Man shot on way to synagogue, former CPS student harassed speak at Chicago antisemitism hearing
While the Jewish community accounts for 3% of the city population, the Commission says anti-Jewish hate crime was up 58% in 2024.
CHICAGO (WLS) -- There was a hearing Monday at City Hall on the rise of anti-Jewish hate crimes.
A father who was shot on his way to synagogue told his story, as did a former Chicago Public Schools student who experienced antisemitism at school.
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Shiri Litwick was the only Jewish person in her eighth-grade class when she attended Philip Rogers Elementary School in West Rogers Park two years ago. Testifying before the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, Litwick says she experienced antisemitism from her peers and a teacher. When Litwick handed in an assignment about the Holocaust and the Oct. 7 Hamas Attack on Israel, she says her CPS teacher told her she was wrong about the facts.
"She told me the Holocaust was not a genocide of the Jewish people. She also told me I was not being sensitive to Hamas," Litwick said.
In another incident, Litwick says she was attacked by boys sitting behind her in class.
"One shouted 'free Palestine' at me; another cut a chunk of my hair. He fist pumped his friends after assaulting me," Litwick said.
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Litwick says the boys were never disciplined, and the teacher remains on the job. Also in the West Rogers Park neighborhood, Etan Bleichman testified about being shot on his way to Saturday morning synagogue.
"I thought maybe a tree branch hit me. But as I started to get up, I noticed a hole in my lapel with blood coming through," Eitan Bleichman said.
Bleichman says the shooting was unprovoked. Police say he was a target for being Jewish. While the Jewish community accounts for 3% of the city population, the Commission says anti-Jewish hate crime was up 58% in 2024.
"Every synagogue, every school, every institution in my community lives under lockdown. Jewish children have never experienced a school day where they haven't needed armed guards to keep them safe," 50th Ward Ald. Debra Silverstein said.
This year, swastikas have also been discovered in Little Village and Hyde Park. City Council's only Jewish member, Silverstein, accuses the Johnson administration of not taking anti-Jewish hate crime seriously and not inviting certain major Jewish organizations to testify.
Ahead of the hearing, Silverstein held a press conference with Jewish leaders.
She said those most affected by antisemitism have been excluded from the proceedings.
Silverstein was joined by representatives from the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Simon Wiesenthal Center, StandWithUs and a victim of antisemitic harassment.
Silverstein and over a dozen other aldermen said in a news release later Monday that they were disappointed in how the hearing was run.
"Rather than address the diverse and growing threats facing Jewish Chicagoans, the hearing 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 release said. "The Jewish community has the right to define and speak to its own experiences. We demand that city leadership stop treating antisemitism as a political issue and start treating it as the urgent crisis it is."
Following the hearing, the Chicago Commission on Human Relations will issue a report of recommendations in about 60 days.
