Various Jewish leaders and Chicago aldermen expressed “deep disappointment” in an antisemitism hearing that they felt “silenced Jewish voices.”
The Chicago Commission on Human Relations (CCHR) held a six-hour public session on antisemitism on Monday to understand why, while overall hate crimes are down in the city, antisemitism is on the rise. Jews constitute about 3% of the Chicago population, but have been the target of nearly 40% of crimes reported to Chicago police in 2024.
A total of 30 people testified about their experiences, including Alderman Debra Silverstein of the city’s 50th Ward neighborhood.
Silverstein criticized the hearing, arguing that of the 30 people invited by Mayor Brandon Johnson, only two were victims of anti-Jewish hate.
"They selected the group of witnesses themselves; it was honestly disgusting," Alderman Silverstein told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. She explained that the council also excluded mainstream legacy Jewish organizations such as the Jewish United Fund, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, StandWithUs, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and also did not consult with her, despite her being the person who called for the event.
"After the CCHR put out a report on hate crimes, showing that hate crimes against Jews were up by 58%, I called the hearing as I felt it was a crisis and people needed to hear what was happening."
The actual event did not fit her expectations, she told the Post. "It wasn't live-streamed like it normally is; it was not widely publicized. It was not very democratic nor transparent."
Following the session, Silverstein, along with 25 aldermen, wrote an open letter to the city council.
“At a time when antisemitic hate crimes are rising across Chicago, this hearing should have been an opportunity to confront that reality head-on,” the letter said. “Instead, Mayor Johnson and [the] CCHR excluded most major Jewish organizations from participating and invited only two actual victims of anti-Jewish hate to testify.”
“The result was a hearing that largely downplayed the true scope of antisemitism in our city,” it continued. “The Jewish community has the right to define and speak to its own experiences.”
Antisemitism on the rise in Chicago
During the hearing, Silverstein testified to seeing “swastikas sprayed on walls, hateful flyers on our cars, smashed windows at synagogues and schools.” She continued, “Just in this last year, there was a terrorist attack against a visibly Jewish man in my community,” referring to the shooting of Orthodox Jewish Chicagoan Eitan Bleichman in October 2024 while he was walking to a synagogue in West Ridge.
Bleichman, who was also present at the hearing, said: “I was targeted solely because I was Jewish. I was dressed in a suit and tie and kippah, no different than I am today, and shot while walking to synagogue.”
Rabbi Michael Siegel of Anshe Emet Synagogue in Lakeview testified to needing armed security when leaving services on Friday nights “because one doesn’t know where danger is lurking.”
A former Chicago Public Schools student testified about being attacked at school for being Jewish. “One boy shouted ‘Free Palestine’ at me, and another cut a chunk of my hair,” she told the court. “The teacher did nothing.”
Bleichman and the student were the only two to actually experience hate crimes. Many of the others invited to testify spoke of how anti-Zionism is not antisemitism and blamed Jew hatred on the far right - something which does not represent the views of most of the city's Jews, Silverstein told the Post.
"That is not an oversight," she said. "That is a choice – and that choice sends a loud and clear message: The mayor does not believe the Jewish community has the right to defend our own experience with antisemitism.”
Such “fringe” progressive Jewish voices included Jewish professor, Ashley Bohrer, who testified that "the conflation of political support for Palestinians with anti-Jewish hate has muddied the water so much that it makes it harder to do our job to confront anti-Jewish hate.
“Some of my colleagues in the Jewish community and in organizations that are collecting hate crime data are incorrectly and falsely lumping in instances of anti-Zionism as antisemitism, which are absolutely different things,” Bohrer said.
Silverstein, in her testimony, said that while criticism of Israel is acceptable, using criticism of Israel as a weapon against Jews is not.
"When one of Mayor Johnson’s own school board appointees screams "Free Palestine" at the only Jewish board member—during a vote that has nothing to do with Israel—that is antisemitic," she said. "And when a sitting member of the Chicago City Council brags on social media that she is looking for an “anti-Zionist doctor” for her child, that is antisemitism.
The Post also spoke to Rabbi Siegel to see his thoughts on the hearing.
"Those of us who have been involved with this [Mayor Johnson] administration were really not surprised," adding that "from the very start, there has been push back and Monday was the result of that."
"Rather than discussing the real day-to-day antisemitism Jews face on a daily basis, it was just a conversation about hate in its most diluted form. It was not an accident, it was by design."
Rabbi Siegel testified to the hearing about his "painful and expensive decision" to build a wall between his entrance and the street, but the conversation in the hearing turned to "the Jewish community's decision to build walls and not enter into meaningful dialogue."
"It was insulting," he told the Post.
Rabbi Siegel, however, stressed that it was not the fault of the panelists, but the fault of the mayor. "The mayor is promoting the idea that there is not an anti-Jewish hate crime problem in Chicago, just a problem with the definition of Jew hate. He wants to present Jews as reactive and self-focused."
Rabbi Siegel praised Alderman Silverstein for "being out on frontlines trying to be heard, trying to sound the alarm on antisemitism in Chicago."
He also highlighted some positive initiatives in the city, including the creation of a new Jewish high school in urban Chicago.
"Really positive things are happening in Chicago," he concluded.