Chicago City Wire

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is taking a stand against acts of anti-Semitic vandalism plaguing the city.  

“I am deeply upset to learn that a local synagogue, a school and businesses were vandalized, some with symbols of hate and anti-Semitism,” Lightfoot recently tweeted. "As Chicagoans and as Americans, it is our responsibility to call hate speech and acts out and protect our Jewish brothers and sisters who endure this hatred year after year."

Niles resident Shahid Hussain, 39, is facing hate crime charges in connection with several acts of vandalism against synagogues and Jewish businesses in the West Rogers Park neighborhood.

Chicago Police Supt. David Brown announced Hussain faces four counts of felony hate crime, two felony counts of criminal defacement, and two felony counts of criminal damage to property.

Hussain has been linked to seven acts of anti-Semitic vandalism in the neighborhood, all of which are reported to have taken place over the same weekend.

In one incident, Brown said a yellow swastika was discovered spray-painted on the wall of a synagogue in the 2900 block of West Devon Avenue. Around the same time and just up the block, a yellow swastika also was discovered at Hanna Sacks Bais Yaakov High School.

Later that evening, police took Hussain into custody in the 6300 block of North Sacramento after reports of him shouting anti-Semitic slurs and threats. He was also later linked to the other two acts of vandalism, along with another incident of property damage at a synagogue on the 2800 block of West North Shore Avenue and property damage at a Jewish school in the 3600 block of West Devon Avenue.

“These acts of hate gripped the West Rogers Park community, and shocked the city of Chicago,” Brown said.

When he was arrested, authorities said Hussain was wearing a mustache similar to that of Adolf Hitler, and a red cape with a yellow swastika on it, as he roamed through West Rogers Park.

Hussain has since been ordered held on $250,000 bail. Records show Hussain was on parole for a 2017 forgery case at the time of his latest arrest and has also faced stalking and burglary charges. His attorney told the court his client “appears to suffer from some mental health problems.”

Not long after that, another attack on a synagogue in West Rogers Park was reported when authorities found a window shattered at a synagogue on Touhy Avenue between California and Francisco avenues, with reports surfacing that the damage may have been caused by a bullet.

The Anti-Defamation League reports that there were over 2,000 anti-Semitic attacks reported in 2020, breaking records as the organization’s third highest year since they started keeping track.

With crime numbers also rising in Chicago’s downtown business district, Illinois Policy Institute President Ted Dabrowski recently pointed a finger at Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, adding no one can be sure what may come next for the area.

“When you start combining this crime issue that we're talking about and start adding that corporations are going to delay their office reopenings it starts to all add up again," he told Chicago Morning Answer. “I think it’s a real issue. I hear people say we don’t go down there anymore. People don’t walk around there anymore. They take an Uber everywhere they’re going. It’s really confusing when you hear (authorities) say how much better they’re doing managing felonies when this new report comes out and says just the opposite.”

The Chicago Tribune has reported that Foxx and her staff have dismissed upwards of 25,000 felony cases - including many involving charges of murder and other serious crimes – over her first three years in office. Reports are since 2016, she has dismissed all charges against nearly 30 percent of all felony suspects.

By comparison, Foxx, who was swept into office largely on a platform of criminal justice reform, had dropped charges against felony defendants at a clip that’s more than 10 percent greater than predecessor Anita Alvarez.

In a recent Tribune interview, Foxx defended her track record by claiming her office has made the decision to focus on violent crime.

“I will say that this administration has been clear that our focus would be on violent crime and making sure that our resources and attention would go to addressing violent crime,” she said.

The rise in acts of hate crimes aren’t just limited to Illinois.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) recently started documenting such acts made against Catholic sites across the country after a pair of Catholic churches were set on fire last summer, one in Southern California and another in Florida, on the same morning.

Since then, the USCCB has tracked upwards of 105 incidents of vandalism of Catholic sites across the country, including acts of arson, graffiti and defaced statues.

The most recent FBI stats show that the number of hate crimes (8,263) reported in year 2020 was the highest since 2001, with hate crimes being motivated by religious bias accounting for 1,244 offenses, more than half (683) of those being anti-Semitic.