Some heroes don’t wear capes

Every year, you–our readers–inspire me. Through your boundless generosity, we–together–lift up countless lives at home and abroad. This month, we say thank you for all the good you did this past year. We’ll introduce you to just a few of the people whose lives you changed for the better in 2022.

We’re also launching a new feature called “The Schmooze.” In each issue of 2023, we’ll share a fun list of questions that we’re posing to some of our favorite Jewish celebrities, stars who have influenced many facets of our zeitgeist.

To kick things off this month, we showcase actress, gameshow host, and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik–one of the most proudly Jewish stars we know.

What I love most about my job is getting to tell the stories of these people, individuals from all walks of Jewish life who are entertaining, engaging, and–above all–inspiring. With that, I present to you a list of those in our community who inspired me–and many of you–this past year.

Volodymyr Zelensky

At the outbreak of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the former actor turned president of Ukraine proved his grit and greatness when he declined safe passage out of Ukraine, quipping that he “needs ammunition, not a ride.” Zelenksy has continued to show grace and courage under fire ever since. He’s been called a modern-day Moses or Maccabee. Whoever he is compared to, Zelensky has inspired the world.

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker

Last January, while leading a livestreamed Shabbat service at his former synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, he was taken hostage along with three of his congregants. Long admired for his welcoming disposition to people across faiths, Cytron-Walker was hailed as a hero that day. After an 11-hour standoff, he threw a chair at the assailant to distract him, allowing himself and the other hostages to escape. Since the incident, he has taken on a new pulpit in North Carolina and has become a Special Advisor on Security to the ADL.

Jessica Meir

As a little girl, she dreamed of going to the moon. Decades later, in 2019, NASA selected Meir to serve as flight engineer on her first mission to the international Space Station, where she conducted the first three all-women spacewalks with crewmate Christina Koch. The daughter of an Israeli-Jewish father, Meir has expressed her love for Judaism and Israel, even tweeting a photo of Tel Aviv from space. Her lifelong dream of being the first woman to land on the moon might soon be realized: NASA has named her to the shortlist of astronauts to travel on the next Artemis mission to the lunar surface.

Lily Cohen

The Northwestern junior penned an op-ed about her love of Judaism in her student newspaper. She wrote that she refused to surrender her expressions of Jewish pride–even in a climate of rising antisemitism. Following its publication last fall, vandals turned Cohen’s op-ed into a sign painted with the words “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and prominently displayed it on campus. Cohen’s op-ed proved more powerful in retrospect. “…I will still don my Hebrew necklace,” she wrote. “I will not relinquish my pride in my Jewish identity just because someone doesn’t like all that my identity entails.”

Heroes of the Highland Park July 4th parade

I couldn’t narrow down the list of heroes from that dreadful day. After all, there was one man who perpetrated an act of hate at the Highland Park parade, but there were countless others who responded with infinite acts of love. Among them, strangers who delivered a little boy–whose parents died shielding him–to safety; first responders and physicians who tended to the injured; the Highland Park mayor, who showed strength in leading her wounded town; the local proprietors who offered refuge to those fleeing the crime scene; the school bus driver who went door to door to check on his students. I could go on.

And that’s what inspires me most–that the list of people who are making our world a better place goes on and on and on.