The Shabbat after Hanukkah, Alabama State Representative Phillip Ensler was at home in Montgomery when he got a call from Selma asking whether he had received a bomb threat like other local Jewish communities.
When he checked his email, he saw that both he – as executive director of the Jewish Federation of Central Alabama – and his local synagogue, Agudath Israel Etz Ahayem, got the email, sent to dozens of Jewish institutions across the state and hundreds across the country.
“It said there are explosives inside, they’re well hidden, and you won’t find them, they’ll go off in a few hours,” said Ensler, 33. He first alerted 911 and then tried to get the attention of the cantor on their Zoom services, to no avail, so he drove the seven minutes to the Conservative shul.
There, he and the police officer on security duty informed the five people they had to evacuate.
“It was very upsetting, to say the least, to have this dichotomy, this joyous moment in the service where we’re taking out the Torah and then receiving a bomb threat,” he said.
It wasn’t the first time Montgomery was under threat. On October 5, two days before the Hamas attack on Israel, a series of bomb threats were made to various congregations. “The history of the State of Israel was that it was founded as a safe haven for Jews after the Holocaust.
Right here in Alabama last week, we received bomb threats in Montgomery and throughout the state. To have that happen on Thursday and then have these attacks in Israel on Saturday, there’s this tremendous fear of ‘where are we safe?’” Ensler told WFAS 12 TV on October 9.
In spite of rising antisemitism, Ensler is beacon of light
At a time when many Jewish communities in America feel under threat from antisemitism, anti-Israel sentiment, and violence, Jews in smaller, sparser communities like Montgomery worry for their future.
And Jewish leaders like Ensler – the first Jew serving in the Alabama Legislature for more than four decades and only the third Jew to ever serve in the body – feel that it’s a time to stand proud.
“We’ve dealt with antisemitism for 2,000 years: people have persecuted us, they’ve tried to annihilate us, they tried to get us to stop being proud, but we’re still here,” he said. “It’s really hard and upsetting, but we’re still here.”
“Here” right now for Ensler is Montgomery, Alabama’s capital, a city of nearly 200,000 people, only about 600 of them Jewish. It’s the second largest Jewish community in Alabama, next to Birmingham. (Alabama’s Jewish population is about 10,000 – or .2%).
Ensler isn’t a native: A born and bred New Yorker, raised a Reform Jew but currently identifying as a Conservative Jew, Ensler first came South for two years after college in Washington, DC, as a Teach for America fellow in 2012.
After attending Cardozo School of Law in New York, he returned to Montgomery. “As much as I loved growing up in New York and going to college in DC, I felt like this is a place I could make a difference on a deeper level.” He loved the Jewish community (“It’s like a second family”) and the wider community, and working with underserved public school students. “It’s a place where I could make a big difference, to be hands-on, and make people’s lives a little bit better,” he said.
In 2012, Ensler started a program called Marching On, where he took students to Washington, DC (often the students’ first time on a plane), to meet with leaders, tour colleges, and learn about career opportunities. He still leads the program every year, expanding it to include students from Montgomery’s five traditional public high schools.
As executive director of the Jewish Federation of Central Alabama, Ensler manages programming and fundraising for local needs like Jewish summer camps and holiday camps and helps raise funds for Jews in Israel and to promote Jewish life both locally and abroad. (He was supposed to attend a federation mission to Israel in October, which was postponed until February.)
Last November, in a historic 2022 election, he was elected to represent District 74 in the Alabama House of Representatives: it was the first time a Democrat flipped a district in the legislature since 2010, and he’s the only Jew of 140 in the state legislature.
That makes him proud – and loud – about being Jewish. “It’s harder not having as many Jewish people around, but it makes me much more proud; especially [considering that] for a lot of people I meet, I am the first Jewish person they have known,” he said.
“I tell everyone that I get the opportunity to – every chance I get I bring it up,” he says of his Jewishness, noting that he has a mezuzah on his door at the State House. “I post about it everywhere; I love people knowing I’m Jewish,” he said. He likes to educate people on Jewish customs and what it means to be Jewish. “It all comes down to that we strive to be good people and strive to make the world a better place for everyone.”
He hopes that by people seeing his work in the community, helping out people in need, working to improve public schools and combat gun violence, this will immunize them against bad stereotypes and negativity. “I hope that by seeing me on a personal level, they will understand that Jews aren’t just ‘these foreign people.’”
In Montgomery – which is an hour and a half from Birmingham and two hours from Atlanta – they’ve received support from local Evangelical churches. “Even before the October 7 attacks on Israel, we saw the rise in antisemitism from the far Right, and now to be seeing it on the far Left – it’s really disturbing,” he said, noting that there haven’t been many local protests.
As for the “continued rise in antisemitism,” he hopes “it certainly doesn’t get worse – I hope it gets better with time.”
He wants fellow Jews in Israel to know that the Jews of Alabama stand with them. “I know these are difficult and scary times. I know we are so anxious about the hostages returning home.... I want Israelis to know there are Jewish people in Alabama and that we’ll continue to stick together. The Jewish people here feel we’re part of this larger Jewish community, and we’re hoping every day for our brothers and sisters in Israel.”
Currently single (it’s hard to find a Jewish woman in Alabama, he admits), living with his cat, Franklin, and working two jobs, Ensler does not know what his future holds. With a twin sister in Los Angeles, a mom in Park City, Utah, and friends and family in New York and DC, he travels often.
“If someone told me when I was growing up in New York or when I was in law school that I’d end up in the Alabama Legislature, I’d have thought they’d be out of their mind,” he said, laughing.
“I do enjoy public service – government is a place I can make a difference, or if there’s another opportunity to serve in another position, I’m open to that as well,” he said. “I’m open to wherever life will lead.”