Maxwell Greenberg to discuss Jewish pioneer cemeteries at upcoming Shir Hadash program

Maxwell Greenberg will be the guest scholar at Shir Hadash Reconstructionist Community’s next Shabbat morning learning program at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 20, in the Arts & Education Building on the Jewish Community Center’s Staenberg Family Complex, 2 Millstone Campus Drive near Creve Coeur. He will discuss “Jewish Pioneer Cemeteries: Frontier Myths, Commemorative Landscapes, and Repairing Sacred Spaces on Stolen Land.”

Greenberg is the postdoctoral fellow in Jewish Studies at Washington University. He writes and teaches about race, religion and gender in the American West. He will explore how Jewish Americans remember and misremember Jewish history in the 19th century American West through the process of historical preservation.

According to Greenberg, “The myth of the Jewish pioneer, rooted in 19th-century narratives that celebrate the racial and gendered violence of U.S. westward expansion, distorts our memory of Jewish western history by failing to acknowledge Indigenous dispossession as a precondition to Jewish settlement. By naming Jewish immigrants as setters rather than pioneers, this research asks us to reconsider the collective myths we’ve inherited and invites meaningful reflection about how our memories—spoken, written, and situated–-might serve a process of historical repair (or teshuva).”

Shir Hadash celebrates Shabbat as a community in a variety of ways, including monthly Shabbat potluck dinners, Saturday morning services and Torah discussions, and monthly educational programs. For details, visit shirhadashstl.info or contact Carol Wolf Solomon at stlshirhadash@gmail.com.

Kirschner, Sue Lapp, Laura Newman, Diane Packman, Emilie Schaffer, Amy Stone, Karen Tabak, Lauri Teagan, Peggy Cohen Voss, Georgee Waldman and Gail Wechsler

Completing their term

The following board members completed their term with the NCJWSTL board: Dianna Fine, Melissa Forrester, Susan Katzman, Debbie Matson, Jane Tzinberg Rubin, Jennifer Scissors and Karen Silverman.

NCJWSTL award recipients

NCJWSTL honored the 2023 Section Awards recipients on April 19 at the Celebrating Women event, where Sheila Greenbaum received NCJWSTL’s Hannah G. Solomon Founder’s Award. View more photos from the event on page 23.

The 2023 Section Award Winners are:

• Sarah Beth Matt – Community Impact Award

• Alison Fox – Emerging Leader Award

• Dianna Fine & Wendy Flusser – Fritzi Lainoff Advocacy Award

• Michelle Brooks - Leadership Award

• Jennifer Deutsch – Volunteer Service Award

• Jake Hummel & Missouri ARL-CIO Community Partnership Award

Arts & Faith interfaith tours resume at St. Louis Art Museum

Arts & Faith St. Louis is resuming interfaith tours at the St. Louis Art Museum, which had been put on hiatus during the during the pandemic. Tours can be scheduled by emailing kbratkowski@thesheldon.org.

The tours are led by two volunteer docents of different faiths and have a maximum of 16 participants. Two visitor groups of diverse faiths are paired together for the customized tour. The tour demonstrates common elements of global faith traditions in art produced through the ages.

The tours were initiated by the St. Louis Art Museum in 2017 in collaboration with Arts & Faith St. Louis and the Interfaith Partnership of Greater St. Louis. In October 2019, SLAM docents and staff presented the interfaith tour program at the National Docent Symposium in Washington, D.C. as a model for other communities to create partnerships with community organizations.

The tours are available at any time during the museum’s public hours, Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. The museum is closed on Monday.

Kolot Choir will present free concert on May 16

Kolot, the St. Louis Jewish Women’s Choir, will present an informal Family and Friends Concert to conclude their season at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 16, in the May Chapel at Temple Israel, 1 Rabbi Alvan D. Rubin Dr. (Ladue Road at Spoede) in Creve Coeur. The concert is free and open to the community.

Kolot will perform songs from their diverse repertoire of Jewish music in English and Hebrew, as well as show tunes and standards from the great American songbook.

Kolot was founded in 2005 by member Jackie Gerson and currently features more than 20 singers ranging in age from mid-30s to 90 and representing all branches of Judaism. The choir is directed by music educator Betti Blumoff, a member of the St. Louis Circle of Jewish Music. Kolot performs at Jewish community events and presents concerts for local organizations and retirement centers.

For more information, contact Blumoff at bettiblumoff@gmail.com.