Celebrated young comedian Alex Edelman was born into an Orthodox Jewish home in Boston and began performing stand-up at the age of 15. In 2014, he won the Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Festival, propelling him to a successful career on-stage and as a comedy writer. Edelman has never strayed from his Jewish roots, launching his show “Just for Us” in 2022 which told the story of his encounter with a group of white supremacists in Queens. “There are very few happy racists, I would imagine,” he remarked in an interview with PBS. “At least I haven't been exposed to it online. Like, you know, ‘The sun is shining. It's a perfect day. I hate Mexicans.’ That’s not going to be a social media post you see.” (Photo: Youtube screenshot / Comedy Central)

Atlanta-born Alfred Uhry is one of the most storied playwrights and screenwriters in the US today, having won an Academy Award, two Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize. The author of the “Atlanta” trilogy of plays, which includes 1987’s “Driving Miss Daisy,” Uhry’s latest stage offering, a revival of his 1998 musical “Parade,” tells the story of Leo Frank, an American Jew falsely convicted of rape by a court in Georgia in 1913 who was then brutally lynched two years later. Frank’s story is “set to what was then an astonishing score by a 20-something newcomer and which, 25 years later, comes across as not only astonishing but pretty much perfectly wrought,” the New York Stage Review wrote of the musical’s current outing. (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

The composer of “Mandy,” “Can’t Smile Without You,” and “Copacabana” is still going strong at the age of 78 and is currently enjoying a successful residency in Las Vegas that has just been extended for another year. A singer who has always worn his Jewish identity with pride, 2022 was an important year for Manilow, whose musical “Harmony,” jointly written with his partner Bruce Sussman, was staged in New York by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. “Harmony” tells the story of the Comedian Harmonists, a performing troupe of Jews and Gentiles who combined close harmonies and stage antics in Germany during the 1920s and ‘30s as Nazi legislation banned Jewish performers from the country’s stages. “They were very inventive, so inventive that they were the first people to do the kind of harmonies we hear now,” Manilow explained in an interview. “And then all their records, all their music, all their movies, it was destroyed.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

Born into a Jewish home in Boston, actor Ben Foster has played leading roles in hit movies like “Alpha Dog,” “X-Men” and “The Punisher.” In 2022, he starred in the HBO movie “The Survivor,” which tells the story of Harry Haft – a Polish Jewish boxer who survived incarceration in the Auschwitz concentration camp by engaging in competitive bouts with fellow prisoners. The harrowing scenes in the film set during the Holocaust are shot in black and white, while Foster lost 60 pounds of weight as preparation for his role as Haft. “Working with the Shoah Foundation, I listened to hundreds of hours of testimonies and was lent the opportunity to sit and saturate in the voices of the survivors,” Foster told the Hollywood Reporter. In another interview with Variety, Foster opened up about the impact of the role on his own psyche. “It’s strange having dreams of a concentration camp I was never in,” he said. “I was having Harry’s nightmares, I don’t know how else to say it.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

The head coach of the Auburn Tigers college basketball team, Boston native Bruce Pearl carries the Hebrew name “Mordechai,” in honor of the uncle of Queen Esther from the story of Purim. In March 2022, nearly a month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pearl invoked the survival of the Jewish people in Persia that is celebrated on Purim to back a fellow coach’s call for donations to Ukraine each time a team scores a three-pointer. “We say ‘never again,’” Pearl told an interviewer. “I was born in 1960, fifteen years after they opened up the gates, and they saw six million Jews were murdered and three million more people… So I’m all in. Help the Ukrainian people survive that.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

American librettist and lyricist Bruce Sussman has collaborated with numerous composers, the best-known being singer Barry Manilow. The Jackson Heights, Queens native collaborated with Manilow on the musical “Harmony”, staged in New York by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. “Harmony” tells the story of the Comedian Harmonists, a performing troupe of Jews and Gentiles who combined close harmonies and stage antics in Germany during the 1920s and ‘30s as Nazi legislation banned Jewish performers from the country’s stages. “This show is about ‘Harmony’ in the broadest sense of the word,” Sussman observed in an interview. “And one of the ways these guys found harmony was by finding the ability to successfully collaborate with each other. That’s something that Barry and I can relate to very strongly.” (Photo: Twitter user photo)

The first black baby to be born at a segregated, all-white hospital in Leeds, Alabama, Charles Barkley went on to enjoy a glowing career as a professional basketball player in the NBA. Now working as one of the more familiar basketball pundits on television, Barkley weighed in on the 2022 controversy involving Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving, who promoted an antisemitic documentary about Black-Jewish relations on social media. “You gonna insult me, you have the right, but I have the right to say, ‘You can’t take my $40 million and insult my religion,’” Barkley declared, as he criticized the league for not suspending Irving. “I think the NBA, they made a mistake. We’ve suspended people and fined people who have made homophobic slurs. And that was the right thing to do.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

Alexa grew up in Plano, Texas and studied at the University of Tel Aviv in Israel. She moved back to North Texas to be close to her family and ran an insurance agency with her stepmom's father. In 2022, she appeared on the hit Netflix series “Love is Blind”, getting married to fellow contestant Brennon Lemieux in a ceremony that saw the groom breaking a glass beneath his feet in accordance with Jewish tradition. (Photo: Netflix / Ser Baffo)

Social media influencer Lizzy Savetsky describes herself on her Instagram feed as a “Mom of 3 in NYC and a “proud Jew and Zionist.” She often posts about her Jewish faith, sharing a Yiddish word of the week and explaining Jewish traditions. She also showcases her daughter’s “Torah Corner.” “My spiritual connection has grown exponentially,” she said in an interview. “I didn’t see God in such a loving way when I was so dark. God’s love is so profound. I reframed my whole relationship to God.” In 2022, Savetsky became the first woman to be cast in the reboot of the “Real Housewives of New York City”. (She left the program in November after extensive antisemitic harassment.) Savetsky also helms a matchmaking series on Instagram titled “Bashert by Lizzy,” where she organizes speed dates for Jewish singles. (Photo: Instagram)

NBA icon Kanter was born in Switzerland to Turkish parents. He moved to the US as a teenager and was picked up by the Utah Jazz in the 2011 draft. Off the court, Kanter has established himself as a noted human rights activist, highlighting abuses in Turkey, China, and other authoritarian states. In November 2021, Kanter became a US citizen, adding the word “Freedom” to his name to celebrate his new status. Earlier this year, he launched a basketball camp for Muslim, Jewish and Christian children in Jerusalem, a project he said he had “long dreamed of.” “In every place we went, the people were so warm and friendly to me,” he recalled. Pledging to continue his activist and philanthropic work, which includes educating Muslims about the Holocaust, Kanter believes in the promise of America. “Here, people should feel blessed. You’ve got freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of press,” he has said. (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

One of Britain’s best-known dramatic performers whose titles include “A Room With A View,” “The King’s Speech” and the “Harry Potter” movie series, Helena Bonham Carter turned her talents in 2022 to the story of British Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton. In the forthcoming film “One Life,” which depicts Winton’s efforts in rescuing 600 Jewish children from the clutches of the Nazis, Bonham Carter plays Winton’s German-Jewish mother, Babi Winton. For Bonham Carter, the story carries echoes of her own life, as her maternal grandfather helped thousands of French Jews escape the Holocaust, while her British paternal grandmother campaigned against antisemitism as a volunteer air-raid warden and helped Jews from across Europe seek refuge in Britain. The title of the film borrows from the Talmud’s dictum that “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

In April 2022, Colombian singer Maluma, whose real name is Juan Luis Londoño, dedicated his concert in Tel Aviv to the victims of “violence” and “war” following a spate of terrorist attacks in Israel during the previous three weeks. “I don’t like to talk about politics. I don’t like to talk about aggression. Never. That’s not my thing. But, what I am sure of, is that love is the answer,” he told the crowd from the stage at the packed Menorah Mivtahim Arena. The occasion marked Malum’s third concert in Israel. “Of course, it always gives me great joy to come to Israel because first, women are beautiful. The women in Israel are the most beautiful that my eyes have seen,” he told an interviewer. “Second, because of the energy. I love the energy in Israel.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has made no secret of his respect for the Jewish faith and his determination to oppose all expressions of antisemitism. As the High Holidays descended in 2021, Abdul-Jabbar posted a video on social media wishing his Jewish friends “g’mar chatimah tovah” in honor of Yom Kippur – which he described as “the holiest of Jewish holidays, because it asks believers to atone for their sins and seek repentance.” More recently, Abdul-Jabbar was among several basketball greats who condemned Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving for his promotion of an antisemitic documentary. “The problem of antisemitism is much bigger than Irving or Ye (Kanye West),” Abdul-Jabbar wrote. “They are merely the unwitting spokespersons for the right-wing political movement that is blatantly taking over the Republican Party.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

Arguably the best-known documentary filmmaker in the US whose series on the Civil War won a host of awards, in 2022 Ken Burns turned to the thorny subject of the American response to the Nazi Holocaust. The result is the three-episode series “The US and the Holocaust,” which examines the US decision to restrict Jewish immigration as Hitler consolidated power in Germany as well as the reaction of ordinary Americans to revelations about concentration camps. According to Burns, by “examining events leading up to and during the Holocaust with fresh eyes, this film dispels the competing myths that Americans either were ignorant of what was happening to Jews in Europe, or that they merely looked on with callous indifference.” The reality was “much more nuanced and complicated, and the challenges that the American people confronted raise questions that remain essential to our society today,” Burns argued. (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

The former wife of hip hop star Kanye “Ye” West, celebrity icon Kim Kardashian found herself dragged into a controversy over antisemitism in 2022 with her estranged ex-husband’s antisemitic outbursts. After West revived a range of antisemitic tropes about Jewish money and power and threatened to go “death con 3 on Jewish people”, Kardashian joined other celebrity influencers in rejecting his words. “Hate speech is never OK or excusable,” Kardashian tweeted. “I stand together with the Jewish community and call on the terrible violence and hateful rhetoric towards them to come to an immediate end.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

Natan Levy, the world’s only Israeli fighter competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), has spent 2022 speaking out against antisemitism and urging Jews to learn martial arts to effectively defend themselves from antisemitic attacks. In an extensive podcast interview in August, Levy also talked about his work assisting Holocaust survivors, calling on the world’s governments to provide more funds, especially for those survivors living beneath the poverty line. He explained that thinking about what Holocaust survivors had to endure during World War II put his own career into perspective, so that before stepping into the cage, he told himself, “fight as if you had an opportunity to fight for them.” Additionally, he encouraged Jewish listeners to be “proud of who you are. Never be ashamed of who and what you are. It’s a dangerous world out there, please learn self-defense and don’t let anybody tell you what you can and cannot do.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

Noa Kirel is an Israeli singer, actress, and television host. She won the MTV Europe Music Awards for the best Israeli act between 2017 and 2021. As a result, in 2022 she was selected to represent Israel at next year’s Eurovision song contest. “With a decision from my heart, I'm putting everything to the side and going into this with complete faith,” she said of the honor. “I have always felt proud to represent this country.” Kirel’s first name was Noya at birth, but after being diagnosed with a serious kidney illness when she was three months old, a rabbi suggested to her parents to alter her name to Noa, so she would be able to move ('Noa' also means movement in Hebrew) as she grew. The rabbi also predicted that she would become a dancer. (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

The 88-year-old rock ‘n’ roller, who back in the 1950s was second only to Elvis Presley in terms of status, is still performing venerable hits like “Ain’t That A Shame” and “Long Tall Sally.” These days, Boone is also a political activist, and the cause of Israel is one that is close to his heart. In a widely-shared video in 2022, Boone explained how his “Zionist convictions” had affected his life. He told the story of how he had written the words to the theme song of the classic movie “Exodus” and recounted his experience of performing a show for Israeli soldiers at the height of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Requesting that Boone perform his hit “Speedy Gonzalez,” Boone demurred, singing the “Exodus” song instead. “I told their commander of my conviction that God was restoring the land of Israel to his people,” he said. A year later, he continued, he recounted the story to then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who told Boone, “you sang a prophecy.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

Yeshiva University’s star basketball player Ryan Turell made history in 2022 when he gave up his final year of college after being selected for the NBA draft. “My full intention is to play professional basketball next year,” Turell, who hopes to be the NBA’s first Orthodox Jewish basketball player, told an ESPN interviewer. “I want to get into as many NBA gyms as possible and show them what I can do. I’ve got to knock down shots and be a great defender and teammate.” The Los Angeles native and 6-foot-7 guard is the leading scorer in college basketball across all divisions, averaging 27.1 points, according to ESPN. He wears a kippah on the court with his YU team, the Maccabees, and plans to continue doing so if he becomes a professional athlete. “Being the first Orthodox Jew in the NBA would mean the world to me, and a dream come true, God willing,” he added. “But, just as importantly, it would mean the world to others that never saw this as a possibility.” (Photo: YouTube screenshot / Overtime)

One of Britain’s most celebrated playwrights, Sir Tom Stoppard’s work returned to the London stage in 2021 with the opening of “Leopoldstadt” – the 84-year-old’s “reckoning with his Jewish roots,” according to The New York Times. The play tells the story of a Jewish family experiencing prosperity in Vienna during the first half of the twentieth century after fleeing from pogroms in Eastern Europe. According to Stoppard the play "took a year to write, but the gestation was much longer. Quite a lot of it is personal to me, but I made it about a Viennese family so that it wouldn’t seem to be about me." In 2022, “Leopoldstadt” came to the New York stage, and was hailed by the New York Times as a “heart-rending epic.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)

American comedian, actor, and writer Tyler Perry has starred in and won awards for numerous films and TV shows. In 2022, Perry was among the celebrities who responded with disgust to hip-hop star Kanye “Ye” West’s antisemitic outbursts. In an Instagram post, he opened up about his mother's work within the Jewish community and the longstanding ties between Jews and Blacks in the fight for civil rights. "My mother made sure that I knew the commonality of what black people and Jewish people have endured - she not only taught me about slavery but she also taught me about the Holocaust,” he wrote. “But in teaching me about all our common pains she also taught me about the allies that Jewish people have been for Black people.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)