Aimee Levitt
By Aimee Levitt
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News Something’s Happenin’ Here, As Chicago Jews and Muslims Deepen Ties
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,…
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News Jesse Jackson Convenes Jews, Muslims and Christians to Stand Together
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…
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News From A West Bank Settlement to Forging Jewish-Muslim Ties In Chicago—One Rabbi’s Story
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…
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News Chicago Synagogues Still Waiting To Help Refugees Trump Left In Limbo
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…
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News In Chicago, The Election Aftermath Is Bringing Groups That Once Squabbled Together
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…
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News The First Voices To Emerge from the Holocaust: David Boder’s Nightmarish Journey, Rediscovered
It was a mysterious, mislabeled canister that sat for 50 years, undisturbed, in the University of Akron’s archives. But its recent discovery has provided a valuable addition to a precious trove of recordings: the earliest preserved voices of survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, just months after their liberation. The University of Akron’s discovery, announced…
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Breaking News Like Most Federations, JUF of Chicago Tried to Avoid Politics—Til Now
The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago issued a statement earlier this week criticizing the Trump administration’s “sweeping, sudden, and uncoordinated” move to temporarily ban refugees and travelers from seven majority-Muslim nations from entering the United States. As a protest action, that may not sound like much. But it’s an unusual step for the federation, which…
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Breaking News The Story Behind That Protest Image of The Jewish Boy and Muslim Girl
Over the past five days, there’s been a warmth and generosity of spirit to the protests at O’Hare International Airport’s Terminal 5, where demonstrators have continued to show up in solidarity with the travelers detained by the presidential ban barring refugees and nationals of seven primarily Islamic countries from the country. People from all over…
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