We are officially in Pride Month, and this year, with the return of some in-person events, it feels particularly festive. Yes, we’re still not through with the pandemic, but in-person Pride Shabbatot on sunny beaches, special seminars and yes, even parades are back on. And there are also still plenty of virtual options, offering the…
If you had to stand outside through 40 years of Chicago winters, you wouldn’t look so good either. That’s why a beloved piece of Chicago public art, the Chicago Jewish Mural, just underwent a major, much-needed renovation. Four decades ago, artists, friends and activists, Cynthia Weiss and Miriam Socoloff, created a glass mosaic mural that…
When Rabbi Robert Marx died last week at his Michigan home at the age of 93, he left behind a history of social justice activism in Chicago. It began in 1966, when he watched Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. lead a march through a hostile white neighborhood on Chicago’s Southwest Side. “What I saw in…
On a bright Chicago spring morning, longtime friends and business partners Tamar Fasja Unikel and Elena Vasquez Felgueres ventured out from their Southside home to the northwest side of the city to view a rental space. It’s the first one of many that they planned to visit, as the two are in search of a…
When Jorge Sepulveda sees the images of the refugees gathered at America’s southern border, awaiting asylum, he thinks of his father. “I understand who these families are trying to come here, even illegally,” he said. “Imagine how bad it must be where they are from, to take such a risk.” Sepulveda’s own story has a…
Since 1982, Stephen Durchslag has collected thousands of haggadot from around the world, acquiring what is believed to be the largest private one in the world. Now, the former Chicago attorney has bequeathed it to the University of Chicago to enhance and grow its exposure for generations to come. The collection features over 4,500 Passover…
Sometimes a sign is more than a sign. In 2019, the City of Chicago informed Robert’s Fish Market, the only kosher fish market in Chicago, that the permit for its iconic sign had expired. The city fined the shop’s owner, Arturo Venegas, and Venegas took it down. That made a tough business even tougher. But…
A public monument featuring Revolutionary War financier Haym Saloman, a Polish-Jewish American businessman, may be removed from where it stands in Chicago’s Heald Square. The monument, along with 40 others, is under review by the Chicago Monument Project as part of the city’s effort to “address the hard truths of Chicago’s racial history.” The project…
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