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player ready...Ephraim Wolfe was on his way to F.R.E.E. Synagogue when he heard two banging sounds and saw flashes out of the corner of his eye. But it was July 2, 1999, just days before the Fourth of July, when fireworks were frequent, so it didn’t immediately register as gunfire until Wolfe, then a teenager, tried to walk a few steps — and realized he had been shot below the knee.
A moment later, he thought the gunman came back but it was a police officer, likely responding to reports of multiple people shot in the area.
“I said my thoughts and prayers and prepared to die,” said Wolfe, now 38 and living in Israel, during an interview with the Tribune via Zoom.
The then-15-year-old was one of six Orthodox Jews reportedly shot at by white supremacist Benjamin Smith, in a rampage that targeted Black, Asian and Jewish people, and which left Northwestern basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong dead, according to published reports. Smith fatally shot himself after three days of similar attacks, in which two people were killed and nine others were wounded.
The synagogue Wolfe walked to that day, F.R.E.E. (an acronym for Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe), has endured multiple acts of violence and persecution in the ensuing decades — including a string of vandalism and harassment in the past two weeks.
But current and former Jewish residents of West Rogers Park have made two things clear since the attacks that Chicago police are investigating as hate crimes: They love their community, and they don’t want to live in fear.
Rabbi Levi Notik was looking forward to his bar mitzvah at F.R.E.E. on a Friday night in November 1993, when two people came after services and “literally torched the place to the ground,” he recalled during a recent interview.
“It was rubble,” Notik said. “And it was a devastating blow, especially to Russian-Jewish immigrants in the ’90s because they fled persecution.”
Then, last week, the rabbi was finishing packing meals for the synagogue’s food bank when he discovered a yellow swastika spray-painted on the side of his building — a rebuilt location, where the congregation moved after the last one burned.
In response, Notik said F.R.E.E. recently increased security training and noted members of his congregation have been more aware of potential security concerns.
Beyond that, he said he will respond to the hatred with acts of love.
“It’s like a dark room. When you light a small match, that little bit of light, it dispels a lot of darkness,” Notik said. “And that’s the way it is in the world.”
Antisemitic incidents have been on the upswing nationally in recent years and have been happening more frequently than at any other point during the past 45 years that they’ve been tracked, according to David Goldenberg, Midwest regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. But the recent vandalism in West Rogers Park was notable in that Chicago specifically had not seen so many incidents in such a small geographic area and short amount of time, he added.
Wolfe said he hopes people in his old neighborhood will be prepared and confident enough to defend themselves from any future attack, but most importantly, that they don’t live in fear.
“I hope people don’t run into houses and close the doors,” Wolfe said. “The No. 1 thing you need to do is live a normal life.”
People from West Rogers Park described it as a vibrant and diverse neighborhood, encompassing a close-knit Jewish community.
Alongside ritual Jewish baths, Jewish schools and what Notik described as some of the best kosher restaurants in the Midwest, are more than a dozen spots for Indian cuisine in the West Devon corridor alone. A resource center for Muslim women stands a few blocks from several synagogues and a kosher pizza place.
“It’s a beautiful community. … All different cultures living, for the most part, in unity,” Notik said. “You get along with one another. You don’t feel judged.”
Carmi Lawrence, director of community safety and security for the Concerned Citizens League, called the neighborhood an “epicenter for Jewish life,” full of individuals who are invested in the community. While he decided to move to the suburbs to raise his children, the closeness of the community often leads people to stay, even if they have the means to move, he said.
During the pandemic, the Concerned Citizens League transitioned from its earlier focus of operating as a concealed carry resource group for Jewish people to a more generalized community safety organization, Lawrence said. About 30 volunteers in the Chicago area are undergoing training as part of a safety officer program, including firearms training and first aid, he said, with at least one volunteer located in the F.R.E.E. synagogue.
Goldenberg and others said acts of property damage can have a psychological effect on residents even if they’re not accompanied by physical violence, leading to fear not just for one person, but across a community.
“That’s the nature of hate crimes,” Goldenberg said.
Ald. Debra Silverstein, 50th, and Notik said they have heard messages of support from throughout the ward in the past week.
“We are united together against hate,” Silverstein said. “What affects the Jewish community really affects our entire community.”
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For F.R.E.E., the response to the recent vandalism will come in the form of more meals from the Bubby Fira food bank, which is run through the synagogue. Notik said the goal is to double the number of meals provided in the next month from 3,000 to 6,000, by opening registration for more recipients and adding volunteers.
The food bank is a fixture in the community, according to Notik and Goldenberg, who said he has taken his own children there to volunteer.
Chefs cook the meals on-site before they are packed in “restaurant-level or catering-level packaging,” never labeled as from the food bank, Notik said. The organization provides both a dignified way for people in need to receive meals and an opportunity to connect families, students and other volunteers with the larger community, he said.
Notik pointed out the person who allegedly vandalized the synagogues is not from the West Rogers Park neighborhood.
Shahid Hussain, who faces four counts of committing a hate crime along with multiple charges of criminal damage and defacement, is from Niles, according to police. Smith, the shooter in 1999 who died by suicide, was also from the suburbs.
Niles Mayor George Alpogianis said in a recent statement that “the actions this individual has been charged with are not representative of what it means to be a part of the Niles community, and hatred like this will never be tolerated here.”
Hussain was arrested in connection with a number of vandalism incidents around West Rogers Park discovered the weekend of Jan. 29. He is accused of spray-painting swastikas on F.R.E.E. and on the property of a Jewish school and allegedly smashing out windows at two other synagogues.
He was not charged in connection with at least two other acts of vandalism against Jewish businesses that occurred the same weekend. A Jewish man also was reportedly accosted later that week outside Congregation B’nei Ruven, another nearby synagogue, when Hussain was in custody. Authorities continue to investigate.
“We’re not going to diminish,” Notik said in response to the recent incidents, “or go into hiding, stop expressing our Jewish pride. … We’re going to overcome evil.”