Jewish leaders are pressuring Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to establish an antisemitism task force, because they believe he’s not doing enough to protect the Jewish community, Fox News Digital has learned.
“There was a 58 percent rise in hate crimes,” Rebecca Weininger, the senior regional director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Midwest, told Fox News Digital, specifically referring to anti-Jewish hate crimes. “So to be clear, that’s not hate incidents. It’s hate crimes, bias-motivated crimes against Jews in the city of Chicago.”
The Chicago Commission on Human Relations in July last year found that the Jewish community experienced a 58 percent increase in hate crimes from 2023-2024. Other groups experienced a decline.
The ADL held a press conference on Monday to demand that Johnson adopt recommendations of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations.
Among those recommendations is a task force to protect Jewish members.
“Establish the task force your commission recommended, name a leader accountable for this work, set timelines, make progress public,” Chicago Sinai Congregation Rabbi Amanda Greene told ABC 7.
“The taskforce would be very similar to other task forces that the mayor’s office already has in other marginalized communities. It would be populated by the mainstream Jewish community as a way to give information to the mayor about the lived experience of Jews in Chicago right now,” Weininger told Fox News Digital.
Weininger continued, “To help inform other executive policies that he could adopt that would be immediately beneficial to the mainstream Jewish population.”
Other task forces Chicago established are the Task Force on Missing and Murdered Chicago Women, which focuses on policy changes to address violence against women, and the Reparations Task Force. Chicago also established a Task Force on Black Immigrants that investigates social and economic conditions for Black immigrants in Illinois.
Johnson’s office declined to comment when reached by Fox News Digital.
