Steven Sheffey was annoyed, deeply annoyed. The annoyance oozed out from the newsletter he sent in late May, a newsletter that is, arguably, the most widely shared local Jewish media in Chicago. Republicans in Congress had spent the prior days claiming Democrats in the U.S. House had voted against funding a refresh of Israel’s Iron…
Max Solomon Lewis, a 20-year-old University of Chicago student, was commuting home from his summer internship last Thursday evening when a stray bullet pierced the window of his train car and hit him in the back of the neck. Lewis, a rising third year student, was rushed to the University of Chicago Medical Center and…
The Israeli doctoral student murdered in Chicago was not the victim of an antisemitic attack, police have determined. Around 4 p.m. on June 19, Anat Kimchi, who was 31, was walking on the 400 block of South Wacker Drive in the area known as The Loop when she was stabbed three times. She was brought…
At the close-knit Catholic school from which my son, Nico, just graduated, every eighth grader must study the Holocaust. The unit is both capstone and rite of passage— by eighth grade, students have the intellectual and emotional maturity to grasp this important subject matter. “It’s hard to study the Holocaust,” Nico, who is 14, told…
Civil rights leaders from multiple communities will gather in Chicago to pay tribute to the late Rabbi Robert J. Marx, founder of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and a towering figure in the city’s pursuit of social justice. The public memorial, to be held June 27 at Beth Shalom B’Nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Community…
Holocaust survivor and social activist Fritzie Fritzshall died Saturday at the age of 91. Frtizshall survived the death camps to become a leading voice for Holocaust education. She served as president of Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center and remained active in bridging ethnic and religious divides throughout her life. “She was brave, selfless, wise…
What do empty swimming pools have to do with racial justice and income inequality? To Heather McGhee, a lot. “In the middle of the 20th century, there were about 2,000 lavish, publicly-funded pools around the country. When the Civil Rights Movement enabled Black families to say, ‘Hey, those are our tax dollars funding those pools….
In Chicago’s large Orthodox Jewish community, Rabbi Ari Hart stands out. As a leader at Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob Synagogue in Skokie, Illinois, Hart focuses on the roles of women within their community, inclusion of LGBTQ individuals, and other accessibility issues as simple as welcoming different styles of worship. As an activist, he has embarked…
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