Elana Kahn
Executive Director, Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes, Department of Human Rights
2025
Elana G. Kahn is Executive Director of the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes, which is housed 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 previously served as Associate Dean for Outreach at Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, Director of Milwaukee’s Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and Editor of the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
At the JCRC, she worked to build bridges and increase empathy across lines of difference. She cultivated new interfaith and intergroup alliances, including a Black-Jewish Alliance, Muslim-Jewish Partnership, Latino-Jewish Alliance, and a Presbyterian-Jewish Dialogue. She has served on a variety of interfaith boards and coalitions.
Awards include the 2021 Frank Zeidler Award from the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee; a Partners in Change Award from the League of United Latin American Citizens (2019); Tikkun Ha-Ir’s Uniting for Change Award (2017); and multiple awards for her writing.
She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Emerson College and a master’s degree from Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership.
At the Summit
The inaugural Eradicate Hate Summit was a truly impressive gathering of leaders dedicated to finding lasting and effective solutions to violent extremism. I was particularly moved by the prominence given to survivors and family members of victims of hate and violence throughout the event. Their stories and those of so many others must be at the center of what we do and why we do it.
