The Chicago Jewish Alliance denounced Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday after the local chapter of the Council on American–Islamic Relations posted a photo of him wearing a keffiyeh to celebrate Arab Heritage Month.
“This is outrageous,” the alliance wrote. “For the mayor of Chicago to stand there—cloaked in a symbol now synonymous with Jewish bloodshed, flanked by an organization that justifies it—is more than tone-deaf. It’s a betrayal.”
“It tells Jewish Chicagoans: Your pain doesn’t matter. Your dead don’t count. Your safety is negotiable,” it continued, adding that the garment is “not neutral. It’s a flag of war.”
“The keffiyeh isn’t just a cultural symbol. Not anymore. In today’s world, it’s worn at Hamas rallies. It’s paraded in the streets when mobs chant ‘From the river to the sea,’ a call for the eradication of Israel. It’s the uniform of those who cheered on the Oct. 7 massacre — where babies were burned, women raped, and over 1,200 Jews slaughtered.”
The statement went further to call out CAIR, stating the organization is a “co-conspirator in the largest terror-financing trial in U.S. history.”
CAIR blamed Israel for the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and was removed from the White House national strategy on antisemitism under the Biden administration. Its executive director, Nihad Awad, said that Israel does not have the right to self-defense.
While the alliance condemned the action, the organization added that Arab Heritage Month “should be celebrated” but “through food, music, poetry and history,” and “not by embracing symbols of terror.”
Lisa Katz, chief government affairs officer for the Combat Antisemitism Movement, encouraged Johnson “to engage in open dialogue with Chicago’s Jewish community, learn more about the evolving symbols of modern-day antisemitism, and show solidarity against antisemitism and hate in all their contemporary forms.”
“This moment presents an opportunity—for education, for empathy and for leadership that brings communities together rather than deepening divides,” Katz wrote.
