“Dancing with the Stars” is returning for its 35th season, and the ballroom is once again filled with Jewish talent.
This season’s cast includes a two-time Paralympic champion raised in Los Angeles’ Persian Jewish community, the first Israeli professional dancer in the show’s history, and several returning pros with roots in the former Soviet Jewish ballroom world.
The complete cast was announced Wednesday on “Good Morning America.” Sixteen celebrities will compete for the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy when the season begins with a two-night premiere on Sept. 15 and 16 on ABC and Disney+.
So, who are the Jewish stars hoping to dance their way to the mirrorball this season?
Who is the Jewish celebrity competing on “Dancing With the Stars” season 35
Ezra Frech
Paralympic champion Ezra Frech, 21, is the only confirmed Jewish celebrity contestant this season — and he has been paired with Jewish pro Daniella Karagach.
Frech was raised in Los Angeles’ Persian Jewish community. His mother, actress Bahar Soomekh, was born into a Jewish family in Tehran and fled Iran with her family following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. His father, Clayton Frech, converted to Judaism before marrying Soomekh, and the couple raised Ezra and his two younger brothers in the Jewish faith. The family belongs to Sinai Temple, where Ezra celebrated his bar mitzvah.
Soomekh has said that she hoped to instill in her children a belief in tikkun olam — the Jewish responsibility to help repair the world. That value is visible in the Frech family’s advocacy: Ezra and his father helped establish Angel City Sports, which provides free adaptive sports opportunities to children and adults with physical disabilities and visual impairments.
He has said his broader mission is to normalize disability and transform how the Paralympic movement is viewed.
Frech was born without most of his left leg and several fingers on his left hand. He received his first prosthetic leg when he was 11 months old and underwent surgery as a toddler to remove the lower portion of his leg and transplant a toe from his amputated foot onto his hand.
After experimenting with numerous sports as a child, Frech emerged as one of the world’s most accomplished para track and field athletes. At 16, he became one of the youngest members of Team USA at the Tokyo Paralympics. Three years later, he won two gold medals at the Paris Games, taking first place in both the men’s 100-meter T63 and high jump T63 events.
Now, alongside Karagach, he will attempt to trade the high jump for high kicks.
Who are the Jewish pros competing in “Dancing With the Stars” Season 35?
Adele Zaikman
Adele Zaikman, 24, will make history this season as the first Israeli professional dancer on the American “Dancing with the Stars.”
Born and raised in Israel, Zaikman began dancing at 6 and represented the country in international competitions as a teenager. She moved to the United States at 21 to pursue her career and now lives in Los Angeles. A Latin dance specialist and Blackpool Dance Festival winner, she describes herself as a consistent top finisher at the world’s leading professional Latin championships.
Zaikman earned her place in the ballroom by winning the inaugural season of “Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro.” Throughout the eight-week competition, she never faced elimination and was praised for both her technical precision and ability to teach inexperienced dancers. Derek Hough nicknamed her the “Rolls Royce” because her dancing looked “expensive.”
Read more: Meet Adele Zaikman, the first Israeli pro on ‘Dancing With the Stars’
Zaikman publicly embraces her Israeli-Ukrainian background, displaying both countries’ flags on social media and referring to Israel as “home.” She has shared few details publicly about her religious upbringing or practice.
This season, Zaikman will dance with Conner Leavitt of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
Alan Bersten
Alan Bersten, 32, was raised in a Russian-Jewish family in Minnetonka, Minn. His parents wanted Alan and his two siblings to become ballroom dancers, but they weren’t impressed by the studios near them. Despite having no dance experience of their own, they decided to open a studio for their children.
“My parents wanted me and my brother and sister to start dancing, but they had never danced in their lives,” Bersten explained in 2018. “They found a ballroom dance studio, but it really wasn’t good enough. So they took a weird risk and opened a dance studio for us.”
In December 2025, Bersten brought his Jewish identity directly into the ballroom when he choreographed the first Hanukkah-centered routine in the show’s 20-year history. For the “Dancing With the Holidays” special, Bersten and five other pros — including fellow Jewish dancer Val Chmerkovskiy — performed to Matisyahu’s “Miracle.”
The routine incorporated a hora, menorah-inspired formations, dreidel-like spins and nods to “Fiddler on the Roof.” Bersten said he felt pressure to do the groundbreaking number justice because Hanukkah dances are so rarely shown on television.
“Growing up Jewish, you don’t really see a lot of Hanukkah representation,” he said during the special. “Hopefully a Jewish kid’s watching this, and they feel seen, and they feel proud.”
After finishing fifth with actress Elaine Hendrix last season, Bersten will compete alongside celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis this year.
Daniella Karagach
Daniella Karagach, 33, was born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrant parents from Moldova and grew up in New York’s Russian-speaking immigrant community.
Karagach has occasionally displayed her Jewish roots through the crimson kabbalah bracelet she wears. The thin red thread, known in Hebrew as a khutt hashani, is a Jewish folk symbol traditionally believed to offer protection from the evil eye. Beyond that, however, Karagach has shared relatively little publicly about her Jewish upbringing or religious practice.
Karagach joined “Dancing with the Stars” in 2019 and won her first mirrorball two years later with NBA champion Iman Shumpert. Last season, she and Jewish contestant Dylan Efron reached the finale and finished fourth.
This year, she is partnered with Persian Jewish Paralympian Ezra Frech, giving Season 35 its only all-Jewish competing couple.
Valentin Chmerkovskiy
Val Chmerkovskiy, 40, was born to a Jewish father and Christian mother in Odesa, Ukraine. He grew up in a Russian-speaking household that blended both religious traditions but lived, according to his older brother Maks, “closer to that of a Jewish family.”
Chmerkovskiy has discussed the initial challenge of blending his Jewish and Russian background with the Mormon upbringing of his wife, fellow “DWTS” pro Jenna Johnson.
“Trying to fuse a Jewish-Russian family with a Mormon family from Utah definitely is a challenge,” he said in 2018. However, the couple has explained that learning about their different traditions ultimately strengthened their relationship.
In December 2025, Chmerkovskiy joined Alan Bersten for the first Hanukkah-centered routine in “Dancing with the Stars” history. While teaching their castmates the hora, Chmerkovskiy explained that the traditional Jewish circle dance “symbolizes celebrating one another.”
Chmerkovskiy narrowly missed adding a fourth mirrorball to his collection last season, finishing second with social media star Alix Earle. This season, he will dance with actress and former professional dancer Jenna Dewan.
