Jewish Immigration Monument in Forest Park

Story Submitted by Ed McGue
A monument commemorating the 300th anniversary of the first Jewish settlement in North America can be found in Forest Park at the corner of Kingshighway and Lindell Boulevard. The Jewish Immigration Monument consists of a stainless steel flagpole resting on a sculptured stone base. On the base, great freedoms inspired by [...]

Torah Study Lesson

Just How Directly Responsible Am I For Cleaning Up The Evil Around Me?
By: Michele Long
In today’s Torah Study we were discussing how we don’t have to go looking for the evil around us when Suzanne brought up the question: “What level of evil are we responsible for?” She sited a man who went to prison [...]

David T. Portman: Part III

Part III. Story was originally written by David Portman in 1979 and submitted in 2008 by David’s daughter-in-law, Carol Portman.
There were activities such as drama groups, social clubs, ballroom dancing, schools to teach reading, writing, English and athletics, but most interesting of all to me was a group known as the Alliance Military Cadets which [...]

David T. Portman: Part II

Part II. Story was originally written by David Portman in 1979 and submitted in 2008 by David’s daughter-in-law, Carol Portman.
Westward Ho! We moved to 1217 North 15th Street, a tenement house which housed about eight to ten families, some facing 15th Street, others facing the alley. Our whole family ate and slept in the three [...]

David T. Portman: Part I

Part I. Story was originally written by David Portman in 1979 and submitted by David’s daughter-in-law, Carol Portman.
I am David Portman, 80 years of age. I arrived in St. Louis about 1905. A year prior, I landed at Ellis Island as an immigrant from Russia, together with my family members, consisting of my mother, an [...]

Louis Raskas Of St. Louis

By: Dr. Yitzchok Levine
(This article first appeared in The Jewish Press, February 1, 2007. Posted here by permission of the author)
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s America was called the treifa medina by many religious Jews living in Eastern Europe. This was based on the fact that the religious observance of many of the [...]

An Irish Jew?

I have had a rather unique upbringing.  My mother was raised Catholic, was married and divorced, then converted to Judaism, and finally decided she wanted to have children.  She was artificially inseminated to have me, her now 22 year old daughter.  It has been just my mom and I in my immediate family for my [...]