Image by Kurt Hoffman

1) 297,885 Jews live in Illinois.

2) The first recorded Jewish resident in Illinois was John Hays who lived in Cahokia, near the Missouri border. He was a farmer, trader, and soldier, and served as St. Clair County’s postmaster until 1798, when he was appointed sheriff.

3) Music entrepreneur Sol Bloom developed the Midway Plaisance, the site of the 1893 world’s fair.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

4) Current Mayor Rahm Emanuel is Chicago’s first Jewish mayor. Illinois’ first Jewish mayors served concurrently: William Eppinger of Jacksonville (1880-1890) and Morris Saddler in the town named for him (Saddler), from 1880-1886.

5) Illinois’ two Jewish governors were Henry Horner (1932-1939), and Samuel H. Shapiro of Kankakee, which is about 90 miles south of Chicago. Shapiro succeeded to the governorship after eight years as Illinois’ Lieutenant Governor but lost the election six months later.

6) In 1842, Abraham Jonas became Illinois’ first elected Jewish legislator; Jonas became a friend and confidant of Abraham Lincoln and both joined the new Republican Party in 1854. Jonas’s law partner, Henry Asbury, prodded Lincoln to run for the U.S. presidency. Jonas arranged the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate in Quincy, Illinois, where he lived.

7) In 1917, Long before she became the fourth Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir was a public librarian at the Douglas Park branch of the Chicago Public Library.

8) The 1995 film “Casino,” directed by Martin Scorsese, is based on the Las Vegas chapter of the life of Frank Lawrence “Lefty” Rosenthal (1929-2008), an eminent sports bettor from Chicago who in the 1950s would run the largest illegal bookmaking operation in the U.S. under the name of the Cicero Home Improvement Co., based in Cicero, Illinois.

9) The Anti-Defamation League was founded on September 13, 1923 by Sigmund Livingston as a committee of the Chicago B’nai B’rith. Livingston was also the author of the book “Must Men Hate?” which was intended to refute popular anti-Semitic myths.

10) On July 3, 1933, Jewish Day was celebrated at the Century of Progress world’s fair.

11) Two Chicago lawyers have served on the U.S. Supreme Court. The first was Arthur Goldberg, a prominent labor lawyer. He resigned from the court at President Lyndon Johnson’s request to become the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. The other Supreme Court justice from Chicago is John Paul Stevens.

12) Chicago-born Jewish inventor Martin Cooper is credited with making the world’s first cellular telephone call in 1973.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount