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| Chicago City Council unanimously passes antisemitism legislation without mayor's involvement |
| 2026-05-22 |
| [JewishInsider] The IHUA definition of antisemitism is now part of the city’s declaration of human rights this week For Jake Rymer, a junior majoring in biological sciences at University of Chicago, and Michael Kaminsky, a senior studying criminology at DePaul, the push to pass the antisemitism ordinance was personal. "I had only been on campus for two weeks when [the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel] happened and people I thought were my friends those first two weeks turned out not to be. They turned their backs on me when I needed their allyship," Rymer told Jewish Insider. "I also started to see flaws in the city of Chicago and that there were things that needed to get changed that we could actually accomplish." Kaminsky, a vocal pro-Israel voice on campus, was attacked and injured by masked assailants on school property in 2024 in an alleged hate crime. He filed an ongoing lawsuit against DePaul, claiming the university failed to protect Jewish students. "We were tired of being told by Jewish organizations to ’suck it up and deal with it’ or that ’help would come eventually," said Rymer. "We realized that we as students — even though we don’t have legislative experience — have the ability to make meaningful change, so we decided to go ahead with it." The pair quickly learned the City of Chicago had never provided a clear definition of antisemitism in its municipal code. They garnered support from Alds. Raymond Lopez and Debra Silverstein last spring to begin drafting legislation to implement IHRA. On Monday, Ordinance O2025-0019984 passed unanimously in committee and at the city council meeting. Because the ordinance is an updated version of one that already existed and it passed without objection, it becomes official upon publication — even though Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson was not involved. Section 6-10 of Chicago’s Municipal Code is now amended to include antisemitism as discrimination in the Chicago City Council’s declaration of general human rights. Antisemitism is defined by IHRA as a "certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews." Progressive critics of the definition argue that its Israel-related examples risk conflating antisemitism with legitimate political criticism while conservative critics claim that the definition is anti-Christian because one of its affiliated examples states that it’s antisemitic to accuse Jews of killing Jesus. "Chicago has taken a clear and historic stand against hate by officially adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism," Silverstein, the city council’s only Jewish member, said in a statement. "At a time when antisemitic hate crimes are surging locally, this unanimous City Council action sends an unmistakable message that anti-Jewish hate has no place in Chicago." Chicago joins more than 1,200 entities worldwide, including 37 U.S. state governments and 98 city and county bodies that have adopted the definition. |
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| Posted by: Oregon Dave 2026-05-22 01:06 |