Olympic Skater Alysa Liu Is Like An Ex-Hasid Who Returned

US figure skater Alysa Liu, made a remarkable comeback, winning an Olympic gold medal last week after taking two years off from her sport. Fans noticed the joy that was infused into her routine. Her story isn’t just inspirational for the regular reasons. It is also bizarrely connected to the Makom branch of our organization, which helps former and questioning Haredi Jews find a positive place in Judaism. Just replace figure skating with Judaism. Here’s what I mean:

According to Pittsburgh-based sports content creator and entrepreneur, Frank Michael Smith, Liu started training at 5 years old, and is the daughter of Chinese dissident Arthur Liu. She is one of Liu’s five surrogate children who he raised as a single father after fleeing China as a political refugee. Smith describes Liu’s training schedule as military like, with long hours and strict standards.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Arthur Liu explains that he noticed Alysa’s skating talent at a young age and invested between half a million to one million dollars on training her to become an elite athlete. The hard work paid off. At 13 years old she won the US Figure Skating Championship, and while she was beaming on the outside, she secretly lived in deep pain. She hated skating and was forced into it by her father. When Covid closed rinks around the country, she was secretly thrilled and hoped the rinks would never open again. But her father had other ideas. He moved Alysa alone to Delaware, Italy and then Colorado, where he found rinks and coaches who could continue to train her. Her coaches were hired and fired on numerous occasions and recall the many times Alysa would cry in the hallways after being dropped off to practice. She made it to the Beijing Olympics in 2022 but at all of 16 years old, she retired. She posted her exit from skating on social media, noting that her entire life had been devoted to skating and now she was taking time off to discover who she was.

She buried her ice skates deep in her closet, hiked to Everest Base Camp, got her driver’s license, and enrolled as a student at UCLA. In 2024, she went skiing and got the itch to skate again and although she had been off the ice for two years, she landed a double axel. She immediately called her coach and said she’s coming back to skating, but this time, on her terms. She would determine her training schedule, her diet, and the style and music of her routines. Her coach thought this was a horrible idea and did everything he could to convince her not to try to make a comeback. She’d surely fail. She took too much time off.

But Alysa felt like she could do this. She told NBC that she had a renewed sense of purpose in skating because she no longer felt like her life was on the line. Her hunch was correct. She shocked everyone by winning the World Championships in 2025. She then continued her success as the first US female figure skater to win Olympic gold in twenty-four years.

When I heard Alysa’s story I was shocked at how similar it is to the Makom experience. Our members, by and large, were raised with a Judaism that felt forced, strict, devoid of joy or the ability to choose. Like Alysa, they run away from that toxic experience as soon as they have the ability. But so many of them get inspired one way or another to take another look, to return on their terms, to find a joy and love in being Jewish. How could an Olympic figure skating story have any connection to a religious Jewish one? In both cases, human beings are involved. When human beings behave in healthy, nuanced, thoughtful ways, those around them have a good experience. When they behave in controlling, toxic, abusive ways – they ruin everything from skating to shul.

Human beings were granted free will and there is no healthy way to live when all of our choices are made for us or when love of a parent feels conditional – to be a super skater or super Jew. Like Alysa, our Makom members, who return out of choice, with a goal of finding joy and love in the experience of being Jewish are all worthy of Olympic gold medals themselves!

If you found this content meaningful and want to help further our mission through our Keter, Makom, and Tikun branches, please consider becoming a Change Maker today.

Allison Josephs

Allison Josephs is the founder and executive director of Jew in the City has been involved in the field of Jewish Outreach for over twenty years and is the Partner in Torah mentor to actress Mayim Bialik. She was named one of NJOP’s Top Ten Jewish Influencers and one of the Jewish Week’s 36 under 36. Allison has been quoted or written about in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, People Magazine, NYPost, Daily News, TMZ, The Daily Beast, and Hollywood Reporter. She has appeared on numerous television and radio networks including CBS, ABC, Fox5, TLC, Associate Press TV, and NPR; her articles have appeared in publications including The Washington Post, JTA, Jewish Week, Jerusalem Post, The Forward, and Kveller. Pearson Education, the largest textbook company in the world, produced a video segment on Allison’s life for the Judaism chapter of their textbook. She is a sought-after international lecturer whose corporate clients include Con-Edison and NYU Langone and hosts a weekly podcast on the Nachum Segal Network. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University in Philosophy and lives with her husband and four children minutes from the George Washington Bridge.