Speaker
Elana G. Kahn
Executive Director of the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes
Elana G. Kahn (she/her) is executive director of the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes within the Illinois Department of Human Rights. As part of a career dedicated to community building, interfaith and intergroup relations, and public communication, she has experience in various modalities of conflict resolution, facilitation, and strategic communication.
She served the Milwaukee Jewish community for almost two decades, as Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and Editor of the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
At the JCRC, she launched Hours Against Hate, a local effort to connect people across lines of race, religion, culture, class to dismantle bigotry and promote respect. She cultivated new interfaith and intergroup alliances, including a Black-Jewish Alliance, Muslim-Jewish Partnership, Latino-Jewish Alliance, and a Presbyterian-Jewish Dialogue.
She currently serves as Board Chair of Tikkun B’Yachad: Repairing Together, a youth program focused on intercommunal relations and previously served as board chair of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee and the American Jewish Press Association. Other board service includes the following: Lux Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies at Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology; Community Coalition for Quality Policing; and We are Many: United Against Hate.
She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Emerson College and a master’s degree from Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership.
Speaking in
Antisemitism, Democracy, and the Struggle for an Inclusive and Resilient America
A healthy democracy requires that we stand against hate and extremism. Antisemitism does not only threaten the Jewish community – it jeopardizes the rights and safety of countless other communities as well as our fundamental democratic norms and values.
At this critical moment for democracy and our country, this moderated panel conversation will explore the inextricable link between Jewish safety, our democratic freedoms, and the resilience of our interconnected communities.
Session Objectives
- Explain how antisemitism threatens the rights and safety of Jewish and other communities, as well as fundamental democratic norms and values
- Describe how to counter hateful and hurtful speech while respecting the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, and staff
- Explain why the fight against antisemitism and the fight against racism are a shared struggle
- Identify some common anti-Jewish tropes
- Identify best practices to support Jewish inclusion on campus