Jewish, Muslim communities endured wave of hate after Oct. 7

During Maggie Slavin's first months at the Chicago branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations the chapter's civil right's department dealt with a handful of Islamophobic incidents.

That all changed on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking hundreds hostage. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ensuing conflict.

"Hate crimes and hate incidents happened to Muslims for sure, but it wasn't nearly as overwhelming as it is now," said Slavin, who started working at CAIR-Chicago a couple of months before the attack.

Hate incidents against the Jewish community also saw a similar spike after Oct. 7, according to Sarah van Loon, regional director of the Chicago chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

"If pre-October 7 of last year antisemitism was a slow-burning fire, it's now a five-alarm blaze," van Loon said.

In the year since the war in Gaza broke out Jewish and Muslim communities in the Chicago area have dealt with increased incidents of hate. It's led them to bolster security at their places of worship and created a feeling of unease in their daily lives.

Advocacy groups for both communities warn about the rise in hate-motivated attacks against Jewish and Muslim people following the start of the war.

The most prominent of these incidents was the Oct. 14, 2023, stabbing death of Wadee Al-Fayoumi, a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy from Plainfield Township. The family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, has been charged with fatally stabbing the boy and wounding his mother, Hanan Shaheen, in what authorities have said was a hate crime.

Slavin, who converted to Islam in 2019 and married into a Muslim family, said the boy's death reverberated throughout her community.

"That just really rocked everyone in the Muslim community," said Slavin, operations manager at CAIR Chicago. She added that the first few months after the Oct. 7 attacks were "extremely difficult."

Slavin said she was discouraged when Wadee's death didn't lead to a easing in anti-Muslim rhetoric. She continued to see dehumanizing language and narratives online and on television, especially toward those who showed support toward the people in Gaza.

According to prosecutors, prior to the attack, Czuba had become increasingly angered after listening to coverage of the Israeli attack on conservative talk radio.

Indeed, Wadee's killing did not lead a tonal shift regarding the war. Several smaller-scale incidents motivated by prejudice against Jewish and Muslim people, such as vandalism at mosques and synagogues, leaflets left on cars, flags removed from yards and swastikas painted on gravestones, have continued to occur across the Chicago area over the past year.

In April, antisemitic flyers were found on more than 80 cars in Lincoln Park on the North Side. The flyers, some of which were placed in clear bags that contained what appeared to be rat poison, attacked the Anti-Defamation League. They included a website linked to the Goyim Defense League, which the ADL described as a “loose network of individuals connected by their virulent antisemitism.”

Local Ald. Timmy Knudsen, who strongly condemned the flyers said the incident was an escalation after another instance of flyers being left in the area. He said the presence of the apparent rat poison was alarming.

"We were all just terrified from that," he said, adding that the incident stoked fears in the Jewish community.

"The thing about hate speech is it makes you feel, and residents really described this to us, it makes you feel like you're being watched," he said.

The people responsible "know that they make people feel on edge when they do this organized flyering, and that's how you feel, that just outside of your front door there's people who are basically indirectly threatening you, so it put a lot of families on edge."

In July, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance sponsored by Knudsen that made "hate littering" punishable by a fine.

Police increased patrols in the area, which has a large Jewish population, Knudsen said. There was already increased security around schools with high numbers of Jewish students and synagogues like Chabad Lincoln Park.

Van Loon said synagogues across the area have also beefed up security since the Oct. 7 attacks.

"We have long had to have armed security guards, whether it's at our synagogues at our Jewish Day schools, a Jewish preschool even, but unfortunately, we've had to fully ramp up those efforts," van Loon said. In some cases they've had to double the amount of security, she added.

Van Loon has mixed feelings about the additional security measures. Although she appreciates and is familiar with the guards at her synagogue, they are a reminder of the potential danger she faces when attending services. That was on her mind as she celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, last week.

"Is my act of going to worship, going to participate in something that is so central to who I am, so important to my identity, am I making myself a target because there are people out there who hate me so much that they are willing to cause violence at a house of worship?" van Loon said.

That's a feeling Slavin shared. Mosques in the Chicago area have also increased security since Oct. 7, she said. There are now community members assigned to guard entrances when worshipers come in to pray. Relatives tell her it's reminiscent of the atmosphere after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Security is a huge priority right now, just considering how many of the hate incidents and situations happened at mosques in the past year," she said.

One such incident happened last month when someone vandalized the Muslim Community Center in Irving Park. CAIR said the damage appeared to be bullet holes in the glass of the center’s front doors.

Slavin and van Loon both lamented that the Jewish and Muslim people have had to endure a year of increased prejudice. They both also noted that the strife has led some worshipers back to their religion, seeking support within their tight-knit circles.

Slavin said the Jewish and Muslim people are no strangers to the hate, but both faiths are resilient.

"You just have to have grit with this kind of thing and the Muslim community, and the Jewish community too, really has experience with having grit," she said. "You have to, you have to keep going."