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Amid near-record levels of antisemitic incidents, Chicago business leaders have issued a full-throated open letter to Mayor Brandon Johnson in response to a Chicago City Council resolution calling a "permanent cease-fire" in Gaza, without fully dismantling Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Johnson cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the resolution, which passed 24-23 on Jan. 31.
Chairman and CEO of Jet Support Services Neil Book told Fox Digital News that the Chicago business community "as a whole was angry and shocked about this resolution." In search of "an outlet to express their frustration" and "hold leaders accountable," Book authored the full-page letter to the mayor, published in the Chicago Tribune on Mar. 24 and signed by 31 business leaders. The letter urges the mayor to "remember that the first responsibility of Chicago’s Mayor and…City Council is to focus on Chicago, not on a conflict 6,000 miles away."
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People gather in Chicago to show solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and condemn recent actions by the government of Israel on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Book said the mayor used "his own political capital and spent his time and resources on something that he knows so little about," rather than "addressing some of the urgent issues here in Chicago." He explained that "it’s a hard sell" to convince business executives to come to Chicago because outsiders "see the violence, they see the homicide rate…they see the looting, they see the destruction [and] the lack of accountability in the court systems."
Now, rising hatred is among the difficulties the city faces. Book said he has witnessed "Jews being called baby killers and accused of genocide in the streets of Chicago." At anti-Israel demonstrations, he added that people holding Israeli flags have been "physically threatened and harassed."
Book believes the council’s resolution was "at best steeped in ignorance." He reminded the mayor that after Hamas "butchered, raped, mutilated, and tortured over 1,200" innocents in Israel, it began to "use innocent Palestinians in Gaza…as human shields…in tunnels, bunkers, and hideouts built with humanitarian dollars amidst civilian infrastructure."
A Chicago police officer monitors the scene after a shooting in Chicago on March 14, 2021. (Kamil Krzacznski/AFP via Getty Images)
Book’s understanding of Hamas’ cruelty is steeped in firsthand observations made in December, when he traveled to southern Israel and visited the devastated town of Kibbutz Be’eri. "There was still blood on the ground," Book said. "You could smell the decomposition in the air. I saw bullet casings all over the floor of a nursery school." Book also met with survivors of Oct. 7, and spoke with Margalit Mozes, a 78-year-old cancer survivor who "had been held hostage for 50 days in the tunnels of Gaza" after being kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7.
Book and other leaders agreed that a cease-fire would "guarantee Hamas’ survival," which would harm the "dream of peace and stability in the future of the Middle East." Book noted that Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad publicly stated that its Oct. 7 attack was "just the first time," and that the group would "teach…Israel a lesson and we will do this again and again."
People gather to stage a demonstration in support of Palestinians and to protest against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Chicago. (Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Mayor Johnson received another open letter, spearheaded by the Jewish United Fund, in the Feb. 4 edition of the Chicago Tribune. Almost two dozen Chicago Jewish leaders signed the letter, which condemned Mayor Johnson for "further divid[ing] the city, failing to demand Hamas’ disarmament, and "fann[ing] the flames of antisemitism" in Chicago.
The Jewish United Fund also noted that it was "horrified by [the mayor’s] support for the walkouts at a dozen [Chicago Public Schools] high schools" on Jan. 30. According to Jewish United Fund’s letter, students were harassed during walkouts, and sometimes had to "hide in bathrooms" as their fellow students chanted, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," commonly understood as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Jane Charney, assistant vice president for government affairs of the Jewish United Fund, told Fox News Digital that Chicago’s Jewish community has faced vandalism, online hate, and physical and verbal attacks since Oct. 7. Charney explained the Jewish United Fund does not "feel that the mayor has done much since [the resolution] to really address…antisemitism."
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson gives an update on migrant issues at City Hall on Jan. 29, 2024 in Chicago. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
While numerous requests for comment from Mayor Johnson about the City Council resolution and anti-Jewish hate in Chicago went unanswered, Fox News Digital has learned that the mayor has invited Jewish community leaders, including the Jewish United Fund, to meet and discuss addressing antisemitism in the city of Chicago.
Though an Anti-Defamation League press release did not specifically enumerate the number of antisemitic incidents in Chicago in 2023, it states they exceeded the 75 incidents reported in 2021 and 2022 combined.
Business leaders published an open letter to the mayor of Chicago over the city's Gaza cease-fire resolution. (Neil Book)
Debra Silverstein, the sole Jewish Alderman on the Chicago City Council, has faced antisemitic hate since sponsoring a resolution on Oct. 13, 2023, condemning Hamas’ terror attack. Silverstein told Fox News Digital that during the fervor related to the resolution, she was assigned a security detail of plainclothes policemen at city council meetings, and a police car was stationed for days in front of her house.
An Israeli soldier patrols near Kibbutz Beeri in southern Israel on Oct. 12, 2023, close to the place where 270 revelers were killed by Hamas terrorists during the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7. (ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images)
During the Jan. 31 hearing over the cease-fire resolution, protesters’ "noise and yelling" were so loud that Silverstein said she had to "wait…for [Mayor Johnson] to control the crowd." She said the mayor eventually "cleared the gallery because it was just too chaotic."
Some protesters loudly chanted accusations that Silverstein was responsible for genocide, an allegation falsely lobbed at many Jews and Israel supporters since Oct. 7. Charney says such statements are antisemitic in that they assign "personal responsibility for an alleged genocide" to American Jews. She also noted that the term "genocide" is misused. On Jan. 26, the International Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling that it did not find Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.
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As executive vice president of Orthodox Union, Rabbi Moshe Hauer helps represent more than 1,000 synagogues around the country. Hauer told Fox News Digital that the Chicago City Council’s cease-fire resolution fails to recognize Israel’s "moral obligation" to prevent Hamas from its goal of repeating attacks on Israel. While Israel "desire[s] to minimize civilian casualties and provide humanitarian aid while decisively defeating the enemy," Hauer said that "Hamas just wants to destroy, and puts its citizens deliberately into harm’s way."
Hauer said Chicago’s "glaringly flawed" cease-fire resolution is "indicative of an ongoing animus towards Israel and the Jewish people that has grown in very disturbing ways over the past months." As an anti-Israel narrative is "repeated in bullhorns in threatening and menacing rallies all across the country," Hauer said it is "making life for the Jewish community very uncertain, and very uncomfortable."
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