Jewish Federation of St Louis

Each year, the Jewish Federation of St. Louis works with our volunteer and professional community leadership to assess the needs of our community and establish strategic plans to sustain our vibrant Jewish ecosystem. Through our partnerships with thousands of donors, we then raise funds to meet those needs. Our volunteers then lead a community investment process to get those funds working to fulfill our mission through agencies, congregations, organizations, and programs. Our team then evaluates those investments based on the impact they are having here in St. Louis, in Israel and wherever there is a need. This community impact and philanthropy work has been done since our inception in 1901. In 2022, Community Impact supported 55 local partners, 23 Israel and oversees partners, and 5 national partners.

The Federation founded the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum in 1995 and nurtured it for over 25 years before the Museum was established as an independent Museum on November 16, 2022. The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Holocaust, educating about its causes and illustrating how what happened during this tragic period relates to our lives today. In its first 100 days, the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum welcomed over 4,500 total visitors, and engaged with 1,600 students from around the region.

Jewish Federation of St. Louis provides a variety of Jewish engagement, Jewish education, and operational support services for individual and organizations in the St. Louis Jewish community. The mission of our work is to build and strengthen community by connecting people to information, resources, services, and each other. We do this through a variety of programs and services designed to support and engage adult learners, families with young children, schools and congregations, young adults, those traveling to Israel, developing community leaders, seniors aging in place, and much more. Jewish Federation of St. Louis supports the work of our Jewish community through Millstone Leadership Initiatives by engaging new leaders and welcoming new professional staff, providing training and individualized coaching, and strengthening connections among both professionals and lay leaders of Jewish organizations, schools, and congregations. JProStL, an initiative of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, is a professional association bringing together staff who work at organizations, congregations, and day schools across the spectrum of the St. Louis Jewish community. JProStL provides professional development, sharing of resources, and networking events throughout the year. In 2022, 600 professionals were working at local Jewish organizations; almost half of those professionals engaged with JProStL. Eighty-nine percent of participants in JProStL report gaining or deepening new skills or knowledge to enhance their work. Israel Center offers consulting services to help identify meaningful trips or missions that best meet the needs and interests of community members. Israel Center also offers teens and young adults funding through need-based and incentive-based scholarships and grants to ease the cost of a quality Israel experiences, connects adults and families with travel opportunities offered through local synagogues and organizations, and trips in partnership with The Jewish Federations of North America. Israel Center also organizes a variety of exclusive experiences for special cohorts. The PJ Library is an international Jewish family engagement program designed to strengthen the identities of Jewish families and their relationship to the Jewish community. The PJ Library offers free, high-quality Jewish books and music each month to over 100,000 children between birth and 12 years old in more than 175 communities in the United States, Canada and Israel. PJ Library's vision is to inspire family engagement in Jewish life, stronger Jewish identity and deeper connections to Jewish community. The PJ Library initiative is building a stronger Jewish people, one book at a time. PJ Library aims to help families explore the timeless core values of Judaism and to transmit these values to the next generation - creating a Jewish literacy for this generation and laying a strong foundation for the ones to come. PJ Library impacts families beyond the books they receive at home by connecting families to the Jewish community here in St. Louis, and enriching local Jewish programming. In 2022, more than 2,000 families participated in the St. Louis PJ Library program. The St. Louis Federation Community Security Program seeks to understand, manage, and reduce risk to the St. Louis Jewish Community. In 2022, the Community Security Program conducted over 85 security training courses to over 350 people and supported 605 organizations with physical and cyber security requests. The Community Security program covers the St. Louis Metropolitan area as well as Jefferson City, Columbia, Lake of the Ozarks, Springfield and Joplin. Out of state areas covered include: Western KY (Paducah) and Southern IL (Carbondale, Makanda, Benton, Belleville, Edwardsville).