Chicago City Council members behind a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza will postpone an expected vote on the measure after 28 alderpersons wrote a letter requesting a delay in deference to International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The letter noted that the vote, expected for Jan. 24, would take place the same week as the commemoration, which marks 79 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Alderpersons asked the vote be delayed “out of sensitivity to the Holocaust Survivors who suffered so horribly” — a move some progressive Jewish organizations have called “disgraceful.”

The letter is a strong indication that moving ahead with a vote, which was expected Wednesday, would ensure the resolution’s failure, as a majority of council members signed it.

“In deference to this commemoration, and out of sensitivity to the Holocaust Survivors who suffered so horribly, we do not believe the January meeting is the proper time to discuss this,” the letter reads.

• RELATED STORY
• Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons

Chicago-area businesses, schools respond to call for global Gaza solidarity strike

read more

One of the resolution’s sponsors, Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd Ward, said she disagrees with the premise that Holocaust Remembrance Day should prevent a vote to support a cease-fire in Gaza, but said she’ll delay a vote in the interest of collaboration.

“The fundamental disagreement right now is when it’s appropriate to talk about the loss of Palestinian life,” Rodriguez Sanchez said.

“I certainly want to be sensitive towards Holocaust survivors. Absolutely. And I also want to be sensitive about Palestinians, and the fact that they are also losing life, they are losing their nation. And I think that Holocaust Remembrance Day should also be a time to remember why we shouldn’t do this to anyone ever.”

The council is also expected to consider a resolution commemorating the Auschwitz liberation anniversary the same day a vote would have taken place on supporting a cease-fire.

Rodriguez Sanchez and her colleagues plan to “defer and publish” the cease-fire resolution when it comes up at Wednesday’s council meeting, and then try to schedule another meeting in the future to vote on it.

Meanwhile, two progressive Jewish organizations condemned the attempt to delay a vote. In a statement, Jewish Voice for Peace Chicago and IfNotNow Chicago, which advocates to end U.S. support of Israel, said “the legacy of the Holocaust compels us to call for a ceasefire; these two resolutions can and should be considered together” and called the letter from the 28 alderpersons “disgraceful” for invoking the memory of the Holocaust to delay the resolution.

“I see this attempt at delay, as a ‘shonda’ — that’s a Yiddish word that means a disgrace, or an utterly shameful act,” said Maya Schenwar, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago and Jewish Fast for Gaza.

“To me, there is no better way to remember the Holocaust, than to pass a resolution demanding an end to an ongoing genocide.”

An organizer with the Chicago chapter of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network echoed that sentiment.

“We know that there have been accusations historically and continued to this day, that any advocacy on behalf Palestine is oftentimes met with accusations of antisemitism. And it’s a very unfortunate political ploy,” said Muhammad Sankari.

“It’s a cheap, political ploy to exploit something that’s very real, which is the horrors of the Holocaust and the horrors of antisemitism, to try to silence our movement and silence the demand for justice for the Palestinian people.”

The Anti-Defamation League’s midwest regional director David Goldenberg called the Jewish progressive groups “a fringe extreme element of the Jewish community” and argued “mainstream” Jewish groups pushed for the delay. He spoke to WBEZ on Friday, before the decision to grant the delay was made.

“The fact that you would bring up a resolution that has stoked the flames of antisemitism in Chicago, and sowed division in our communities, and do it just a couple of days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day — it’s tone deaf,” Goldenberg said.

Goldenberg did not give specific examples of what antisemitic tropes have come up at city council meetings.

The group sent its own letter to aldermen this month stating that “we know it is counterintuitive to oppose a ceasefire” but “if Israel is not permitted to dismantle Hamas, innocent Israelis and Palestinians will continue to be killed.”

The Oct. 7 Hamas attack from Gaza into southern Israel killed 1,200 people. In Gaza, more than 20-times that amount — or 24,000 people, mostly women and children — have been killed since, according to Palestinian authorities.

Ald. Debra Silverstein, 50th Ward, who led the effort to send the letter requesting a delay, is the only Jewish member of Chicago city council. She said she is “looking forward to trying to draft a more balanced resolution” and said she is working on her preferred language now. When asked if she supports a cease-fire generally, Silverstein said she is “very upset about the loss of life” but Hamas needs to surrender and release all hostages.

Rodriguez Sanchez said she had been working with some of her colleagues to tweak certain portions, including a call for the release of hostages. The Oct. 7 attack saw roughly 250 people taken hostage by Hamas. A previous version of the resolution acknowledged the hostages, but did not include a call for their unconditional release.

The latest version of the resolution obtained by WBEZ calls for “a permanent ceasefire to end the ongoing violence in Gaza; call for humanitarian assistance including medicine, food, and water, to be sent into the impacted region; and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”

The resolution would be sent to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Illinois Congressional Delegation.

The resolution would have no binding authority, but would send a message to the Democratic party at a critical time, Rodriguez Sanchez said.

“Chicago matters a lot in terms of the national political landscape,” she said. “We know that the DNC is going to take place in Chicago and what Chicago does is important for the rest of the country … It has a ripple effect.”

If passed, it appears Chicago would become the largest city in the country to pass a cease-fire resolution.

Sankari, with the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, noted the Chicago-area has the largest diaspora of Palestinians in the country.

“It would send a message to our community that our humanity matters, that the suffering of the Palestinian people matter, and that the rights of the Palestinian people matter,” he said.

Mariah Woelfel covers Chicago city government and politics at WBEZ.