On Saturday, at 9:30 a.m., 22-year-old Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi allegedly shot a 39-year-old Jewish man as he walked to his synagogue in a largely Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Chicago. During a subsequent shootout between the suspect and responding police officers, he appeared to be caught on Ring camera screaming “Allahu Akbar.”
But with the Chicago Police Department holding off on filing hate crime charges, media coverage of the incident has neglected key pieces of a crime that occurs as American Jews face an incredible onslaught of antisemitic hate.
Though the Chicago Police Department did not provide the requested details about the victim’s religious background or verify the accuracy of Ring camera footage showing portions of the attack, it did provide the Washington Examiner with a press release detailing charges against Abdallahi. These include six felony counts of attempted murder in the first degree, seven felony counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, and one felony count of aggravated battery and discharge of a firearm.
The department’s rationale for avoiding hate crime charges, per the Chicago Sun-Times, is that it has been unable to speak with Abdallahi, who remains hospitalized after being shot by police during the exchange of fire.
In early coverage of the incident, the Jerusalem Post was one of few outlets to state that Saturday’s victim was a Jewish man walking to a local synagogue at the time of the shooting and that the attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar” before exchanging gunfire with police.
Block Club Chicago and CBS News neglected to note the victim’s religious background or the words shouted by the shooter. Block Club Chicago noted that the attack occurred on a Jewish holiday and took place where a large Jewish population resides. CBS cited two neighborhood onlookers, one who called the victim a “Jewish guy” and another who alleged that the victim was “a Jewish guy walking to synagogue.”
Rabbi Micah Greenland, international director of nonprofit NCSY, confirmed for the Washington Examiner that the victim of Saturday’s attack, an acquaintance of Greenland’s, is Jewish and was on his way to synagogue when he was shot less than two blocks from his destination.
In a public safety alert issued on the day of the shooting, Chicago Alderman Debra Silverstein noted that she had visited the victim and would update constituents “with more information as soon as it is cleared for publication.” Though Silverstein did not identify the victim’s religion at the time, she would later tell the Chicago Sun-Times that the victim went to her synagogue and was an Orthodox Jewish man wearing his kippah on his way to religious services.
In its report, the Chicago Sun-Times still stated that the “motive remained unclear,” noting that the victim “said something while exchanging gunfire with police.” As one interviewee said, the failure to identify the attack as a hate crime is “kind of infuriating.”
The full facts of this case and a swift determination of whether a hate crime occurred are vitally important as Jewish Americans face a critical lack of security since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks.
The Chicago Police Department’s Hate Crime Dashboard shows the rise of hatred in Chicago, with 39 incidents of anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2022, 50 incidents in 2023, and 71 incidents in 2024. Between 2012 and 2021, the highest number of annual incidents of anti-Jewish hate recorded in Chicago was 21.
The same trend has been noted at a national level. As the Washington Examiner reported earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League tracked over 10,000 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7, 2023, and Sept. 24, 2024, a more than 200% increase on the 3,325 incidents reported during the previous year. FBI hate crime data likewise showed a more than 200% increase in the hate crimes logged during the last three months of 2023, 971, compared with the crimes logged in the last three months of 2022, 318.
In the post-Oct. 7 climate, Greenland said Jewish communities in the United States are no longer choosing whether or not to have security outside their institutions but are being forced to decide “what degree of blockades … or security poles” are required for their protection. “It’s just a different tenor or tone than ever before,” he lamented.
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“If you want America to be a place … that is safe for any minority population, then we need protection [from law enforcement] to make sure that we can walk safely to synagogues, that we can worship safely in our synagogues, that our neighborhoods are places where our kids can play in the parks and we don’t have to worry about our safety,” Greenland said.
Though he says the Jewish community feels it is “less safe to be visibly Jewish now,” Greenland said that his organization has responded to rising hate by embracing Jewish pride and promoting tolerance for all Americans. “I would never take off my kippah in public,” he continued. “I think we have to treat America as the place that we still hope it is and practice our religion the way our tradition teaches and not back down.”
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance contributor to Fox News and the host of The Afghanistan Project, which takes a deep dive into the tragedy wrought in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
