Your letters to the editor of the St. Louis Jewish Light (April 3 issue)
STLRCA asks for community’s support As we near the celebration of Passover, we thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve you and for helping our community thrive. The St. Louis Rabbinical and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Pikuach Nefesh’: Saving lives and the case for access to abortion as health...
Rabbi Susan Talve is the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congregation and is the founder of the Ashrei Foundation, which works to heal and repair Missouri through justice and equity. Laws that ban and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Choose life: Jewish law forbids abortion except to save the mother
Rabbi Ze’ev Smason Dear Rabbi, My husband and I just found out we’re expecting. This pregnancy hasn’t come at the best time; we’re facing difficult financial pressures, and it just doesn’t seem like...
View ArticleClik here to view.
World leaders, journalists should not blindly trust information from Hamas
Jenny Wolkowitz is a former board chair of the St. Louis Jewish Light. In his State of the Union last month, President Joe Biden referenced Hamas’s “Gaza Health Ministry” casualty numbers, saying that...
View ArticleJewish Jokes: Did you hear the one about the kippah wearing bee?
I was recently asked by the mother of an old friend, “Why I do a “Jewish Joke of the Day.” I responded and she thought I should share my answer. I believe as Jews, we love to laugh. I believe Jews love...
View ArticleThis week’s Torah portion is infamous for being gross and unrelatable
This week’s Torah portion is infamous for being perhaps the grossest and least relatable portion in the entire Torah. And it’s one of my very favorites. Tazria focuses on a skin disease known as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Detective’s Revelation: Words come alive and lead him on new case
Rabbi James Stone Goodman He was accustomed to the close reading of texts, but on that day he sat with eyes that had never seen before and watched words on the page before him grow legs and dance, legs...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Retracing my family’s painful history at the Paris Shoah Memorial
Among all the other reasons one goes to Paris on holiday, I had one primary mission during my long-planned bucket-list trip there last month with my daughter. I was compelled to visit the Wall of Names...
View ArticleUnlocking Futures: Why Missouri’s Clean Slate initiative offers hope
Think of the worst thing you ever did. Then imagine being punished for it for the rest of your life. Half a million Missourians have criminal records stemming from nonviolent, nonsexual offenses,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Understanding the ‘goat demon’ verse in the Torah
Mark Shook is Rabbi Emeritus at Congregation Temple Israel This week’s parasha is acharei mot, and is found in chapters 16-18 of Leviticus – Sefer Vayikra. Following upon the sudden death of Aaron’s...
View ArticleAntisemites? Anti-Zionists? A more precise term for pro-Palestinian...
Like many Jews, the attack of Oct. 7 and the war on Gaza have left me shocked and heartbroken. The lack of compassion and support, combined with the intensity and one-sidedness of the reactions, took...
View ArticleBetrayal by a college fraternity reveals Torah’s wisdom on true service
Though it has been many decades since I was an incoming freshman in college, I remember well many of the experiences of that year as well as the three others that followed. One was the experience of...
View ArticleA Rabbi, a Nun, and the ensuring a Jewish Burial
Fourteen years ago, I received an unusual phone call. The call was from a nun. Sister Mary called to tell me that Dale, a Jewish man who was a student of mine, had suddenly passed away at the age of...
View ArticleClergy state support for Wesley Bell
As rabbis and cantors from across the spectrum of Jewish denominations, serving St. Louis-area congregations and Jewish communities, we are unified in our personal private capacities to publicly...
View ArticleA different take on Bush and Bell
In March, many local rabbis and Jewish leaders endorsed Wesley Bell for Congress, claiming he is an ally of the Jewish community. We as Progressive Jews of St. Louis (ProJoSTL) find this sentiment...
View ArticleCasualty figures deserve closer scrutiny
In response to the JNS article “After faulting ‘fog of war’ for cloudy Hamas casualty numbers, UN’s new stats still don’t appear to add up” (published online May 14) there is yet another reason to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Jewish problem with saying a guilty verdict is ‘rigged’
(JTA) — When the guilty verdicts in former President Donald Trump’s recent New York trial were handed down, Trump and his supporters — including some in my own Orthodox community — rejected the decree,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shabbat Naso on heroin
Rabbi James Stone Goodman It was Shabbat Naso, the longest parashah in the Torah, read in proximity to Shavuot, the great wedding celebrating the enduring wisdom given to us on a mountain top. We had...
View ArticleSupport Jewish Family Services workers seeking to unionize
“For 150 years, JFS has provided children, adults and seniors in the St. Louis region with the supports they need to lead vibrant, healthy lives” (— “About us” page on the Jewish Family Services...
View ArticleDifferent takes on candidates in primary
The St. Louis Jewish community is facing a crisis. Our congressional representative, Cori Bush, has repeatedly attacked our values and refused to even meet with us. Her smears of both Israel and the...
View Article