Montana Tucker knows the joy of getting tens of thousands of likes on a dance video posted to her TikTok account.
The dancer, singer and actress from South Florida has more than 13 million followers from all over the world, across different platforms including Instagram, X, and Facebook.
“Sometimes when I still post dance videos, even when something tragic happened that day, I've had people write to me saying, ‘Seeing your dance videos made me smile and made me feel better,’” Tucker recently told WLRN. “So I know it's so important to keep posting what I love to do, and I know it makes people happy.”
But the Los Angeles-based performer also chooses to use her accounts — and public appearances — to teach about the Holocaust and combat hate, particularly antisemitism.
That's because Tucker, who is from Boca Raton, is the granddaughter of two survivors of Auschwitz, the concentration camp complex in Poland where prisoners faced forced labor and death by the Nazis and their collaborators.
This week, she is back in South Florida using her star power to help raise funds for a Jewish social services nonprofit in Broward and bring a younger generation into the fold.
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Tucker began her career as a child model in commercials. She went on to dance for singers Ashanti and Ashlee Simpson and sang in a song on the soundtrack of the film Step Up 2: The Streets. Tucker is also featured in a song with Flo Rida, she's opened for singers Ciara and Lil Wayne and has acted in film and TV. Her social media videos regularly get millions of views.
In 2023, she posted a documentary to her YouTube account titled How To: Never Forget, about taking a trip to Poland with her mother, Michelle Tucker, to retrace her family’s steps.
Her connection to the Holocaust — the mass murder of 6 million Jews and millions of other non-Jews — gives her the resolve to speak up even when others don’t feel empowered to do so.
“There are people that have come up to me that say, ’I support you and I'm here for you, but I can't post it because I don’t want to risk losing my business or my job.' That's so sad to me because these are conversations that I'm sure happened back then during the Holocaust of people saying ‘I support you, but you're Jewish and I can't be seen with you now, or I can't talk to you.’ So we can't be silent,” she said.
A survey by the American Jewish Committee conducted as the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7 found that the number of American Jews who say they feel less secure in the U.S. had gone up by jumped 22 percentage points from the previous year’s survey.
Almost half of American Jews responding to the survey said they had made changes in the past year to avoid antisemitism, including changing what they wore, what they posted online or where they went, so other people wouldn’t know they were Jewish.
Montana Tucker wears a star of David around her neck and said when she posts topics related to Judaism and Israel and gets positive feedback, she feels good about it.
“It really does give me hope and makes me feel like I'm not alone,” Tucker said.
Combating hate and creating support
She will be a featured speaker a Goodman Jewish Family Services (JFS) of Broward County's fundraising event “Breaking the Silence, Building Resilience” on Thursday, March 21.
The agency provides trauma care and counseling for all people, regardless of religion, race, gender identity, or income level. To provide services and charge sliding scale fees, Goodman JFS depends on public dollars and private donations.
Goodman JFS President and CEO Randy Colman said they hope Tucker draws a younger crowd of donors. Like Tucker, he believes in using social media to combat hate and help build a supportive community.
“We saw this as a tremendous opportunity to potentially influence new donors and a new generation about how to give back to causes that are important to them and how to speak out about causes that are important to them,” Colman said.
“Whether you're Jewish or you're part of another group that there's hate against... there's anti-Muslim and there's anti-Black and there's anti lots of things. Parents struggle with how do they teach their children right or wrong. Well, let's teach them a way to use social media as a platform to promote love and not hate.”
Goodman JFS services also include access to a kosher pantry for anyone suffering food insecurity, clothing donations, as well as counseling for Holocaust survivors, domestic abuse survivors, and anyone feeling trauma, including after the attack on southern Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7.
Said Colman, “By helping them in one area in their lives, we're hopefully helping reduce trauma and stress in other areas in their lives."
