Tomcat Jstl

If you are having problems with JSTL (java standard tag library) not working in Tomcat, check the following:

If your variables are being displayed instead of the values. e.g. <c:out value="${VAR}" /> gives the html ${var} then check your web.xml - the DTD version must be at least 2.4. If this still fails, try adding isELIgnored="false" to your <$@ page ... %> declaration.

See this thread

To retain backwards compatibility with web applications. EL is disabled in certain cases. ... ...
Try putting this web directive on your page:
<%@ page isELIgnored="false"%>

Check your web.xml file - if the DTD is less than version 2.4 and you haven't specified EL handling in web.xml or the page directive, EL is disabled by default.
Your web.xml file should start with this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd" version="2.4">