Sklar Brothers Bring The NSFW, Young Adults Dig It

This past Saturday night at a ballroom at the Sheraton in Clayton, comedy duo, the Sklar Brothers, unleashed their humor on the Young Professionals of the Jewish community.

The event, organized to celebrate the end of the 2010 Federation annual campaign, brought together around 300 young adults (and some not so young) to laugh at the unique tag-team style of the St. Louis natives.

The brothers, known for their work on HBO and elsewhere joked about everything from growing up thinking they were poor, to problems buying the story of the original "Karate Kid" and brought some refreshing vulgarity to a world of Jewish events often known for being rated PG.

Although the language was at times gratifyingly crude, the controversy from the evening came from a decidedly different place: the cost.

The cost of the event, $15, could only be paid once a minimum $52 contribution had been made to the Federation. That brings the cost for two to over $80. In fairness, the donation goes towards the Federation's support of basic social services, agencies, advocacy, and sexier things like Next Dor and Moishe House. Last year, the minimum donation was $100, pointed out the YPD staff person, and truly, for those of us to earn an income a dollar a week isn't really a lot to ask.

But what about all of the graduate students, new arrivals and unemployed young adults living here? Many of them aren't particularly situated here in St. Louis, have little affiliation with the city or the Federation, and tend to simply not have a lot of spare cash. For several friends, they found the required donation distasteful and a turnoff. They felt disenfranchised and saw the whole thing as a reassertion that Federation sees them only as the contents of their pocketbooks.

In my opinion, the whole issue comes down to one of communication, and might have been avoided by a slightly different marketing campaign. A casual perusal through the promotional materials will show that the impetus of the event was communicated in a way that led to a bit of confusion. Many people don't understand what the campaign is and so saying that the event celebrates its close didn't help to disambiguate. Instead, the materials could have pointed out that as a thank you to all of those who enabled Federation to continue its important work in the community with a minimum donation of $52, an event was being organized with famous comedians, candy, and an open bar for $15, which is not a bad deal. From there, communicating that it is not too late to take advantage of the event by making the minimum donation is relatively easy. That clarifies the purpose of the event, the reason for the minimum donation, and includes a call to action to inspire those stragglers to donate.

In the end, I was able, through some finagling (and a larger than minimum donation), to ensure that a friend of mine who couldn't afford it, but loves the Sklar brothers, was able to attend. The event was well produced and put together, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. It was certainly a success, but even from successes, one can draw lessons from the tensions along the way.
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Music, Social Activism, Balance, and Sushi

What do all these things have in common? They are all happening. Within the next week. In St. Louis. Read on for more.

Music - Tonight at The Gramophone, The Right Now are scheduled to tear down the house with a smashing CD release party. These guys bring some killer soul grooves so even though the show doesn't start till 10, you might wanna show up to get a spot. Bonus points for the smoke-free venue.

On Monday, a speaker will be covering how to manage stress and maintain balance and recognize behaviors that may prevent achieving that goal. The event is free, and will be taking place at the Next Dor house at 7 PM. More details here.

Thursday night is double stuffed, kicking off with Mark Hanis, Founder and President of the Genocide Intervention Network, who will be speaking about anti-genocide activism. This event, organized by the Young Professional's Division of JFedStL, will be taking place at the MO History museum at 7:30 PM. Genocide Intervention Network’s mission is to empower individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide. As a grandchild of four Holocaust survivors, Mark has a deep understanding of individual persecution and of hope and opportunity. The event is free. For more details, click here.

Also on Thursday night, Rabbi Zvi Schwartz will be hosting a free and kosher sushi dinner at the Next Dor house. Rabbi Schwartz will be letting people know about Israel programs post-college. The dinner starts at 8:30 pm. More details here

What are you getting into this weekend?
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What's Up This Week?

Ok, so Mardi Gras slowed our ability to get you the updates, we apologize.

Without further ado (although further adieu would make more cajun sense), here is what's going on.

Tonight, start off your night right with Yoga at Next Dor before heading out to the Broadway Oyster Bar to celebrate Fat Tuesday with Gumbohead and the Funky Butt Brass Band.

Tomorrow, KWUR Week kicks off at Washington University with cheap shows. Shows go through the weekend and span musical genres, so click the above link to see what's happening, and when.

Thursday night, Galactic is in town and gettin down at the Pageant. The afterparty will be at Halo, and rumor is that Galactic will be sitting in with the Dogtown Allstars.

Then, it's already Friday. Not just any Friday either, but a 3rd Friday, that means a big free meal. You should probably put that on the agenda. As if that wasn't enough, The Pinstripes bring their magical musical experience to St. Louis with a show at the Library in Soulard.

Saturday night, YPD throws down with its annual open bar bash. A good fun time is practically guaranteed, but you might want to think about arranging for a cab or carpool.

If you have any energy left after YPD's shindig, or just want to extend the night, Lubriphonic will probably do the trick at the Gramophone.

Sunday, be sure to pick up your favorite filling for Hamantaschen making at Next Dor.

Did you calendar have any St. Lou Jew in it? It does now. Bam.
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YPD Kickoff Event: The Red Carpet Event

Once a year comes the event known as 'The YPD Campaign Kickoff Event'. This stodgy name belies what is usually the biggest event of the year for young Yids in St. Louis. So while synagogues struggle to attract young adults and organizations face aging membership, why does this kickoff kick ass?

In two words: Open Bar. In a few more, this is the one night a year that post-college Jewish kids know their peers will be out in force. Everybody shows up. People you haven't seen since last year show up. And it's fun. Because for one night, everyone forgets that they hate driving somewhere new and meeting new people. They forget that the community is too small to let people loosen up too much. And for one night, it really works.

Last year, we met a lot of great people, many of whom are now good friends. This year, we hope there are still a few more people to meet.

The event takes place at Randall Gallery (999 N. 13th Street) next Saturday night, February 20th. For more details click here and to take the dive and register, click here.

If we haven't already, hope to meet you there. We'll be the ones hovering around the bar when we aren't on the dancefloor and avoiding the photographers.
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Upcoming Events!

PechaKucha Night A Tu Bishvat Seder, YPD Happy hour, an interesting new exhibit at the History Museum and so much more are going down, so let the St. Lou Jew be your guide for a good time.

Starting from the most imminent event, Wednesday night, Jan. 27th, from 7pm-8:30pm, Science on Tap will be going down at the Schlafly Bottleworks, Crown Room, in Maplewood at 7260 Southwest Ave. and will feature Professor William Wallace who will speak on: Michelangelo: Artist, Aristocrat and Engineer.

Michelangelo is universally recognized as one of the greatest artists of all time. Professor Wallace, an internationally recognized expert on Michelangelo, will speak about the challenges and excitement of writing a modern biography of the famous Renaissance artist. Dr. Wallace offers a substantially new view of Michelangelo, who was not only a great sculptor, painter, architect, engineer and poet, but also an aristocrat who believed in the ancient and noble origins of his family. Much of his new biography is written from the words of Michelangelo and his contemporaries, giving insight into his ability to befriend and influence others--even saying "no" to popes and kings--as well as the culture and society of Renaissance Florence and Rome.

Carpools from the Next Dor house at 6:45 PM

If you'd rather be speaking Hebrew than learning about Michaelangelo, come check out Shulchan Ivrit at the Next Dor house around 7:30 for an informal way to listen to and speak the Mother Tongue of the Tribe.

Thursday night, St. Louis hosts its first PechaKucha night. What is PechaKucha? PechaKucha Nights are informal and fun gatherings where creative people get together and share their ideas, works, thoughts, holiday snaps - just about anything really, in the PechaKucha 20x20 format. (PechaKucha 20x20 is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images forward automatically and you talk along to the images.) For more backstory, hit up the site For more info about the STL PechaKucha night, go here

This Saturday, a Tu Bishvat Seder will be held at Next Dor. Tu Bishvat is like the Jewish Arbor day, and has taken on a lot of Jewish environmental associations. This will not be a seder in the traditional sense, so much as an opportunity to enjoy really good natural foods and discuss Jewish environmental values. To find out more and to RSVP, click here.

Next Wednesday, YPD (the Young Professionals Division of the Federation) is hosting a happy hour at Boogaloo, a great bar and restaurant in Webster Groves. If you haven't sat at the bar swings, you really should. RSVP here.

History Museum is hosting a new exhibit called Race: Are we all so different? The exhibit has been gaining accolades for its deconstruction of ideas of race and should be "the talk of the town" according to a Post-Dispatch article. For more info, click here.

Did we miss something?

Email us at thestloujew at gmail dot com.
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Living Jews: Margo Schwartz, Leader of the Next Gen

Despite what you may think of Malcolm Gladwell's ideas in The Tipping Point, we all probably have met a Connector. Connectors "link us up with the world ... people with a special gift for bringing the world together."

Margo Schwartz has this gift.

As former head of the Young Professionals Division of the STL Jewish Federation, Margo is no stranger to the needs and strengths of the St. Louis Jewish community.

She is in many ways responsible for the connections that led to the creation of the Moishe House in St. Louis, as well as the much of YPD's recent successes.

So how did this young Yid get to where she is today?

"Jewish Community work sounded like a dirty work to me," explained Margo of her early twenties. "But I moved to St. Louis, not knowing anyone, without any connections, and I turned to the Federation to help me network."

It just so happened that JFed offered her a job which, despite a lack of interest, she took. Six months in, she was bored out of her mind and, never lacking in assertiveness, she made her feelings known. As luck would have it, the then-YPD staff person was leaving, and JFed saw in Margo the energy that has made her so successful.

Margo believes that her success was based on the partnership she was able to form the the then-president of YPD. In fact, she believes that a lay leader in close coordination with a staff-person provides the ideal model for collaboration.   "Lay leaders can burn out, move, or simply move on to other things, but when you have staff people who are paid to work on these programs, it is more likely to survive."

Also, as a transplant, Margo wanted to make sure that events were things in which she, herself, would want to participate.

It was in this position that Margo's natural abilities were able to thrive as she began meeting people in the community and cultivating them into leaders.

A staunch defender of the Federation, Margo makes it clear that despite what some do or don't like about the way that things are run, JFed is a crucial part of the Jewish community.

So what does she actually do? "My job is to go to young leaders with the 'it' factor and ask 'what do you want to make happen, and how can we get it there'."

Now that you understand a bit about Margo, you can probably appreciate why we felt it was so important to sit down with her and ask a few questions about the current state of the Jewish community in St. Louis and future directions.

Margo was clear in stating, "I want leaders to be thinking about a succession plan. . . how to transfer knowledge and experience. I want them to think about who they are investing in."

"The question is," explains Margo, "what is your living legacy?"

"A lot of people who give so generously to the Federation do it because they want to be able to leave a fingerprint, a positive impact on the community, which is a wonderful thing."

A big issue according to Margo, is having faith in the next generation of Jewish leadership and building partnerships.

Where does Margo see all of this taking her, as the next generation of Jewish leadership?
"Do I want to be Barry [Rosenberg, VP of JFed STL] someday? I think so, but he makes some hard decisions I wouldn't want to make."

Some of those hard decisions come from the fact that the community is changing. A fact which Margo understands.

"Any Jewish professional who is reading the research knows that we need to take events out of the institutions, and if they haven't read it, they shouldn't come back to work until they have."
Luckily, for all of you Jewish professionals out there, you can read up on it, here.

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YPD Campaign Kick Off Recap and Reflections

The Young Professional's Division's big event is generally seen as the once-a-year place to be, even for those more 'ish' than Jewish. This year was no let down, as the Tribe came out strong and looking good.

A quick recap of the different pieces of the event; The Karaoke was kind of a joke. I mean, this little screen was hooked into Dell laptop speakers, and it was right by the entrance... did anyone sing? At all?

The open bar, on the other hand, was a hotbed of activity all night. The themed food and drinks seemed to go over well, and, while I didn't have any time to eat it myself, I heard the tempura was fantastic. The dance floor was empty early, but after a Tango demonstration by Tal Stein, the man who holds down Atomic Cowboy's Thursday night Swing dancing sessions, people started moving in, and eventually, booty shaking ensued.

After going 'around the world with YPD' on Saturday night, my own journey to become a part of the post-college Jewish community in St. Louis came full circle.

A year ago, I walked into YPD's kick-off knowing a handful of people, with my only claim to fame being that I had connected YPD with 30 cases of beer, thanks to my former position with a beer company.

Saturday night was a wholly different experience. To me, the evidence that we have started to succeed in building this young Yid community was present in the sheer number of people that I knew at the event, and who now know each other.

As the night wore on, the sake bombs took effect, and the dance party took off. One friend remarked that you could, "totally tell who the Moishe House kids were, we were the ones dancing and having a great time."

While it was certainly true that we held down the dance floor, we weren't the only ones having a good time.

Actually, there were so many new people to try to meet, it was a bit overwhelming.

In fact, I may have to reassess my claim that there aren't any young Jews in St. Louis. There clearly are, the question now is, what do we have to do to ensure that I don't have to wait another whole year to try to meet them.

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Updates In Time For Shabbat: 14,000 page views and Zeda's Beat Box

That's right, early this morning, we hit our 14,000th page view! With about 1,300 visits each month, and a listing among St. Louis' top 30 blogs, things are racing ahead.

For those of you looking to get your quota of Yiddishkeit for the weekend, start off with Zeda's Beat Box tonight, kicking off around 10 PM at Ursa's on Washington University's South 40. Let ZBB get you hyped, connect with the bloggers of The St. Lou Jew, and join us afterwards for drinks on the loop.

Saturday is the biggest night of the young Yid social calendar as YPD's kickoff at the Coronado goes down. Show up looking good, leave feeling good...after all, the price of admission gets you access to an open bar. Read More......

YPD's Kickoff, the largest event of the year for post-college Yids

Haven't made plans for Saturday yet? Made lame plans that you need an excuse to get out of? YPD's kickoff is this weekend!

The Young Professionals Division of the Federation knows how to throw a party.

Last year, I had the opportunity to check it out (full disclosure, I got Miller to donate a boat load of beer)and ended up being impressed by the attendance.

In fact, I don't think I've been to a better attended social event with as many Yids since. Which is why I'm pretty excited for the party this year.

From Jewishinstlouis.org:

“YPD Takes You Around the World” to launch its 2009 Jewish Federation Campaign with an international Jewish journey on Saturday, January 31, 8 to 11 p.m., at the Coronado Ballroom, 3701 Lindell. Parking is $3 and available at the Scottish Rite Lot (Spring @ Lindell).

The evening will feature food stations of assorted “global” appetizers, desserts and drinks. There will be karaoke, belly dancers, Latin dancers and Israeli dancers. In addition, the event will showcase where Federation dollars go to help in St. Louis and around the world.

Admission is $36 online and $40 at the door. There will be takeaway gifts and a chance to win great raffle prizes.

Click HERE to register.
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