JFNA Announces 20 Semifinalists for Jewish Community Hero
Lori Palatnik is one of 20 semifinalists in JFNA?s Jewish Community Heroes campaign.
What do Jewish boxer Dmitriy Salita, ophthalmologist Stephen Kutner and Rabbi Celso Cukierkorn have in common? They are among 20 semifinalists in the second annual Jewish Community Heroes campaign. Organized by the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), the campaign celebrates men and women who selflessly and wholeheartedly devote their lives to helping others. Over the past three months, 311,265 votes were cast online for nominees from all walks of life: neighbors, teachers, community organizers and leaders.
The fate of the semifinalists now lies in the hands of a panel of celebrity judges, including actor Elliot Gould, NASA scientist Eugenia Brin, Olympic gold medalist Lenny Krayzelburg and Dan Brown (not that one, this one. JFNA will honor five finalists at its General Assembly this November in New Orleans, where the Hero of the Year will be announced along with a Federation Hero, someone whose work is directly supported by the Federation. The Hero of the Year will also receive a $25,000 grant.
Other semifinalists include Mordechai Tokarsky, one of the first Russian-American Jews to receive rabbinic ordination since the fall of the Soviet Union; Jay Feinberg](http://www.jewishcommunityheroes.org/nominees/profile/jay-feinberg/), who, after searching for a bone marrow donor for four years, now works to register more Jewish donors in the Bone Marrow registry, and Lori Palatnick, executive director of Birthright for Women. Stay tuned next week when the top five finalists will be named.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Dive In
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Naftali Bennett is back: Former Israeli prime minister will make another run at Netanyahu
-
Fast Forward Citing post-Holocaust doctrine, Germany seeks to deport 4 pro-Palestinian protesters, including one American
-
Fast Forward Trump administration freezes research funding to Princeton amid antisemitism investigations
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.