Changemakers
It is difficult for us, especially as teenagers, to speak up against antisemitism because it feels unpopular today in a world with many different social justice issues that need to be addressed and with many voices on social media spreading hate and false information. However, in order to make change, we must speak up and come together, not only Jews, but their friends and allies too.
Here are some young changemakers that we admire who are speaking up. What will you do in your community?
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Ariel Martin
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Montana Tucker
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Emma Blankstein, a junior at Brown University, is a student leader in the fight for climate justice and genocide prevention. She is the founder of Last Generation Coalition, an organization that aims to teach about genocide and human rights by sharing the stories of Holocaust survivors. In 2022, Blankstein gave a TEDx talk “Why Gen Z needs to talk about genocide,” which addesses the need for our generation to know the history of genocide in order to become activists against current and future genocides around the world.
As the president of the European Union of Jewish students from 2013-2015, Swiss activist, Jane Braden-Golay, organized the international Muslim Jewish Conference and “Europe of Diasporas,” a project that united Jewish, Roma and Armenian activists. In January 2015, as a graduate student at the University of Cambridge, she wrote an article for Tablet entitled A New Reality for Young Jews in Europe and in October of the same year was awarded the Human Rights First Award.
Montana Tucker is a singer, songwriter and dancer with more than 14 million followers across all her social media platforms. She uses her influence to raise awareness about antisemitism and the need for Holocaust education. In 2023, she made, How To: Never Forget, a documentary that traces her grandparents journey through Poland during the Holocaust.
Ariel Martin, popularly known as Baby Ariel, became a social media star almost 10 years ago, at the age of 14, by posting videos of herself lip syncing songs. After October 7th, the influencer began to use her public platform to speak up against antisemitism and the voices of misinformation on TikToc and other sites. Earlier this year she spoke at the conference, “Voices for Truth: Influencers United Against Antisemitism” organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, an organization that has partnered with interfaith groups, activists and influencers to mobilize against antisemitism.
Niddal El-Jabri is the founder of Mino Danmark, an organization that advocates for the minority ethnic community in Denmark. In 2015, El-Jabri brought hundreds of people together from all different religious, racial and ethnic backgrounds to form a peace ring around a synagogue in Copenhagen that had been violently attacked.
Born in Sweden to Iranian parents, Siavosh Derakhti, is a social activist who has worked to combat prejudice and xenophobia in Sweden and around the world. In 2013 he was awarded the Raoul Wallenberg Award, an honor named after the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews from Nazi death camps during WWII. Derakhti is the founder of Young People Against Antisemitism and Xenophobia, an organization started in his hometown of Malmo to educate young people against intolerance and hate. In 2016, he was included in Forbes magazine’s list of 30 influential leaders under the age of 30.