Ilana Kattan

Q2 2024 Q&A

12 July 2024.

What made you decide to get on LinkedIn?

I don’t see myself as a big voice. I do find posting on LinkedIn cathartic. Originally, I was posting on Facebook and Instagram but I realized that I was only talking to an echo chamber of people I knew. And LinkedIn allowed me to share raw emotions and facts with a wider variety of people. It was a little scary when I did my first post 7 days after October 7. Antisemitism is everywhere and it’s definitely a risk to put my story out in the world. Both safety- and career-wise. But since I started posting continuously on Day 18,* I haven’t looked back. And I’ve found it far more rewarding than I could’ve ever expected. I’ve met so many amazing people through LinkedIn that I probably never would have connected with otherwise.

Do you feel like you’ve found your groove on it now?

My dad is from Israel. My family on my dad’s side is almost entirely in Israel. My family fled Iraq in the early 1950s after Nazi ideology took hold and made it unsafe to be Jewish. As someone with most of her family in Israel and so connected to Israel, I felt very alone on October 7 and in its aftermath. I know a lot of other people who are Jewish but as an Israeli in the US, it felt like I was in this world by myself, experiencing a trauma that no one around me understood. I started posting as a way to let people know what I was going through. And who I am. And I realized through that how many people - even if they’re not Israeli - felt the same way but couldn’t speak up or couldn’t find the words to articulate what they were going through.

Do clients ever say anything about your posts to you?

I’ve had several clients reach out and thank me for speaking up.

Have you had any breakthrough results as a result of using the platform?

Finding so many other Iraqi Jews! The Iraqi Jewish community is tiny - there was something like 130,000–150,000 Jews in Iraq in the late 1940s. And I didn’t know any other Iraqi Jews in the US. Now I do! Although not in DC.

What advice would you offer to others on LinkedIn?

I would encourage others who feel comfortable speaking up to do so. But just be prepared for the hate - and stand strong and don’t let it get you down.