"Stand Up, Fight Back:" Embracing Community in Times of Political Polarization

I experienced the power of collective organizing for the first time in the spring of 2024. I went canvassing weekend after weekend and watched the same people congregate in different neighborhoods every time, each with a shared goal of making the city a better place for everyone. I watched with disappointment on election day when, after a lead-up week filled with Super PACs spreading misinformation about our affordable housing campaign, the ballot measure failed. We wallowed in the disappointment for a second, but then I watched something incredible happen: I watched people bounce back and keep organizing. 

I have been involved with the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA) since my sophomore year of high school. JCUA is a Jewish community organizing group that focuses on mental health, housing, economic justice, immigration justice, local political campaigns, and more.

I started participating in JCUA in September 2023 when I participated in Or Tzedek, their teen community organizing internship. I loved Or Tzedek because it was the first place I found where people seemed to really care about both learning and action. I heard about campaigns and how power works in Chicago, about the importance of people power, and local politics and collective action. I learned about Bring Chicago Home, a decade-long affordable housing campaign focused on raising the real estate transfer tax on properties that cost over a million dollars and using that money to build more publicly owned affordable housing in Chicago. 

After spending a year participating in Or Tzedek, I knew I wanted to stay involved with JCUA in some capacity, but in a different role. So, when I was offered the position of youth liaison to the immigration committee, I happily accepted. During Or Tzedek, I had been much more focused on the Housing and Economic Justice (HEJ) committee than on immigration, because Bring Chicago Home was the big issue on everyone’s minds. But, as I near two years of serving as an immigration youth liaison, I could not be more grateful for everything I have experienced and learned.

With the immigration committee, I have spoken at my state capitol building in Springfield, IL, chased down my representative, and begged her to sign onto the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR)’s policy platform. I have led teaching sessions and train-the-trainer ‘Know Your Rights’ events. But none of it has felt as important as the work that we have done in response to the Trump administration’s attacks on Chicago. 

Since September 2025, Chicago has experienced many unwarranted attacks from the federal government, whether it be deploying National Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to the city, or the more recent mass cancellation of flights out of O’Hare and Midway. Chicago is a city built around its large immigrant population. So, when the president ordered ICE officers to arrest every undocumented immigrant in Chicago and its surrounding cities in a movement he affectionately refers to as “operation midway blitz,” Chicago’s communities fought back. The question of "Why us?” is easily answered by the fact that Chicago is a well-known sanctuary city. The textbook definition of a sanctuary city is a city where the police officers cannot legally cooperate with federal immigration officers by revealing a person’s documentation status. Still, in Chicago, sanctuary status has come to mean so much more. 

We have watched our neighbors stand up against federal agents, and the collective power that has come out of Chicago has been recognized nationally. Tom Hohman, Trump’s “border czar,” said recently that it’s “difficult to arrest people in Chicago, because people in Chicago know their rights.” 

This collective response is largely due to grassroots organizing. I, like many others, have watched people from the city and the suburbs come together to stand outside of elementary schools, blow whistles at ICE agents, join rapid response networks, protest at ICE detention centers, fold zines to spread awareness, and help teach people their rights.

One Thursday in early October, I watched my seventh grade Hebrew school students go around and share their ‘goods’ and ‘bads’ from the past couple of days. I’ve been a madrech (teaching assistant) at my synagogue for four years, and (no bias here) my seventh graders are some of the most brilliant 12- and 13-year-olds around. As they shared that day, I noticed a common theme amongst their narratives. Almost every single one of my seventh graders expressed a variation on: “My good this week was that I won a soccer game, and my bad was that ICE was at my school.” 

These aren’t kids who share the same social circles, have the same interests, or even go to the same schools. But they all schlep to Hebrew school on Sunday mornings and Thursday afternoons, and almost all of them had encountered ICE agents around their schools. 

Suddenly, the mood in the room shifted. Our weekly check-ins, meant to be lighthearted and help us gain insight into each other's lives, had turned into something so much bigger. 

I immediately knew that I had to do something, and I was very grateful in that moment for all that I had learned working with JCUA. In two days, I was able to put together a presentation for the kids where I went over some basics, like what ICE is and why they are in Chicago. My seventh graders, ever curious, weren’t satisfied with the basics and dove into questions of systemic inequities and historical connections. I sat listening, both in awe of their brains and full of disappointment in our country as they made connections between Jewish people carrying documentation during the Holocaust and people of color carrying their papers around in cities across the country today in fear of racial profiling.

As they asked questions, curious to find out exactly how much I knew, I found myself repeating the same thing over and over: “Immigration justice is inherently Jewish.” 

“We are taught the value of tikkun olam (repairing the world) and hachnasat orchim (welcoming the stranger). The Torah tells us to be accepting of foreigners 36 times, more than any other commandment,” I explained. “So when we see people in our city and our communities who are being wrongfully targeted, we help.” 

Helping can feel daunting, because there are always more people to help and systems to reform and campaigns to canvass for. But I’ve learned that there are also always people who are willing to do the work, who will take you in and teach you about systems of power, how to change them and how to make a meaningful impact.