In Chicago, ‘Little Palestine’ adds its voice to roar of the Democratic convention

CHICAGO (RNS) — On Friday (Aug. 23), the day after the Democratic National Convention ended and delegates and politicians, journalists, technicians and stagehands all caught their flights home from Chicago, residents of “Little Palestine,” in the suburb of Bridgeview, just outside the city line, tried to move on from a week in the spotlight.

The quiet neighborhood, home to one of the United States’ largest Palestinian diasporic communities, is full of multi-generational families of Arab ancestry. Many Little Palestinians organized and attended the protests and sit-ins held in the convention’s precincts uptown, urging Vice President Kamala Harris to support a cease-fire and arms embargo in the Israel-Hamas war.

But toward the end of her acceptance speech Thursday night (Aug. 22), Harris emphatically stated: “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself because the people of Israel must never again face the horror of what a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7th.” 

While she added that she and President Biden are “working to end this war” in hopes that “the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self determination,” she made clear her concern was the security of Israel.

Mariam Kudaimi, a Syrian-American Muslim and a Little Palestine native, was disappointed. “I don’t think anyone was surprised,” she said. “I think we all expected it. Anything that she said that’s pro Palestinian or in support of a cease-fire was a side note or afterthought. Those things matter, right?”

Many in Little Palestine have friends or family in Gaza, where the death toll recently surpassed 40,000 people. They see casting a vote in this election as a matter of survival for their loved ones.

Kudaimi, who teaches English at an Islamic private school called the Universal School, in the heart of Little Palestine, said she sees how her middle schoolers are affected by the violence. With Gaza’s rising death toll, Kudaimi feels it is impossible for politics to stay out of her classroom, especially because her students are all Muslim. “It’s so hard to be positive, and it’s really hard when your student loses generations of family and you have nothing to say to help her, when another student is losing a friend every single day,” she said.

The curriculum she has designed for them, she said, is oriented around social justice and intersectional critical thinking skills. “The really awesome thing here is, when I teach the Holocaust, the second we’re done reading Anne Frank, we’re talking about 1948 and then we’re reading about Palestine.”

She hopes these skills translate into a new generation of Little Palestinians who are passionate about civic engagement in Chicago and beyond.

As a teacher, Kudaimi also leans into Islamic teachings to help her students cope with their grief. “I always describe the Prophet (Muhammad) as an activist. I think that’s a more nuanced way to look at it.”

Her teaching reflects her experience growing up as a Muslim in the post-9/11 era. “I remember that the (Universal) School was shut down for two weeks,” she said. “Our current generation does not have that frame of reference. They don’t understand the deeply rooted history of this, how it connects to anti-Blackness, sexism and all the other -isms that exist within the American context. So I love bringing that into my teaching.”

On Wednesday afternoon, her school offered all students the option to leave school early so they could attend the rally organized by the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine in Union Park, a short walk from the United Center.

Palestinian flags flapped in the wind, and people of all ages rallied around a podium, where a young woman clad in a keffiyeh led chants like “Say it loud and say it clear, DNC ain’t welcome here!” and “Over 40,000 dead, DNC your hands are red!”

Volunteers passed out water bottles, recruiting others to hold up banners targeting Democratic Party figureheads. 

At the fringe of the crowd, parents with strollers and children sat in the grass with toys and snacks to keep their children distracted while they chanted from where they sat, surrounded by signs with slogans like “Genocide Joe’s Legacy: The Butcher of Gaza!” and “End U.S. Aid to Israel!” Many attendees knew one another and exchanged hugs.

Along the northern edge of Union Park and on nearby streets, about a dozen yellow school buses idled, dispatched from 10 different Chicagoland mosques. 

“Each mosque had a bus, and we all came,” said Tasneem Musleh, a teenager from Little Palestine who knelt next to her mother, Nida Musleh. The two were there with six other family members and a homemade sign with a verse from the Qur’an: “It is not the eyes that are blind, but the hearts.”

Beside them were two of Musleh’s cousins, a little boy and a girl, who said they had arrived in the U.S. from Gaza, having recently been evacuated for medical care. Both looked to be under 7 years old.

Nodding toward the children, the younger Musleh said, “She got treated in Egypt, but just came here for a bit of checkups and stuff. The little boy’s getting, like, fake legs for his feet … he lost his elbow, and he lost his left foot.” Next to us, this cousin laid on his back, playfully balancing a sign that said “Free Palestine” in the air and looking toward his aunt.

“Living with them has really been a wakeup call, because here in America, we watch everything that happens overseas on TV,” said Tasneem. “Them coming really hit me that it’s something that’s really happening to people, like little children.”

The bus that Tasneem Musleh took with her classmates came from the Mosque Foundation, the largest mosque in Little Palestine, which also functions as a community center, according to the Mosque Foundation’s vice president, Oussama Jammal, who said he had helped organize Wednesday’s rally.

“It is a community center, because of that we are concerned, and we are interested in engaging in political affairs because they impact our services, impact our faith practices.”

Jammal said the protests and rallies are an important way for Little Palestinians to make known Muslim Americans’ power as voters and their desire for an arms embargo on U.S. weapons sales to Israel and a cease-fire.

“The rally is simply a message to the Democrats, to the delegates, to the candidates and to the current president and to the nation that we always pride ourselves as American, that we stand for freedom, we stand for justice, we stand for equality, and that we are honest brokers of peace around the world.”

The Mosque Foundation was established in 1954 and claims to be “one of the busiest mosques in America, serving a community of more than 500,000 Muslims.” Within a three-block radius of its building stand four different Islamic schools for students in grades pre-K through 12.

Five times a day, the Islamic call to prayer plays on the foundation’s outdoor public address system, and every afternoon, carpool lines circle the block. The nearby gas station flies Palestinian flags.

“No one should take us for granted,” said Jammal.