(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…
I grimaced when I heard about the racist and sexist emails exchanged at the Alpha Epsilon Pi Chapter at the University of Chicago, my alma mater. Then I read the emails, and I became furious. They are awful. They are disgraceful. They are racist, sexist, sometimes both, often more. Whoever wrote them is a disgrace…
The AEPi chapter at the University of Chicago is in hot water after a series of stunningly offensive emails between members of the Jewish fraternity were revealed. The emails show the brothers of Alpha Epsilon Pi: – Regularly bandied about the N-word. – Celebrated MLK Day with fried chicken and drinking game. – Called nearby…
The debate over pinkwashing at the Creating Change conference in Chicago this past weekend was agitational. It was uncomfortable. It brought out tensions in our relationships, our values and our communities. That’s a good thing. I was always taught that Shabbat is a time to imagine the world to come. So, when I learned that…
Walter W. Reed, who last year published a book about his experience hiding from the Nazis with about 100 other Jewish children, has died at 91. Reed, a regular speaker at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, died Jan. 13 in his Chicago-area home, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday. Reed’s “The Children of La Hille: Eluding Nazi…
An American Jewish billionaire philanthropist in Chicago has donated $2 million to establish what is believed to be the first chair of transgender studies at a university. Jennifer Pritzker, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who is believed to be the only transgender billionaire in the world, made the gift through her Tawani Foundation to…
Politicians have a lot of choice words for the media — but embattled Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has a whole new view of the press corps that we’ve, frankly, not heard before. The other day he mocked fickle reporters as acting like Jewish mothers. He may, of course, have some experience on the subject: He’s…
Mindy Segal, a James Beard Award winning pastry chef and author of “Cookie Love,” is cooking up sweets with a not-so-secret ingredient. Forgive Chicago chef Mindy Segal if she’s a little high on herself. The owner of beloved local spot and author of cookbook “Cookie Love” is about to unveil marijuana-infused sweets. Segal, a James…
