What is an American Hero?

In recent days, headlines have carried a familiar and unsettling refrain: a shooting at Brown University; gunfire at a Chanukah celebration on Bondi Beach; a violent attack at the doorstep of a professor in Brookline, Massachusetts. Each incident is different, yet together they form a troubling pattern. American life is increasingly interrupted by violence, intolerance, and the erosion of the civic norms that once sustained our democracy.

These interruptions are no longer rare. They come in schools, houses of worship, public gatherings, and private homes from coast to coast. They disrupt daily life and our understanding of what it means to share a society with people of different identities and beliefs. When individuals begin to see those who disagree with them not as neighbors but as enemies, democracy begins to unravel.