yes, that’s right, first.

In 1990, after marrying Rekha Krishnamurti, who was studying to be a medical doctor, the couple moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, for several years, where Lakshmanan worked as the head of marketing for the world’s largest rayon fiber manufacturing group. Eventually, the Lakshmanans moved to the United States so Rekha could complete her medical degree while Ram, on a full scholarship, earned a second MBA from Notre Dame University in South Bend, Ind. He graduated magna cum laude. His oldest brother was already living in South Bend with his wife, Rekha’s older sister.

“And that’s how I came to meet Rekha,” said Lakshmanan, explaining that their siblings had introduced them years before in India. “It was like a Walmart deal: Buy one, get one free. Just kidding.”

Did we mention Lakshmanan likes to crack goofy jokes and is the king of puns? Think of him as an Indian Henny Youngman. He’d be perfect on the Borscht Belt circuit.

Rekha and Ram Lakshmanan came to St. Louis in 1997. She went to work at Mercy Hospital (then St. John’s Mercy), becoming a critical care doctor, and he went to work for Citibank.

Rekha Lakshmanan passed away in 2014 at the age of 45 from ovarian cancer. The couple had no children, a decision they made jointly years earlier.

“I still live in the same home because I have so many happy memories of us there,” said Lakshmanan, mentioning that Mercy Hospital memorialized his beloved wife, who had become head of the critical care unit, by dedicating a classroom to her as well an annual award in her honor.

“He has carried a torch and love for her that endures,” said Temple Emanuel Rabbi Elizabeth Hersh, who, along with her husband, became friendly with the Lakshmanans more than 20 years ago when they all worked out at the same gym.

Hersh described Lakshmanan as a “really good guy who is all about building relationships.”

“He is about kindness, connection and community,” she said. “He’s a host of humanity who makes everyone at his proverbial table feel welcomed.”

Lakshmanan is also, by all accounts, the first one to step up and help in most any situation.

Jack Sisk, who has been a Hindu since age 14 (originally, he was Presbyterian), can attest to that. Sisk, board president and cabinet member at the Interfaith Partnership of Greater St. Louis, has known Lakshmanan for roughly 16 years. They met at the Hindu Temple, where they volunteer as tour guides.

Sisk explained how the Interfaith Partnership rotates the location of its annual dinner among the various religious faiths that participate. In 2021, the Hindu Temple offered its space to host, with Sisk serving as committee chair of the event.

“Ram, who was not on the board of the temple, offered to serve as our event planner,” Sisk said. “And he did a phenomenal job. We were just coming out of COVID, and we didn’t know how it would all go. And it came off as well as we could hope, and that was largely because of what Ram did.”

For Lakshmanan, who owns and manages a banking consultant business, organization is one of his superpowers. The JCRC’s Shafrin remembers how this past year Lakshmanan was the first non-staff person to arrive to the annual Seder and immediately began pitching in.

“I was like, Ram, you know you don’t work here, you can sit down and relax,” Shafrin said. “You’re one of the leaders of the program, sitting at the head table, you don’t have to be a welcomer. And he just said, ‘This is what I do.’ ”

Rori Picker Neiss, former executive director of the JCRC, had first enlisted Lakshmanan to help with the seder in 2020.

“He participated when we did the virtual seder during COVID,” she said. “He was so much a part of that. We started calling on him for so many things because he was always so willing and so engaged. He really holds this balance of taking this work seriously while also having fun along the way, so I thought he would be the perfect addition to the head table.”

Rabbi Ram says his participation in the annual interfaith seder and St. Louis’ interfaith community has been a blessing that brings him joy.

“It has introduced me to a whole variety of amazing people whom otherwise I would never have had any reason to meet,” he said. “What a privilege that is.”

After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Lakshmanan quickly reached out to his St. Louis Jewish friends including Shafrin and Picker Neiss to express his sadness and outrage. He said he wanted them to know that his prayers were with them.

“He absolutely reached out immediately and has been somebody who continues to reach out, depending on articles or updates about the situation,” Picker Neiss said. “He’s been checking up on me and numerous people in the Jewish community, continuing to express his friendship and support.”

Lakshmanan said it all boils down to doing his duty as a human being. Otherwise, he has no reason to exist on this planet.

“All of us have a right to live peacefully, no matter our race, no matter our faith, he said.

“We are all God’s creations, all of us. So when a small sliver of people say I’m going to destroy — fill in the blanks with a country or a tradition — because we don’t believe you have a right to exist, that’s just evil. It doesn’t get you anything. War doesn’t get you anything.”

Ram Lakshmanan

Age: 62

Home: Chesterfield

Family: Widower

Fun fact: Ram is an accomplished singer and plays the Mridangam, a percussion instrument of southern India. He also is fluent in eight languages.

About the Contributor

Ellen Futterman, Editor-in-Chief

A native of Westbury, New York, Ellen Futterman broke into the world of big city journalism as a general assignment reporter for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in the latter part of the 20th century. Deciding that Tinsel Town was not exciting enough for her, she moved on to that hub of glamour and sophistication, Belleville, Ill., where she became a feature writer, columnist and food editor for the Belleville News-Democrat. A year later the St. Louis Post-Dispatch scooped her up, neither guessing at the full range of her talents, nor the extent of her shoe collection. She went on to work at the Post-Dispatch for 25 years, during which time she covered hard news, education, features, investigative projects, profiles, sports, entertainment, fashion, interiors, business, travel and movies. She won numerous major local and national awards for her reporting on “Women Who Kill” and on a four-part series about teen-age pregnancy, ‘Children Having Children.'” Among her many jobs at the newspaper, Ellen was a columnist for three years, Arts and Entertainment Editor, Critic-at-large and Daily Features (Everyday) Editor. She invented two sections from scratch, one of which recently morphed from Get Out, begun in 1995, to GO. In January of 2009, Ellen joined the St. Louis Jewish Light as its editor, where she is responsible for overseeing editorial operations, including managing both staff members and freelancers. Under her tutelage, the Light has won 16 Rockower Awards — considered the Jewish Pulitzer’s — including two personally for Excellence in Commentary for her weekly News & Schmooze column. She also is the communications content editor for the Arts and Education Council of St. Louis. Ellen and her husband, Jeff Burkett, a middle school principal, live in Olivette and have three children. Ellen can be reached at 314-743-3669 or at [email protected].