A hearing of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, a city agency, excluded Jewish organizations on Monday and thus “largely downplayed the true scope of antisemitism in our city,” according to 25 city aldermen, including Debra Silverstein, the only Jewish member of the Chicago City Council.
“We are deeply disappointed in how today’s antisemitism hearing, hosted by the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, was conducted,” the 25 aldermen wrote. “At a time when antisemitic hate crimes are rising across Chicago, this hearing should have been an opportunity to confront that reality head-on.”
Instead, the city representatives state, Brandon Johnson, the city mayor, and the commission “excluded most major Jewish organizations from participating in planning the hearing and invited only two actual victims of anti-Jewish hate to testify, out of nearly 30 speakers.”
The aldermen said that they hear from victims of Jew-hatred “daily.”
“We interact with Jewish Chicagoans who are being harassed, assaulted and targeted. Jewish Chicagoans who were not offered a voice at today’s hearing,” they said. “Synagogues and schools are under constant threat. The Jewish community lives this reality every day, and yet mainstream Jewish voices were pushed aside when planning CCHR’s hearing.”
The hearing, they said, “appeared designed to minimize or politicize antisemitism, treating it solely as a problem of the far right, while ignoring the full scope of threats Jewish Chicagoans face daily.”
The 25 representatives insisted that city leaders “stop treating antisemitism as a political issue and start treating it as the urgent crisis it is.”
In July, official Chicago statistics suggested that anti-Jewish hate crimes rose 58% in 2024, making up more than 37% of all Chicago hate crimes.
The mayor has drawn frequent criticism from the Jewish community, including for wearing a keffiyeh during Arab Heritage Month.
