W E D N E S D A Y
JOURNAL
Community of Caring Special pullout section
of Oak Park and River Forest
November 7, 2018 Vol. 39, No. 14 ONE DOLLAR @oakpark @wednesdayjournal
Oak Parker mourns cousin murdered at synagogue Sidney Wax says political rhetoric prompting hate crimes By TIMOTHY INKLEBARGER Staff Reporter
His father and uncles escaped Nazis fascism during the Second World War, immigrating to the United States as refugees from their homeland in Poland, as Hitler’s Third Reich slaughtered millions of European Jews. Now, decades later, Oak Parker Sidney Wax and his family continue suffering the fascist hatred of anti-Semitism. On Wednesday, Oct. 31, he attended the funeral of his cousin, Melvin Wax, 88, who was gunned down, along with 10 others, at Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, on the morning of Oct. 27. Police have arrested Robert D. Bowers, 46, who faces a 44-count indictment in the massacre, which also left six injured. Bowers was armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and several handguns. Media outlets have reported that Bowers frequently took to the internet to voice his anger towards Jews, stating on one website: “Jews are the children of Satan.” See SYNAGOGUE on page 14
Photo by Paul Goyette
IMMEDIATE DEMANDS: OPRF students demonstrated outside of the high school’s main entrance on Sunday to demand the district implement stronger racial equity policies and procedures. They also decried multiple cases of racist hate-speech that recently occurred on campus.
‘Enough is enough!’
Students rally against injustice before, during ’America to Me’ town hall By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter
Roughly an hour before a four-hour town hall, based on the documentary series America to Me, was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. on Sunday inside Oak Park and River Forest High School’s Little Theater, a group of students, parents, teachers and community members rallied around a defiant theme outside the high school’s main entrance.
SAVE THE DATE
They wanted the town hall audience to know that despite the 10-part series — which aired over a period of two months on Starz — the school’s race problems are far from resolved. They also came armed with a series of structural demands that they said would address OPRF’s many racial inequities and what they feel is the school’s atmosphere of racial insensitivity. The demonstrators had plenty of pres-
ent-day examples to bolster their claim. On Nov. 2, Oak Park police were investigating a racial epithet scrawled on a shed near the high school’s tennis courts. “White power,” it stated, and “F— Dancing N— Anthony Clark,” referencing the popular activist and OPRF teacher who helped organize Sunday’s demonstration. The week before, one of 15-year-old See PROTEST on page 12
SAY Connects presents, After “America to Me”: On the Ground in Oak Park and River Forest A community conversation for our villages on November 28, 2018 Julian Middle School Auditorium • 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. Tickets: FREE - For more info or to RSVP, visit the link below.
Tickets at: www.OakPark.com/sayconnects