Vitriol at City Hall

I have never before felt unsafe in my job. That all changed when I introduced a resolution condemning Hamas for the October 7 terrorist attack.

As I stood up to speak, protesters booed, heckled, and jeered. The disruptions got so bad that the mayor was forced to clear the council chambers--a move I had never seen before in my more than 12 years in City Council.

After being cleared out, the protesters took over the lobby of City Hall and waited for me outside the elevators, chanting "Silverstein you can't hide, we charge you with genocide."

Over the next several months, this became commonplace. Protesters disrupted the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration at City Council and booed when I said, "Never again." They yelled and screamed when I described the atrocities of October 7 and when I spoke out against the ceasefire resolution. Each time, I saw the same faces in the crowd, heard the same chants, and felt the same frustration at the mayor's inability to maintain decorum.

As the only Jewish member of the Chicago City Council, I have always felt it was my duty to bring my Jewish values to bear in my public service work. I have proudly stood up for workers' rights, women's rights, and the rights of every resident of my large and diverse ward. I never imagined that when the Jewish people were attacked, there would be so few people willing to stand up for our right to live in peace on our own ancestral land.

Like every Jew, the conflict is deeply personal for me. I have family living in Israel and nephews serving in the IDF. I represent Chicago's 50 ^th Ward, whose public is indelibly linked to the welfare of the Jewish State and scarred by the horrors of October 7.

I bore witness to some of that horror as I watched a 47-minute film at JUF headquarters, which showed raw, unedited footage from the terrorist attack. Every scene was haunting, but what sticks with me the most are the women.

The video showed female hostages paraded through the streets of Gaza with blood covering their pants in silent testimony to horrific rape and sexual violence. As a woman and a mother, I cry every day for what they went through, and for what some still have to endure in captivity.

With the video still fresh in my mind, the City Council prepared to vote on a ceasefire resolution.

I had worked closely with JUF, the ADL, and Jewish communal leaders to suggest common-sense edits to the resolution that would recognize the humanity of the Israeli victims. Unfortunately, we were ignored.

Ultimately, despite tremendous pressure from the mayor, only 23 out of 50 aldermen sided with the resolution, with another four refusing to vote. The Council was split right down the middle: 23-23. Mayor Johnson cast the tie-breaking vote and the biased resolution passed.

The version that passed included only a begrudging mention of the hostages and refused to condemn the atrocities that occurred in Israel on October 7. It also failed to call for the disarming of Hamas so they couldn't plan more attacks against Israel. It was wholly inadequate and showed a stunning unwillingness to compromise or collaborate.

I don't know what the future holds. Hopefully, by the time this article prints, the war will be over, the hostages will be home, and the soldiers will be safely back in Israeli borders. Maybe we'll be closer to building a lasting peace between Israel and Gaza.

But I do know that no matter what happens in the Middle East, we need to find a way to bring our communities together right here in Chicago. We need to move past all the divisions and find common causes that can unite us. We need to be a city that can lead by example, not by City Council resolution.

Debra  Silverstein  is the Alderperson of the 50th Ward of the City of Chicago.

If you want your voice to be heard, email the mayor at bjmoc@cityofchicago.org