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In Chicago, a Black-led church and a Jewish community are addressing painful history through a Sukkot festival
CHICAGO (JTA) — Earlier this month, 40 people gathered in Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood to design a sukkah.
But they hadn’t come together only to build a hut for the upcoming Jewish festival of Sukkot, which begins on Friday evening and revolves around Jews erecting and dwelling in temporary structures for a week.
For this interfaith, intergenerational group, constructing the impermanent space was a step forward in what they hope is an enduring relationship between a Jewish community on Chicago’s North Side and a Black-led church on the West Side.
“Interfaith, interracial, cross-city, cross-neighborhood relationship building does not happen overnight,” said Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann of Mishkan Chicago, the Jewish prayer community partnering on the project. “It’s taken over a year for us to get together three times, four times. This sustained effort of people to continue to build relationships takes a long time.”
The sukkah project is part of the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival, which was launched last year and aims to build connections between the predominantly Black West Side community of Lawndale and the city’s Jewish community, which was once centered in that neighborhood. As part of the festival, which will take place in Lawndale from Oct. 1-15, architects partner with local neighborhood organizations to build the sukkahs, which are repurposed as permanent structures following the festival.
This year, six organizations are building sukkahs, which will later become sites ranging from a pavilion for meditation or a tool library. Mishkan is the only synagogue participating in the festival, and it is building its sukkah in collaboration with the Lawndale Christian Legal Center, a legal services initiative founded by the Lawndale Christian Community Church.
Through building the sukkah, which will later serve as a memorial to 41 victims of gun violence who were part of the legal center, the communities hope to reckon both with present tragedy and historical pain.
The sukkah’s design will address the departure of Jews from Lawndale during the postwar “white flight” era, when white residents left newly integrated urban neighborhoods en masse for the suburbs. Lawndale once had 60 synagogues and 75,000 Jewish residents. By the mid-1950s, only 500 were left.
“It’s a sad, hard, important-to-reckon-with piece of Jewish history in Chicago,” said Heydemann, who delivered a sermon on that topic to the church on a Sunday last year. That Sunday was also Tisha B’Av, the Jewish fast day that commemorates the destruction of the ancient Holy Temples in Jerusalem.
“There are people from the congregation who remember when Jews and Black people both lived in the neighborhood before Jews moved out of the neighborhood, and that was a powerful conversation,” said Diana Collymore, a deacon who has been active in Lawndale Christian Community Church since 2014. “That’s one of the strongest pieces that stayed with people. There were people from Mishkan who remembered what street the grandpa or mom or dad grew up on here.”
The communities are collaborating with two firms: Architecture for Public Benefit and Trent Fredrickson Architecture, whose architects also hope to honor that shared history and create something that is responsive to the community’s needs, backgrounds and experiences.
“One of the community members was talking about this old Jewish restaurant that now doesn’t exist anymore and whenever she would go there she would feel welcome and at home,” said Chana Haouzi, the founder of Architecture for Public Benefit. “We just spoke of feeling invited and like that you could stay as long as you like.”
The relationship between Mishkan and Lawndale Christian began when Heydemann and the church’s lead pastor, Jonathan Brooks, who is also known as Pastah J, participated in a program for early-career clergy at the University of Chicago Divinity School. They have spoken to each other’s congregations and hope for the sukkah-building process to bring their members closer together.
Members are already finding commonalities between the two congregations.
“The Jewish community that came here from Europe, they were driven here from trauma and harm, and the African-American community that came from the South in the Great Migration, they too were fleeing trauma,” Collymore said. “And both have faith and they believe in a God, and their faith brought them and encouraged them and directed them and kept them and settled them in this space.”
One way the communities are connecting and confronting the past is through shared scripture. The group designing the sukkah found meaning in a well-known passage from Ecclesiastes, which is read in synagogue on Sukkot and relates how there is a time and a season for everything under the sun.
The two groups studied the passage, interpreting and analyzing the Hebrew and translated versions. Its text will later be emblazoned on the sukkah’s walls in Hebrew script, transliterated Hebrew and English.
“There’s appreciation around that Ecclesiastes passage,” Collymore said. “Having scripture out of both of our faiths, and especially the kind of passage so appropriate for the way things have changed here, I think this is a catalyst for more deeper conversations.”
The sukkah will have three main walls, which will feature shelves lined with vessels that contain artifacts contributed by the community to share stories and create moments of connection. At one gathering, participants painted and decorated rocks with designs and messages inspired by the passage from Ecclesiastes.
“We’ve documented a lot of the discussion, and I think ultimately it was this idea of understanding how these two communities work together and seeing the points of commonality and the focus on loving and caring for each other and putting people first and also God,” Haouzi said. “It’s really that idea that ends up being manifested in the design itself.”
In addition, Mishkan members have participated in a walking tour of the church’s community spaces and initiatives. In addition to the health center and the legal aid center, the church has a fitness center, a café with a roof deck, an organic farm, a recovery center for men who were recently incarcerated or are in recovery, and other community programs.
“It’s important for predominantly white Jewish people who have been told that they’re not safe in parts of Chicago that don’t look white and Jewish, even if these parts of Chicago used to be their grandparents’ homes, to just come there and see that this neighborhood has incredibly interesting, dynamic people who live here and projects they’re taking on,” Heydemann said. “There’s an incredible amount of [the] neighborhood investing in itself and, beyond the neighborhood, outside people looking and saying, ‘How can we be part of that?’”
When the sukkah design festival opens, the church and Mishkan will host a shared prayer service for the community. They also hope the sukkah provides a space for both shared meals and independent reflection.
“Not only will it be a physical manifestation of this collaboration between both groups but it will also invite other people to join and to host both communities to continue building on their collaboration,” Haouzi said.
Heydemann says her community’s partnership with Lawndale Christian Legal Center has led to members becoming regular monthly donors to the center and reading books that speak to its work. When the sukkah becomes a memorial to victims of gun violence, it will stand in a memorial garden whose design is being led by the legal center.
Heydemann says she hopes that when Jews come to the Sukkah Design Festival, they will feel motivated to do something “to try to reverse the decades of disinvestment.”
“I would hope that Jews across Chicago come to the festival and feel a sense of reawakened connection to this neighborhood, whether or not they have family who ever lived here,” she said. “I would also hope that Jewish people would see the sukkot and understand their own tradition, Judaism, is this beautiful, dynamic, interesting platform for relationship building across traditions.”
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The post In Chicago, a Black-led church and a Jewish community are addressing painful history through a Sukkot festival appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Surge of Antisemitic Incidents Rocks France Amid Growing Security Concerns
The Paris Holocaust Memorial, three synagogues, and a Jewish restaurant were all vandalized with green paint last weekend. Photo: Screenshot
France has been hit by a wave of antisemitic incidents in recent days, despite increased security at Jewish sites nationwide following last month’s antisemitic shooting in Washington, DC — prompting urgent calls from the country’s Jewish community for stronger government action amid growing fears of escalating violence.
On Friday, a French rabbi was violently assaulted by three drunken individuals in the town of Deauville, located in the Normandy region of northwestern France.
According to local police, Rabbi Eli Lemel — a prominent figure in French Jewry — was attacked around 3:30 pm by three men who approached him, repeatedly punched him in the stomach, and shouted antisemitic slurs.
French authorities have launched an investigation into the assault, but no arrests have been made so far.
After the incident, Lemel called on the Jewish community to draw spiritual strength amid the increasing hostility that Jews are facing across France.
“I’m deeply moved by the outpouring of support following the attack. Thank God, I’m okay,” the Jewish leader wrote in a post on X. “I was struck and verbally abused in a language I didn’t understand.”
In a separate incident, a 21-year-old man was arrested on Saturday after climbing a synagogue in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in north-central France, removing an Israeli flag from its façade, and attempting to set it on fire.
According to local media, the suspect — who was already known to authorities for prior offenses — confessed to committing the attack and admitted to being intoxicated at the time.
French police confirmed that the man is being charged with trespassing in a place of worship, theft by climbing, and causing damage to property on religious grounds.
The local Jewish community has voiced deep concern following this incident, viewing it as part of a broader surge in hostility targeting Jewish institutions across France.
Sandrine Dos Santos, the city’s mayor, expressed “[her] solidarity, as well as that of the city, toward the Jewish community directly targeted by these unacceptable antisemitic acts.”
“Faced with the increase in violence, our commitment against discrimination remains unwavering and will not waver. We repeat it loud and clear: no form of racism or rejection of others has a place in Poissy,” the French leader said.
In a separate incident on Saturday, three Serbs were arrested near Antibes in southeastern France, suspected of painting several Jewish community buildings green in Paris — an act currently under investigation as possible foreign interference.
Last weekend, the Paris Holocaust Memorial, three synagogues, and a Jewish restaurant were all vandalized with green paint in an incident denounced by the French government.
On Monday, an elementary school in Lyon, east-central France, was set on fire and defaced with antisemitic and pro-Palestinian slogans, as well as swastikas, marking one of the latest antisemitic incidents to impact France in recent days.
As the school had no direct connections to the Jewish community, local police have launched an investigation to determine the motive behind the attack.
French authorities reported that the fire was limited to the outdoor bathrooms, causing no significant damage to the school. They also found antisemitic graffiti and swastikas in three classrooms.
Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), denounced the attack, saying that “the Palestinian cause is used as justification for burning down a school” and that the “Nazification of Israel serves as fuel for crass antisemitism.”
“When a populist pro-Palestinian narrative is allowed to take hold, it is French Jews who ultimately pay the price,” Arfi wrote in a post on X. “The twisted use of the Palestinian cause is turning into a rallying cry of hatred against both Jews and the Republic itself.”
Voilà où nous en sommes !
La cause palestinienne sert de justification pour incendier une école
Quand on laisse gagner un discours populiste propalestinien, ce sont les Français juifs qui en paient le prix.… https://t.co/dMaQBnbfqi
— Yonathan Arfi (@Yonathan_Arfi) June 1, 2025
Beyond France, other European countries have also experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents in recent weeks.
On Monday, several headstones were vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in a suburb of Belgrade, located in north-central Serbia, marking the second such incident in the country in recent weeks.
The post Surge of Antisemitic Incidents Rocks France Amid Growing Security Concerns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Vetoes UN Security Council Demand for Gaza Ceasefire
Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from Israel, June 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The United States vetoed a UN Security Council demand on Wednesday for an “immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire” between Israel and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza and unhindered aid access across the enclave.
“The United States has been clear we would not support any measure that fails to condemn Hamas and does not call for Hamas to disarm and leave Gaza,” Acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the council before the vote.
“This resolution would undermine diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire that reflects the realities on the ground, and embolden Hamas,” she said of the text that was put forward by 10 countries on the 15-member council.
The remaining 14 council members voted in favor of the draft resolution.
Israel has rejected calls for an unconditional or permanent ceasefire, saying Hamas cannot stay in Gaza. It has renewed its military offensive in Gaza – also seeking to free hostages held by Hamas – since ending a two-month ceasefire in March.
The war in Gaza has raged since 2023 after Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people in Israel in an Oct. 7 attack and took some 250 hostages back to the enclave.
The post US Vetoes UN Security Council Demand for Gaza Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Picks Lawyer Who Called Oct. 7 Attack a ‘Psyop’ to Lead Federal Watchdog Agency
Paul Ingrassia. Photo: Screenshot
Paul Ingrassia, a 29-year-old lawyer who was recently nominated by US President Donald Trump to lead a federal agency dedicated to combating corruption and protecting whistleblowers, seemingly dismissed the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2o23, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel as a “psyop,” or “psychological operation, in resurfaced social media posts.
“This ‘war’ is yet another psyop to distract Americans from celebrating Columbus Day,” Ingrassia wrote on X/Twitter on Oct. 8, 2023.
“I think we could all admit at this stage that Israel/Palestine, much like Ukraine before it, and BLM before that, and covid/vaccine before that, was another psyop,” he posted a week later. “But sadly, people fell for it. And they’ll fall for the next one too.”
On the actual day of the Oct. 7 massacre, Ingrassia compared illegal immigration into the US to the Hamas-led onslaught.
“The amount of energy everyone has put into condemning Hamas (and prior to that, the Ukraine conflict) over the past 24 hours should be the same amount of energy we put into condemning our wide open border, which is a war comparable to the attack on Israel in terms of bloodshed — but made worse by the fact that it’s occurring in our very own backyard,” he posted. “We shouldn’t be beating the war drum, however tragic the events may be overseas, until we resolve our domestic problems first.”
Trump announced last week that he picked Ingrassia to serve as head of the US Office of Special Counsel, a position that requires confirmation by the Senate.
The Office of Special Counsel is an independent federal ethics agency that works to ensure fairness and accountability within the government. Ingrassia’s role, if he is confirmed, would involve investigating claims of wrongdoing, such as retaliation against whistleblowers or improper political activity in the workplace. The official can recommend disciplinary action and reports serious findings to Congress, helping to protect federal employees and uphold the integrity of the civil service system.
Ingrassia also maintains a relationship with and defends alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate, who has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media. Tate wrote on X/Twitter that he refuses to “listen to women, Mexicans, or Jews” and that Jewish people are “subverting Western populations into mass genetic suicide” by advancing what he described as misguided immigration policy. Tate has also accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza against Palestinians and engaged in Holocaust denialism.
The furor surrounding Ingrassia is the latest dustup the Trump administration has had regarding controversial personnel and antisemitism.
The Trump administration’s appointment of Kingsley Wilson as deputy press secretary at the Department of Defense also sparked widespread criticism due to her history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and extremist views. Wilson, formerly associated with the Center for Renewing America, has a documented history of social media posts endorsing white supremacist ideologies, including claims about the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank — a Jewish man whose wrongful conviction and subsequent murder galvanized the founding of the Anti-Defamation League. In 2023, she tweeted that Frank “raped & murdered a 13-year-old girl,” a statement aligning with neo-Nazi narratives.
Late last month, the Pentagon announced that Wilson will be promoted and serve as the department’s new press secretary.
The post Trump Picks Lawyer Who Called Oct. 7 Attack a ‘Psyop’ to Lead Federal Watchdog Agency first appeared on Algemeiner.com.