Shomer Negiah Panties: Maya Escobar Is At It Again

From the same artist who brought you Berlin's Eruv and Acciones Plasticas now comes Shomer Negiah Panties!

That's right, The St. Lou Jew's favorite Guatemalan-Jewish artist, Maya Escobar, has just releases her Shomer Negiah Panties on Etsy.

Shomer Negiah literally means to guard touch, and refers to adherence of orthodox Jews to a ban on physical contact with members of the opposite sex aside from one's spouse and family.



Escobar's juxtaposition of this stringent code with ladies' undergarments is interesting for a few reasons. She sees this project as something that allows Shomer Negiah women to have a bit of fun with their observance, allowing them to feel sexy without doing it immodestly. One comment on Escobar's site read, "I can see all of the SN girls giving these to each other as an inside joke".

As a special double St. Louis bonus, another St. Lou Jew favorite, Randy Vines was able to play a role in helping print the panties.

For more on Maya check out www.mayaescobar.com
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St. Louis Renewal: Views From The Vanguard Regional Roundtable

If you didn't have a chance to read our initial coverage of the UrbanNexus event here in town, Next American City has posted some of the responses from the Vanguard Regional Roundtable.



The conversation, "on retaining and attractive creative individuals," was captured in the following questions and responses, of which I have selected what I believe to be the most interesting and relevant:

What is St. Louis doing right?

St. Louis has an open door atmosphere for young people. The cost of living is cheap, the cost of real estate is relatively cheap and the old civic establishment is tiring. Getting involved is very easy here. The establishment really is too lazy to lock the door, and young people can accomplish a lot of things in politics, art and other areas if they try. Making connections to like-minded people is easy here, because of the smaller size of the urban core. St. Louis is wonderfully unpretentious, so anything can and does go here. While older generations are slow to embrace change, young people here aren’t as caught up in identity, image and material life as they are in other cities. You don’t have to impress people here to get a seat at the table—you just have to have a good idea or be a hard worker. Hell, you can build your own table if none of the existing ones suit you. That’s why I stay—this city is accessible and its culture is far more open to change than the naysayers think. A city that has come so far down in its stature has nothing to lose, and everything to gain—that’s liberating!

What is our biggest impediment in progress? Where doe St. Louis fall short?

segregation/racism: I think it is disgusting how as you drive through our city you can literally see the red lines that were drawn on real estate maps back in the ‘70s. This block-to-block culture has created tension when you have mansions, a barbed wire fence and then a street of tenement bldgs. It has also devastated our city’s tax-base which feeds into the poor public schools and other public services. This creates the vicious cycle of poverty and the tension/misunderstandings that come from this. I am disgusted by the inability that many of our citizens—both black and white—who don’t know how to interact respectfully with folks from different racial/ethnic backgrounds.

It is very hard to break into St Louis. It took us, my wife and I, almost two years to get to know people from St Louis despite trying very hard. A lot of people that come to the Universities have the same feeling. Most say something like this: “You start talking to someone from St Louis and the first thing they ask you is where did you go to High School. The conversation stops when you answer.” I have no idea why this is the case, but I have heard a lot of people say this.

In a related point; I have also heard from many women who are married to people working at WashU, UMSL and SLU that they are bored, that they cannot find anything to do here, that their only social interaction is with other university people. These women are professionals, artists, activists… but they have a hard time getting settled here. The problem seems to be, one the one hand, the university community tend to be closed in itself, and on the other, that the job possibilities for women are somehow precarious. I know of a lot of academic couples that have a very hard time adjusting in St Louis for this reason.

There are thousands of undergrads living in St Louis that do not know the city. When they finish, they leave. Undergrads are a lost resource. They are very flexible since they are starting to live on their own and don’t know yet where they want to go. Many of them are also rich and able to invest money in the city. Engaging them early may make them stay.

I want to highlight that last point. Engaging undergrad, grad students, and young adults in St. Louis seems like the low hanging fruit. They are already here, they tend to have more access to resources, and they bring can creativity and passion into the city.

To read all of the responses, click here.
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Living Jews Part 2: Randy and Jeff Vines

Part 2 in our ongoing coverage of young Yids doing something fresh in St. Louis

The Vines twins know a thing about or two about St. Louis, in fact, you could say they are obsessed with the city.

Most people see St. Louis as a generic Midwestern city. Jeff and Randy Vines feel just the opposite.

We like St. Louis because of its authenticity and its no-frills attitude. It is gritty, yet charming. It is old, yet still maintains a progressive edge. A high-quality urban lifestyle is very possible to achieve in St. Louis, and its under-the-radar image only adds to its mystique. We are the type of people who are usually rooting for the underdog.

Judging from the fact that they have been written up in the New York Times as well as a number of local St. Louis newspapers, these guys must be doing something right.

So...what exactly is it that Randy and Jeff do?

The duo are founders of STL-Style, a clothing company that puts St. Louis urban themes and inside jokes on display.

Below are a few personal favorites:





It was just after work when I caught the pair in their studio deep in Soulard (from which they are currently in the process of moving).


It is apparent the the two have a deep love and respect for the City of St. Louis by the maps and references to all of the little neighborhoods that adorn the walls of their studio.

I'm interested how they came to have a level of knowledge and passion for the city that borders on obsession.

Jeff explains that he and Randy have a long history of becoming fascinated with something. . . and subsequently learning as much as they can about it.

"In a city as old and storied as this, it would be impossible to know everything," says Randy.

"It started when we were little kids with VW Beetles," he explained, and then it moved to other cars, then helicopters and airplanes, to the extent that they could look up and identify pretty much anything flying overhead or passing you by in the street instantaneously.

The fascination with St. Louis came when our father took us to his old neighborhood on St. Louis's North Side, which at one time was a thriving, harmonious neighborhood with a sizeable Jewish community. He would point out where all the shops and restaurants were, and how he and his cousins played in the streets and took streetcars all over the city.

They fell in love with the heritage the second their eyes were opened to it, and learned all they could about the history of the city.

As we got older, we found that the entire city was built to have these amazing, self-sufficient neighborhoods, full of vibrancy and density and diversity. These are the qualities that make up an interesting urban place, and it was all here in St. Louis. The more we explored the city, the more we discovered that though it isn't the same place it was in the 1940s and '50s, there are still certain neighborhoods that embody these characteristics, and we are really lucky to have so many vestiges of this history left.

"The old Jewish neighborhood was called the Tel Aviv of the West, there were 30 synagogues in Mid-town."

"Every corner is like a museum," I'm told. And the boys really believe that this history is worth preserving and celebrating.

"Our rich history is our greatest competitive edge. Old cities can always build new to keep up with emerging trends, but younger cities can never replicate the authentic urban fabric that abounds all over STL."

Preservation and celebration of St. Louis are themes that come through loud and clear in their designs. Combining images of St. Louis architecture and themes with more contemporary urban style, Jeff and Randy have created some really interesting visuals that say loud and clear, "I'm from the 'Lou and I'm proud."

And pride is a big part of the equation, according to the Vines bros. When posing the question, how can St. Louis attract and keep creative and intelligent young people, a big part of the answer is creating a vibrant urban community that people want to be a part of and see as a destination.

We of course are not naive enough to think that there is any way that St. Louis-- or any city for that matter-- will ever return to its former glory. It's just a completely different world now. What we would like to see is St. Louis become the kind of city we know it can be. There is a lot of work to be done. What we seek to accomplish with our clothing line is rather simple-- we just want to bolster hometown pride. We want to take the elements that we think make the city cool and print them on wearables so other St. Louisans near and far can extoll the coolness of the city in a hip and affectionate way. We think the city is worth much more than just the cliche t-shirts you find at Union Station or the airport. We are doing our part to show St. Louis off in a different light.

The fuel for such a community already exists in the heritage, the infrastructure, and the people who want to see St. Louis return to its former vitality.

Randy and Jeff Vines are definitely two living Jews providing a spark.

So buy a shirt, or a thong, and wear your pride on your sleave, or your chest.

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