Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson presides over a city council meeting as the Council discusses a symbolic resolution calling for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, January 31, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. The resolution passed by a vote of 24 to 23 after Mayor Johnson cast the tie-breaking vote. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

(JTA) — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson came under fire from local Jewish leaders after he wore a keffiyeh, or a traditional Palestinian headscarf, to a public event this week.

The Chicago chapter of the Council on American–Islamic Relations posted a picture of Johnson with its executive director, Ahmed Rehab, at an event to mark Arab Heritage Month. In it, Johnson, who was elected in 2023, is wearing a black-and-white keffiyeh.

“Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (appropriately) commemorated Arab Heritage Month this week. Arab Heritage should be honored and celebrated,” Rabbi Ari Hart of Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob Synagogue wrote on Facebook. “But would it not be possible [to] commemorate Arab Heritage without wearing the symbol that millions of Jews around the world saw worn to celebrate the murder, rape and kidnapping of October 7th?”

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Hart was voicing concerns about keffiyehs that have accrued over the last year and a half as the keffiyeh has become closely associated with anti-Israel protests that followed Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. While the keffiyeh has a long history and is not considered a hate symbol even by staunchly pro-Israel watchdog groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, the protests have caused many Jews to grow wary and even feel threatened when seeing it in public places.

“We understand that Mayor Johnson may not have intended to cause harm, but at a time of historic antisemitic threat levels, including in Chicago, symbols matter. Their public use, especially by elected officials, carries weight and meaning,” Lisa Katz, chief government affairs officer of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, a pro-Israel group, said in a statement.

The Chicago Jewish Alliance, launched in early 2024 after Johnson cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of a City Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war, condemned the mayor’s attire at the Arab Heritage Month event.

“For the mayor of Chicago to stand there — cloaked in a symbol now synonymous with Jewish bloodshed, flanked by an organization that justifies it — is more than tone-deaf. It’s a betrayal,” the group said in a Facebook post. “It tells Jewish Chicagoans: your pain doesn’t matter. Your dead don’t count. Your safety is negotiable.”

CAIR-Chicago pushed back against the group’s characterization in its own post. “Reducing an entire people’s heritage to terrorism is not advocacy — it’s dehumanization,” the group said.

“By their logic, should the kippah be cancelled because Israeli soldiers wear it? Of course not. But, that is their argument.”

Johnson, who was previously a progressive activist in Chicago’s teachers union, is historically unpopular, with an approval rating of well under 20%. Among his many critics are many in the city’s Jewish communities who have felt betrayed by his public criticism of Israel — he called its conduct in Gaza “genocidal” last year — and concerned that he is inadequately concerned with Jewish safety.

Last October, he drew criticism for condemning the shooting of an Orthodox Jewish man but neglecting to mention the victim’s Jewish identity. The shooter, who prosecutors revealed had mapped Jewish sites in Chicago, was charged with a hate crime and terrorism before dying in jail.

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