Aisha Sultan | Post-Dispatch
Columnist and features writer
Sam Neudecker slid the dollar bills in his daughter’s Barbie pink cash register. His neighbors looked over dozens of glass vases set on a folding table in their front yard on their tree-lined, Webster Groves street.
His wife, Megan, with help from their 6-year-old daughter, had made dozens of mini floral arrangements with zinnias, cosmos and lavender from their yard for this flower stand. A homemade sign propped in front of the stand noted that the proceeds would be going to the , a nonprofit working to feed the starving people in Gaza. A green, white, black and red Palestinian flag displayed the words “Free Gaza.†In smaller print, at the bottom of the white poster board, it said: Stop the Genocide.
The Neudecker family felt compelled to do something to help relief efforts in Gaza.
The neighbors selected a glass mug packed with colorful blooms.
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Megan Neudecker, 37, doesn’t personally know any Palestinian Americans.
She wasn’t even very aware of the nearly two-year-long war until five or so months ago.
“Should I have known?†she asked, rhetorically. “Yes, but I didn’t know.â€
That changed after she read a post her cousin, Nicholas Heller, wrote on Medium. He titled it “.†He describes the unbearable contrast he lives with every night.
“The images on my phone — grieving families weeping over the lifeless bodies of their children. Toddlers pulled from rubble, screaming. Dust-covered, wide-eyed, trembling in hospital beds. Starving people with hollow faces. Bodies wrapped in bloodied cloth.
None of it resembles my reality.
Here, in the safety of my home, it’s warm and quiet. My two children sleep soundly in their bunk beds, bathed in the soft glow of a nightlight.â€
He wrestles with the fact that “my tax dollars — the same ones cast in the shadow of Never Again — aren’t just complicit. They’re funding this genocide.†And, then he asks how are the besieged and bombed Palestinians children any different than his own?
When Megan read that, she started crying. For hours.
The Neudecker family in Webster Groves raised $2,500 from a flower stand for the starving people in Gaza.Â
She began following Palestinians’ accounts on Instagram to see what was happening on the ground — stories she rarely saw on mainstream American media. What she saw horrified her and shook her to her core: A man-made famine, a military starving a civilian population of nearly 2 million people.
As of mid-July, Israel’s military has killed more than 17,000 children and injured 33,000 in Gaza during this latest conflict, according to UNICEF. The scale of child fatalities in Gaza mark it as one of the deadliest conflicts for children in modern history.
Megan’s feelings reflect a broader shift in American public opinion about the war.
Only 32% of Americans now approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza, down from a high of around 50% shortly after the war began in 2023. Disapproval stands at 60%, according to a Gallup poll from July.
Megan Neudecker felt compelled to do something, anything. She was cutting flowers from her garden when she wondered if they could sell them and donate the proceeds.
“It came from a feeling of helplessness,†she said. The first flower stand sale in July featured a dozen small vases, and the family raised $400. Her neighbors and others in Webster Groves told her that if she did it again, they wanted to donate vases and their own flowers. The second sale brought in $1,000 and filled 35 vases. Their third and final sale took place during a scorching heat wave in mid-August. They raised an additional $1,100.
“I really don’t have a personal connection to the war,†she said. “I just saw the pictures of what’s happening, and it struck me that there’s no difference between me and my kids and the people there and their kids except where we were born. I had to do something other than cry.â€
At first she wondered how the Jewish community would respond to the sale and her sign. Several of them donated and bought flowers.
A few passerbys booed, and someone left a nasty comment on her Facebook post.
It was important for her to use the word genocide in their sign.
“I’m not trying to be divisive,†she said. “But that’s what is happening.â€
She hopes to continue raising awareness even though they’ve held their last sale for the season.
The most beautiful flowers are now dying.
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The guests at Rahaf’s birthday party must deal with the cognitive dissonance of knowing their tax dollars are funding the death and injuries of so many innocents, while trying to create a moment of joy for one of its victims.Â
After disbanding from the Girls Scouts, a local mom creates a new, independent scouting organization.Â
Lila Steinbach knows her opinion is in the minority among the community in which she was raised.
It was fascinating to see results of a faculty vote at a university embroiled in controversy about its student protests about the war in Gaza and a subsequent police crackdown
Students at colleges around the country are protesting the war in Gaza, but only a handful — including Washington University — have made national headlines for militaristic crackdowns and arrests.
This holy month of self-imposed fasting for Muslims is happening against the backdrop of state-imposed starvation.
The Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri sent an email and said members could not raise money that represents “partisan politics†and must “stay neutral.â€
The U.S. State Department said earlier this week that about 500 to 600 American citizens are in Gaza, a couple from Fairview Heights is among them.Â
