Jewish organization leaders and allies on Friday called for local elected officials and civic heads to “stop tolerating hate in the guise of activism” following the fatal shooting this week of two Israeli embassy employees, allegedly at the hands of a Chicago man.
Flanked by officials from the American Jewish committee’s Chicago office, the Jewish United Fund, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and several aldermen, the Anti-Defamation League’s David Goldenberg said “this is a major problem here in Chicago, and too many of our elected and civic leaders have not only been silent on the issue, but some continue to fan the flames of hate and antisemitism.”
Although Goldenberg, who is the ADL’s Midwest regional director, did not specifically call out anyone by name for their rhetoric, he was critical of Mayor Brandon Johnson for “elevating people who have a history of being hostile to members (of) the Jewish community.”
The alleged shooter, Chicagoan Elias Rodriguez, was charged Thursday in U.S. District Court with murder after shooting two staff members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on Wednesday night as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum. The two were identified as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim.
Authorities said Rodriguez “spontaneously stated on scene to (police) ‘I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,” and a social media account attributed to the suspect shared a manifesto condemning the deaths of tens of thousands in Gaza and how civil protests had fallen short in stopping the war.
Ald. Deborah Silverstein, 50th, the lone Jewish member of the Chicago City Council, said that “the unpermitted protests that have overtaken our streets, the unsanctioned encampments on college campuses, the orchestrated walkouts in CPS schools … are not expression of free speech. These are breeding grounds for dangerous ideologies.”
“When our elected leaders enable and praise this behavior, it creates an atmosphere that encourages people to go out and harm Jews,” she said. “We need our leaders to work to lower the temperature and defuse these extremist organizations that are spreading antisemitism and hate when it comes from within our own parties and from our own political base.”
Johnson has overseen a sharp split among the Chicago City Council over the war in Gaza, including a heated debate over a resolution calling for a ceasefire in which the mayor became a tiebreaker to approve it. It came on the heels of a separate resolution also condemning the October 2023 Hamas attack.
Johnson has described the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas as “genocidal,” also calling for “the immediate releasing of hostages, the end of these acts of terror and the end to this war.”
Johnson committed to lowering the temperature at a Thursday press conference where he and CPD Supt. Larry Snelling addressed the incident.
“There’s been so much animus that has been directed towards the Jewish community, and it’s our collective responsibility,” the mayor said before pausing and saying, “to be far more thoughtful about how we express our politics.”
In a statement, Johnson’s office reiterated his “care and support for all Jewish people in Chicago and around the world” and said the mayor “has consistently spoken out against antisemitism in Chicago,” including after the attack on two Jewish DePaul students, incidents of antisemitic graffiti in the 44th Ward and in condemning the Hamas attacks as “one of the worst acts of terror we’ve witnessed.”
Ahmed Rehab, executive director of Chicago’s Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he disavowed the violence, but disagreed with the idea local protests sparked it.
He argued protests have “all been peaceful” and added that local protest groups do not know Rodriguez.
“I’m seeing the re-definition of antisemitism to include legitimate criticism of the genocide in Gaza in order to give cover,” he said. “I see that as gaslighting.”
Rodriguez participated in protests for progressive causes, including opposition to the war in Gaza, against Amazon’s expansion locally and the police response to the death of Laquan McDonald.
The spotlight on Rodriguez’s politics also led to false and misleading claims circulated on social media of the alleged shooter’s ties to Johnson allies, underscoring how charged the situation has become since Johnson made waves as the first big city mayor to endorse a ceasefire last year.
Several viral social media posts incorrectly purporting to show Rodriguez alongside Johnson and several progressive aldermen in a political group’s “family photo” were seen by hundreds of thousands of users online. Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd, who is also in the picture, confirmed the man falsely identified as the shooter was actually her former political director, Chris Poulos. Poulos confirmed to the Tribune that he was the man in the photo.
“This is exhausting and harmful. They can really put people in danger,” Ald. Rodriguez Sanchez said of the viral, incorrect posts. “Our message has always been about peace.”
Though some social media users deleted their claims about the photo when Poulos identified himself, Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, left several posts of the image up, one with the caption, “Birds of a feather.”
“What they are inferring … is open to interpretation,” Lopez told the Tribune. He refused to say whether he meant to imply the shooter was pictured but said he would not take the photo down.
Shlomo Soroka, a lobbyist for the Jewish orthodox organization Agudath Israel of Illinois, told the Tribune on Thursday that Johnson had called that morning to offer condolences and also “conceded that perhaps he could have done better and can do better in terms of dealing with our community and the sensitivities we have.”
The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the conversation. Soroka said the mayor had given him permission to post about their conversation on social media.
Soroka said he told the mayor “a lot of the people he surrounds himself with and is associated with are responsible for what happened. There’s a movement that has created a climate in which it’s acceptable to talk in ways that facilitate violent behavior against Jewish people (that have) nothing to do with the Middle East conflict … you’re going to have to be more vocal and call out people that are your friends and allies. And he said, ‘You have my word and my commitment.’”
But during Friday’s press conference, which was also attended by Nancy Andrade, the chair of the city’s Commission on Human Relations, Goldenberg and others had harsh words for the mayor. Goldenberg pointed the controversy over the mayor’s previous handpicked school board president, Pastor Mitchell Johnson, who resigned last year after coming under fire, in part, for social media posts that were deemed antisemitic, misogynistic and conspiratorial.
“If you’re the mayor, you stop appointing and elevating people who have a history of being hostile to members to the Jewish community. And when you find out that they have that history, you get rid of them,” Goldenberg said, adding he was speaking for the ADL. “Think about Pastor Johnson. The antisemitism isn’t what doomed him. It was the 9/11 conspiracies. The antisemitism was known for multiple days, and the mayor continued to allow him to have the job of being the head of the CPS board. It wasn’t until he came out that he was in a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and said it was an ‘inside job,’ that he lost his gig and was forced to step down.”
Johnson appointed Cydney Wallace, a leader on the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, to fill the vacant Board of Education seat.
Goldenberg on Friday said state elected officials could take concrete steps to curb antisemitism, including passing a pending bill that mandates hate crime training for law enforcement, develop a statewide plan to combat antisemitism and for the state’s department of education to implement digital media literacy curriculum so children could spot online hate. The hate crime training bill, Goldenberg said, was being held up by members of the General Assembly’s progressive caucus.
“This legislation has now been in the House for two years, and we’ve had a number of conversations about it,” state Rep. Bob Morgan, the bill’s sponsor, told the Tribune Thursday. Members have “expressed concerns to make sure that whatever this training is, that it’s done in a way that really is protecting all communities.”
“It’s certainly on top of my mind to make sure we do this and do this quickly,” given Wednesday’s shooting, Morgan said.
Abdelnasser Rashid, the first Palestinian-American to serve in the Illinois General Assembly, said he “had been engaging in good faith” efforts to amend the bill to ensure that those supporting Palestinian rights that wear or display the watermelon symbol or wear a keffiyeh, for example, aren’t deemed antisemitic.
Conflating “advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism … is abominable.”
Leaders have an obligation to call out messaging that “celebrates and calls for violence against Jews,” Goldenberg said. “Saying ‘Free, free Palestine, in and of itself, is not antisemitic,” he said, but signs or chants about globalizing the intifada or glorifying martyrdom should be “shut down.”
“The irony that these young folks, 26 and 30-years-old, about to get engaged on a trip to Israel, were gunned down as they exited this (diplomatic) event after dedicating their lives towards the progress of peace is the actual illustration of what is going on on our planet right now with antisemitism,” Beth Ida Stern, the interim regional director of the American Jewish Committee Chicago office said. “The only solution is for us to coalesce, build understanding, overcome our differences and realize that our similarities are what tie us together as human beings.”
Tribune reporters Jeremy Gorner and Alice Yin contributed.
