Post-election outreach between Jewish and Muslim groups in Chicago reached a new level of depth and intensity over a varied series of meetings last week. Though many of these groups began connecting with each prior to the election of Donald Trump as president, post-election developments drove and dominated the recent political, educational, and social events,…
The Reverend Jesse Jackson convened a meeting of leaders from Chicago’s Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities February 24 to discuss ways to fight the recent outpouring of hate crimes, particularly against Jews and Muslims. The meeting, held at KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation, the Hyde Park synagogue that sits across the street from former President Barack…
Rabbi Michael Davis was born in the United Kingdom and immigrated to Israel with his family as a child to become a settler. He grew up in a West Bank settlement, where he attended an Orthodox yeshiva and later served in the Israel Defense Forces. But as a young man, Davis began to question the…
It was a Friday night in mid-August, and about a dozen Jews, most under 30, congregated around a coffee table in Nashville. Almost all had moved to the city in the past three years. We opened up instrument cases and passed around egg shakers. Someone started strumming guitar. “Lecha dodi, lekrat kala…” When I was…
Eight refugee families, still in limbo. That is the situation Chicago synagogues are dealing with after having volunteered to sponsor them—about 35 people in all—since President Donald Trump issued his executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim majority countries from entering the United States. Despite a February 3 court order temporarily lifting the ban, and…
The Women’s March was set for a Saturday morning. My first impression was that the organizers didn’t care whether Jewish women attended or simply knew nothing about Judaism. Such is the life of a minority. Religious Jews worship in synagogues on Shabbat mornings and don’t travel that day. Wanting to join the Women’s March, the…
Early last Saturday morning—the Jewish Sabbath—someone smashed the windows of the Chicago Loop Synagogue and drew swastikas on the front of the building. Lee Zoldan, the synagogue’s president, got a phone call with the bad news at 1 a.m. An hour later, she found herself standing with her husband in the middle of Clark Street…
CHICAGO (JUF News via JTA) — Some 1,000 Jewish, Muslim and Christian Chicago residents came together in unity at a synagogue that was vandalized with swastikas four days earlier. The Wednesday event at the Chicago Loop Synagogue was sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish United Fund and billed as “an interfaith…
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