 JULY 2 • 2020 | 27

Marching in
Crown Heights

Michigan-based grad student Ilana Spencer helped organize a
groundbreaking solidarity rally among Brooklyn’
s Chabad community.

ELI REITER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

O

n June 7, more than 200 members 
of the Crown Heights Chabad 
community came together in 
solidarity to march along 
Eastern Parkway. Across 
Orthodox communities in 
New York there were ral-
lies against police brutality 
and to build solidarity with 
people of color. One of the 
organizers of the Crown 
Heights rally was Ilana Spencer, a University 
of Michigan research assistant who helped 
organize the event from her home in Ann 
Arbor. She even made sure to include her 
maiden and married name on banners, to 
normalize being an Orthodox Jewish pro-
gressive. 
This interview was condensed and edited 
from a phone call and email exchange.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR NEW YORK 
AND DETROIT CONNECTIONS.
I moved to Crown Heights to go to a 
religious high school (Beis Rivkah High 
School). I moved to Detroit three years ago 
to help facilitate the opening of a Jewish 

Montessori school in the area. I stayed with 
the school for a year before moving to Ann 
Arbor to pursue my master’
s degree.

WHAT’
S THE STORY ABOUT THE FACEBOOK 
GROUP THAT STARTED THIS OFF?
The group was a place where we could 
really be ourselves with like-minded people, 
which doesn’
t seem like a big deal unless 
you understand how much regular frum life 
clashed with our inner worlds and realities. 
This hadn’
t really been as much of a prob-
lem before Trump’
s election, and then we 
looked around at people who we respected 
and interacted with daily and couldn’
t real-
ly relate to their value systems anymore. 
Something had really broken permanently 
in many of our relationships when we saw 
that.
It started with a Facebook group and 
migrated into a WhatsApp group of 
like-minded progressive, observant and 
formerly observant Jews who shared 
articles, Twitter screenshots and memes, 
which started so we could follow the 2019 
Democratic primary debates. I was already 
in Michigan at that point. 

HOW DO JEWISH VALUES PLAY INTO BOTH 
THE GROUP AND PROTESTS? 
Part of the reason I was drawn to religious 
life and community was the focus on 
self-improvement and community respon-
sibility. Judaism offers something that 
American daily life is sorely lacking — a 
sense that we are responsible for our neigh-
bors and to becoming the kind of person 
who can support our community members 
through tzedakah and acts of kindness. To 

us, civic engagement and liberal values align 
with what we love about Judaism because it 
gives us permission to care deeply and feel 
responsible for others and our own impact 
or potential inaction in the world.

Ilana Spencer

COURTESY OF ILANA SPENCER

“Judaism off
 ers 
something that 
American daily life
is sorely lacking.”

— ILANA SPENCER

jews and racial justice

continued on page 28

