Our hero of the year (clue: he's Ukrainian)

Grant Shapps: the (very) short-lived home secretary
He was named Home Secretary by Liz Truss on October 19, becoming the first Jew to hold the office in nearly 30 years. But six days later she resigned and when Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, Shapps was demoted to Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, earning him another title: the shortest-serving Home Secretary in British political history.

Jonathan Freedland: The playwright/Tracy-Ann Oberman: Deity
This was the year JC and Guardian columnist and author Jonathan Freedland turned his hand to writing for the stage with Jews. In their own Words., for the Royal Court. Based on an idea by Tracy-Ann Oberman - who magnificently voiced God - and developed with the Royal Court's artistic director Vicky Featherstone, the verbatim play, for which he interviewed 12 Jews, explored antisemitism inside liberal institutions and the political left, asking why they so often have a blind spot when it comes to Jews. For the community, this is hardly a new question, of course. But it was the first time it has been asked on a central London stage.

David Baddiel: The comedian who got serious
What Jonathan Freedland did for the theatre, Baddiel did for the small screen when the televised version of his 2021 book Jews Don’t Count premiered on Channel 4 in November.
At a time when liberal types have never been more sensitive about causing offence to minority groups, racism against Jews — one of the smallest ethnic minorities on Earth — is either ignored, or up for debate. The documentary showed the nation that antisemitism also comes from people who are convinced they are the good guys.

Daria Atamonov: The gymnast
The 16-year-old won a gold for the Jewish state at the Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships this summer, making her the second Israeli to ever win the competition. After her victory, which included a near-perfect performance in the hoop event, the teenager said with some understatement: “I’m a bit shocked. It’s exciting. It’s fun.”

Noa Hoffman: The groundbreaking journalist 
Not many 25-year-olds can say they helped bring down a prime minister, but reporter Noa Hoffman can —keen as she is to minimise her part in Boris Johnson’s downfall. The former JC journalist had only been working at The Sun for four days when she broke the story that the then Conservative deputy chief whip Chris Pincher had allegedly sexually harassed two men at a private members’ club, and then resigned from government after MPs complained to the Tory whips’ office about his behaviour. The story proved the final straw for the scandal-hit PM.

Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis: The peacemaker
When he touched down in the UAE in the first week of November, he made history by being the first UK Chief Rabbi to make an official visit to an Arab state. And before he delivered his historic address to the Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace, Rabbi Mirvis was welcomed and then seated next to the revered Islamic scholar Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah. As the JC reported at the time, it was a scene that would have been seemed unlikely a few years ago, and at times impossible.

Nina Freedman: The student fighter
The Bristol University JSoc president first complained about the now disgraced academic David Miller in 2019, but it wasn’t until June 2022 that the Office of Independent Adjudicator forced the university to apologise to her. Freedman wasn’t at the now infamous lecture during which Miller spoke about the “Israel lobby” and gave a Powerpoint presentation depicting prominent Jewish individuals and organisations, with “Israeli government” at the top, but when she was informed, she knew she had to act. She never imagined it would be the beginning of a long ordeal during which she was forbidden from speaking to anyone else about the process and targeted by vicious trolls. At one point, she was even instructed on how to look for car bombs.

David Schwimmer: The brave celeb
Friends star David Schwimmer was the first American celebrity to speak out against antisemitism after Kanye West’s death threats to Jews, telling followers on Instagram that if they excused or defended the rapper, they were racist. He also pointed out that Jews constituted 2.4 per cent of America’s population, but are the victims of more than 60 per cent of its hate crimes. And he demanded that sportbrand Adidas cut ties
with West — which it subsequently did.

Joshua Cohen: The Pulitzer Prize winner
Brooklyn writer Joshua Cohen’s satirical campus novel The Netanyahus imagines a visit by the father of the Israeli prime minister, the Zionist activist and historian Benzion Netanyahu, to an American college town in the early 1960s. The Pulitzer committee called the work “a mordant, linguistically deft historical novel about the ambiguities of the Jewish-Amercian experience, presenting ideas and disputes as volatile as its tightly wound plot.”

Marie van der Zyl: Leader and bride
Over the past 12 months, the Board of Deputies’ President represented us at the Queen’s funeral, where she conveyed the community’s condolences to King Charles in person, and complained to Ofcom about the BBC’s coverage of the Chanukah bus attack, and to the Church of England about Rev Stephen Sizer. And then there was her more personal highlight: marrying prominent Labour activist Adrian Cohen in Anglo-Jewry’s undisputed simchah of the year.

Josh Shapiro: The kosher governor
He’s Shabbat-observant, keeps kosher, sends his kids to Jewish schools and, in November, he became the governor of Pennsylvania, making him one of the most influential Jewish politicians across the pond. And on his campaign trail, Shapiro was loud and proud about being Jewish, mentioning his family’s Shabbat dinners and quoting this line from the Mishnah: “You are not required to complete the task, neither are you free to desist from it.”

Brady Isaacs Pearce: The fundraiser
Last year, she was hospitalised with severe mental health problems that have plagued her since she was 11, but this year Isaacs Pearce, 22, channelled her pain into raising money for others suffering from poor mental health. And the former Brit School student did this in the way she knows best: she persuaded West End actors who have starred in shows including Wicked, Les Miserables, Six and We Will Rock You to perform together at The Other Place theatre for one night, singing the songs that got them through their “darkest times”. The money raised from the event went to the charity Beyond, which gives schools grants for mental health services.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt: The refusenik

Moscow’s chief rabbi left Russia after he refused a request from state officials to publicly support the country’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The Zurich-born rabbi, who is now in exile in Israel, had served in Moscow since 1989 and was one of the country’s most influential Jewish leaders. His ethical stand is in marked contrast to other religious leaders in Russia, including the Orthodox Russian bishop Patriarch Kirill, who have overwhelmingly expressed support for the Kremlin’s war.

Joel Rosen: The president with principles
“I am not going to take my kippah off for anything,” declared Joel Rosen, the first openly gay president of the Union of Jewish Students when he took up the post in July. “I’m sure there have been LGBT presidents before me and there are also people who have come out since being UJS president, but I’m the first to be out when I ran for office. I feel it’s a sign of where the community has come,” he told the JC. He also said he had “proven myself in the battles that matter”, citing his work pioneering LGBT inclusion within the Orthodox community and fighting antisemitism within the Labour Party.

Gideon Falter: The warrior against antisemitism
He became the volunteer chairman of Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) in 2014, and since then the lawyer has spoken at the House of Commons, given evidence to Parliament, been publicly praised by Theresa May and been hailed a Jewish hero by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which said he proves there are “still powerful ways to leverage democratic rules to serve justice and protect the Jewish community”. He certainly does. This past year, the CAA’s numerous legal wins include sending the anonymous antisemitic online troll Nicholas Nelson to prison, putting Grenfell volunteer Tahra Ahmed behind bars for stirring up anti-Jewish racism on social media and bankrupting the anti-Zionist Tony Greenstein.

Benjamin Netanyahu: The comeback king
When he was toppled from power in June 2021 after 12 consecutive years as Israel’s prime minister, the Likud leader defiantly declared; “We’ll be back!” And in October of this year, he was, making Bibi the longest-serving prime minister in the Jewish state’s 74-year history and the winner of no fewer than five general elections. Last week he announced he’d formed a coalition.

Martin Lewis: The cost-of-living crisis hero
The money-saving expert used to be someone we’d go to for advice about car insurance and credit cards. But the cost-of-living crisis turned him into a national hero who stands up for the poor and oppressed with practical financial advice on how to cope with soaring inflation and gargantuan energy bills. And he also had angry words for a government he thinks has made matters worse for the country’s most vulnerable people. His anger is mixed with hard facts. It was Lewis who pointed out that the new energy price cap represents 37 per cent of the state pension and “will be an even bigger proportion of income” for those on universal credit.

Rachel Riley: The mathematical mensch
The Countdown star was awarded £50,000 in damages after suing pro-Corbyn political blogger Michael Sivier for libel over an article claiming she was a “serial abuser” and had bullied a teenager. The article referred to a Twitter debate about antisemitism in the Labour Party in which the presenter took part and which she said had triggered severe online abuse: “I changed my Twitter settings after that week because it was so horrendous.” During the spat, she exchanged messages with someone who later identified herself as a 16-year-old called Rose. It was a major victory for the mathematical genius because she initially lost a round in the libel trial after Sivier won his appeal.
Kol hakavod!

Miriam Lorie: The rabbinic history maker
She’s studying for ordination at New York’s pioneering Yeshivat Maharat for women, and earlier this year Lorie began working part-time as “rabbi in training” with Kehillat Nashira, a partnership minyan in Borehamwood — the first Orthodox community to appoint a woman to a rabbinic leadership role. It’s a radical move for Orthodoxy, but not for her personally. “It just feels like a very natural progression from work I was already doing in a community which welcomes it.”

Beanie Feldstein: The Funny Girl
As a little girl, Feldstein was smitten with Fanny Brice, the Jewish protagonist of the musical movie Funny Girl, whose real-life rise from Vaudeville bit-player to stage star was first portrayed by Barbra Streisand in 1964. Then, a whole 26 years later, Feldstein got to play her in a Broadway revival of the legendary show. “It’s extremely profound for me because I feel no Jewish actress working today, specifically Jewish comedic actress, would be able to be where we are if it wasn’t for her. That lineage feels really beautiful,” she told
the JC.