This fall, we again put out our call for nominations for our annual list of mensches, and you responded with your usual outpouring of suggestions of amazing people. We face this enormous response only to wonder, once more, how do you choose between a 13-year-old who rallied his entire school to help victims in the Congo and a Holocaust survivor who spends 800 hours a year volunteering at the Simon Wiesenthal Center? (And those are just two who made the cut.)

The answer is, we do our best to offer stories of just some of the extraordinary people who give so much to our community. Many, many more could have been included, but we always tell ourselves there will be next year. We are inspired by all these stories, and we hope that even this small sampling will serve to motivate us all to continue to do all we can to improve the world just a little bit more.

Click on a photo to your left (or on the links below) to read about our mensches.

Photographs by Dan Kacvinski

The Mensch List

“>Promoting unity, Judaism among local Iranian Jews

“>Israeli scouting just got hipper

“>Teen’s focus on Congo begins at home

“>Don’t call him super-rav

“>Filmmaker puts JCorps in spotlight