Time Magazine showcases prominent Jewish leaders in 'world's most influential rising stars' list

From artists and actors to technologists to politicians advancing visions for the future, Time Magazine has recognized Jewish figures on its list of “the world’s most influential rising stars.” 

The magazine launched the Time100 Next list in 2019 to highlight people whose influence is still taking shape. This year’s list reflected shifts in popular culture, the AI revolution and responses to global crises from the United States to Israel.

Jewish members of Time100 Next have talked about their Jewishness as a source of inspiration, angst and activism. Here’s what nine have said about their Jewish identity.

Marisa Abela 

Abela, an actress who rose to fame for her role in the TV financial drama series “Industry” and portrayed Amy Winehouse in the 2024 biopic “Back to Black,” grew up in England. She has described drawing from her mixed heritage to inhabit her characters.

“I am someone whose mum and dad come from completely different cultures, my dad is Maltese Arab, and my mum is from a family of Polish Jewish refugees,” Abela told The National in 2022.

While Abela’s background differs from that of her “Industry” character Yasmin Kara-Hanani, whose parents are Lebanese, she said that she understood the character’s family tensions. “The thing I relate to most is that those two cultures can be quite divisive, and you can feel like you’re being pulled in different directions,” she said.

To play Winehouse, Abela said she tapped into shared features of their early lives in Jewish households.

“The more I got to know her, the more I felt a major connection to this spiky Jewish girl from London who had a lot to say, and was really quite unafraid,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in a 2024 interview.

“I remembered how I felt when I was young, seeing that woman who was proud and cool, wearing a big Star of David in between a cleavage and a nice bra. I understood what a Friday-night dinner would look like in her home, the humor in her family.”

Jake Auchincloss 

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Auchincloss is one of his party’s staunchest advocates for centrism amid a rising wave of Democratic Socialists. He represents the state’s 4th Congressional District, spanning the heavily Jewish Boston suburbs of Brookline and Newton, where he grew up with a Jewish mother and Episcopalian father.

After a record of bolstering the Democrats’ pro-Israel wing in Congress, Auchincloss was among the majority of House Democrats who voted in July to cut $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel.

Auchincloss argued the vote did not contradict his support for Israel. Instead, he said it was a vote against President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he said had sacrificed the trust of Congress “with their disastrous war against Iran, their empowerment of settler violence in the West Bank, and their strategic incoherence against Islamist terrorism.”

He has also fended off progressive Democrats who denounce the United States-Israel alliance. In September, Auchincloss defeated a primary challenge from AI and policy researcher Jason Poulos, who said that he was animated by watching the United States send military aid to Israel and “participate actively in the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

Auchincloss told the Jerusalem News Syndicate in 2022 that “Judaism is important” to him even though he is “not a religious person.” He added that his parents’ interfaith marriage in the 1970s, which took place at the Harvard Memorial Church with a rabbi officiating, was “still a bit unusual” and made him more appreciative of his Jewish heritage as he was growing up.

Auchincloss has cited his family history as a factor in his decision to join the Marine Corps. In a 2021 interview with Roll Call, Auchincloss said his maternal grandfather enlisted in the Marines in 1942. Instead of deploying the 17-year-old in combat, the Marines sent him to study biomedical engineering at Purdue University, and he became a pioneer in artificial limbs.

“I just think about that, in one of the lowest moments of World War II, one of the lowest moments for Jews in our history, the U.S. government sent a Jewish kid in the Marine Corps to school,” said Auchincloss.

Molly Gordon

Actress and filmmaker Gordon has said that her Jewishness resonates throughout her career, not through observance, but through comedy.

Her Jewish roles span the 2020 comedy “Shiva Baby,” the 2023 mockumentary “Theater Camp,” which she also co-created, and the Hulu series “Ramy,” where she plays a Jewish woman who dates the title character, a Muslim. Gordon’s star has also risen through roles that are not identifiably Jewish, as in FX’s hit series “The Bear.”

“Being Jewish in West LA, my religion was watching comedy. That felt like God to me,” Gordon told Vulture in 2021.

The painter Sasha Gordon, who has no relation to Molly Gordon, won acclaim for her self-portraits set in surreal and nightmarish scenes. She has had multiple solo exhibitions in major cities, including “Haze” at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York City last year.

Gordon grew up in Somers, New York, with a Korean mother and a Polish American Jewish father. She told Vogue in 2023 that she and her brother were bullied in the predominantly white small town for being different.

“I don’t think I’m religious in any way, but I’d say that I’m culturally very Jewish,” said Gordon.

South African-born fashion designer Kallmeyer is the founder of Kallmeyer, a New York-based brand that specializes in suiting. She also became known for hosting pop-up Shabbat dinners that celebrated the Jewish queer community of New York.

In an interview with Gossamer, Kallmeyer described herself as a “gay Jewish business owner” with all the accompanying “anxiety.”

Joey King 

King has been an actress since childhood, from the 2010 film “Ramona and Beezus” to the “Kissing Booth” series, which ran from 2018 to 2021, and the 2019 crime drama “The Act,” which won her an Emmy nomination. Her latest film, “Practical Magic 2,” premiered last month.

King opened up about her Jewish identity after starring in “We Were the Lucky Ones,” a 2024 Hulu miniseries based on a true story about Polish siblings who survived the Holocaust while scattered across the globe.

King told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2024 that she jumped at her first opportunity to play a Jewish woman.

“I couldn’t be prouder of who I am and my Jewish heritage,” said King. “When you get presented with a story like this, it’s just a once-in-a-lifetime feeling. It’s an immediate yes — to feel that you get to play a Jewish woman, and you are a Jewish woman.”

Naama Lazimi 

Lazimi has been dubbed by Haaretz a “superstar” of the Israeli left. The lawmaker in Israel’s Knesset built her political profile with a focus on poverty and public housing, while protesting against Netanyahu’s government and calling for a state commission of inquiry into government failures surrounding the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Lazimi said on social media that Time’s recognition came just before “the most important elections the State of Israel has ever known.” Lazimi’s Democrats Party hopes to join a centrist governing coalition after the Oct. 27 elections.

“This is not just a personal achievement, but a badge of honor for an entire camp in Israel, a glorious and determined camp that fights for the democratic character of our country, and for solidarity and social justice,” she said.

Lazimi is a longtime ally of Smol Emuni, or “Faithful Left,” a movement of religious left-wing Jews who advocate for peace and oppose the Gaza war. At a conference of Smol Emuni’s U.S. branch in New York, Lazimi said, “Peace is not just true security; it is also the most moral, and the most Jewish, choice.”

Yotam Segev 

Israeli-born Segev is the leader of Cyera, a company that creates systems to defend sensitive data against attackers in the AI age. Founded in 2021, Cyera is now valued at $12 billion, according to Time.

Segev, who moved to New York four years ago, told CTech that he became more aware of being “a Jew in the U.S.” since the Gaza war. He cited rising incidents of antisemitism and the fear of being “perceived as someone’s enemy just because of where I come from.”

“When I walk around with my child, I don’t speak loudly in Hebrew without being aware of my surroundings,” said Segev.

Troye Sivan 

Australian singer and actor Sivan went from performing the “shul circuit” as a child to Grammy-nominated pop stardom. He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household. At 15, he came out after his father shared the belief that “it really doesn’t make sense” for religion to ban being gay, according to a 2019 interview with the New Yorker.

Sivan launched a lifestyle brand in 2023 called Tsu Lange Yor, the Yiddish phrase for “to long years.” He told W Magazine his great-grandmother spoke Yiddish at home when he was a child. While not himself “particularly religious,” Sivan said his Jewish identity formed a “huge part” of his cultural identity, and he continued to hold Shabbat dinners.

“Considering I’m not very religious and I’m queer, my Jewish identity was something I grappled with and was unsure about,” said Sivan. “I liked the idea of reclaiming it and proudly saying, even to other Jewish people, ‘I’m queer, and I’m also a Jew — and these are things that are both equally important in the makeup of who I am.’”