In 1980 Skokie, Ill. lawyer Michael Lorge and about 20 of his friends were trying to create a positive Jewish community response for what they saw as an identity in trouble. Though Israel and Egypt had established diplomatic relations in January, only three months later five Palestinian Arabs from the Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front raided…
Commander Marc Buslik was greeted with blank stares as he stood before a group of rank-and-file Chicago police officers, hoping to explain why the federal government was investigating them for unconstitutional policing. “In October of 2014,” he noted bluntly, “Officer Van Dyke decided to pump 16 bullets into Lacquan McDonald.” His shoulders slumped and his…
On social media and over drinks, American liberals are discussing — sometimes jokingly and sometimes not — how to move to Canada if Donald Trump makes it into the White House. Between the violence against minorities at Trump rallies, the Nazi-like salutes and the candidate’s choice to tweet a quotation from Benito Mussolini, the idea…
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Saturday blamed supporters of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders for protests that shut down his Chicago rally, calling the U.S. senator from Vermont “our communist friend.” Trump’s Republican rivals, meanwhile, hurled scorn at the New York billionaire, saying he helped create the increasingly tense atmosphere that is now sweeping the…
The aftershocks of the Iran nuclear deal, which tore the American Jewish community in two last summer, still ripple politically amid the tranquil, willow-lined boulevards of Chicago’s upscale northwest suburbs. Two Jewish candidates for Congress with almost identical political profiles — except for their positions on the Iran deal — are running against each other…
It’s no secret that Bernie Sanders has been a bit reluctant to explicitly discuss his Jewish identity during his presidential campaign. So it jumped out at us when University of Chicago student Chelsea Fine got him to open up a bit on Thursday night at a nationally televised town hall session on MSNBC. To the…
A billboard in Chicago calling for a boycott of Israel will be removed following a public outcry. Lamar Advertising, which leases billboards throughout the country, announced in a Facebook post on Friday that it would remove the billboard “as soon as possible.” Earlier in the day, also in a statement on Facebook, the company said…
(JTA) — In the summer of 2011, Lizzi Heydemann returned to her native Chicago to establish a Jewish community loosely modeled on Ikar, the Los Angeles congregation where she had spent two years as a rabbinic intern. She set about harvesting email addresses and putting out the word on social media. Heydemann called her community…
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