Ken Kaissar was born in Ramat Gan, Israel, and grew up in a right-wing Jewish household in Indianapolis. His father fought in three Israeli wars—1956, 1967, and 1973—and growing up, Kaissar was told that Israel was in perpetual danger and that, as he put it, “the Arabs wanted to kill us and destroy us.” As…
When the U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to condemn a U.N. Security Council resolution denouncing as illegal Jewish settlements in the Israeli occupied West Bank, the voting profile of Chicago-area members differed markedly from the House as a whole. While the House overwhelmingly backed the condemnation of the U.N. by a lopsided vote…
Every Sabbath, the members of Congregation Am Shalom in north suburban Glencoe read a list of names aloud of the people who were killed by violence in Cook and Lake Counties that week. Very seldom do any of the victims come from the wealthy North Shore or the wider Chicago Jewish community. But the congregation…
President-elect Donald Trump said in a Twitter message that Chicago’s mayor must ask for U.S. government help if the city fails to reduce its homicide rate, which hit a 20-year high in 2016. The city responded that Trump and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had previously spoken and agreed to ways the federal government could help….
It was the third game of the Giants-Cubs National League playoffs, going into extra innings. The winner of the best-of-seven series, which the Cubs led 2-1, would go on to the World Series. All of Chicago was watching on that Wednesday evening, October 10, praying for the Cubs’ first World Series appearance since 1945 —…
A friend from Georgia once joked to me, “Everyone down here celebrates Christmas, even if you don’t celebrate Christmas.” The meaning of a Christmas tree in a Jewish home is different in a rural Southern town than it is in a Northern industrialized city. The story of Jewish assimilation and acceptance in the South has…
(JTA) — David Steiner, a documentary filmmaker from Chicago who was studying to be a rabbi, was killed in a bus crash in rural Uganda. Steiner, 51, the creator of the award-winning documentary “Saving Barbara Sizemore,” about efforts to save a charter school in Chicago, was the only fatality in Monday’s crash. His son, Itamar, and…
It’s about halfway through Hanukkah, and your initial excitement about latkes has worn off. But if your enthusiasm for arteriosclerosis has yet to be sated, there’s still a second stage to savor: the pleasures of sufganiyot. Unlike latkes, which are always better homemade, one of the greatest of these pleasures is that you can buy…
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