Afternoon Edition: Johnson renews call for Gaza cease-fire at Eid celebration

Good afternoon, Chicago. ✶

Eid al-Fitr, the three-day holiday marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, is being celebrated by thousands today across the Chicago area.

Many who observe Ramadan fast from sunrise to sunset and spend time praying. Eid al-Fitr celebrates the end of the fast with large gatherings filled with prayer, feasting, gift giving and time with family and friends.

In today’s newsletter, we’ve got coverage from an Eid-al-Fitr prayer event earlier this afternoon, during which Mayor Brandon Johnson renewed a call for peace in Gaza.

Plus, we have reporting on a local author’s new book, a chef sharing the flavors of his childhood in Lincoln Square and more community news you need to know below.

⏱️: A 7-minute read

— Matt Moore, newsletter reporter (@MattKenMoore)

TODAY’S TOP STORY

Johnson renews call for Gaza cease-fire at Eid celebration

Reporting by Dave Struett

A somber celebration: As the holy month of Ramadan and fasting concludes, Chicago-area Muslims celebrating the feast of Eid al-Fitr shared their concerns for those in Gaza enduring a humanitarian crisis, as the Israel-Hamas war continues.

Mayor calls for peace: Thousands gathered Wednesday morning for Eid prayers at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, where Mayor Brandon Johnson briefly renewed a call for peace in Gaza. “As mayor, I stand with you in the fight for peace so that we all can have a safe home. Whether it’s from Garfield Park on the West Side of Chicago or in Gaza,” Johnson said. Organizers presented Johnson with an award for casting the tie-breaking vote in the City Council for a resolution supporting a cease-fire in Gaza.

Worries for those in Gaza: Jamal Jarad, president of the Islamic Community Center of Illinois, which organized Wednesday’s event, said he was happy Ramadan was ending but was worried for those in Gaza, an area that has been subjected to Israeli military attacks since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in Israel. “We cannot be fully happy knowing that our brothers and sisters in Gaza and in Palestine have no food, no clothes. They do not even feel safe to go out and celebrate,” Jarad said.

Time of reflection: Yousef Dabbagh, reiterated how Eid is one of the most important celebrations for Muslims. “It’s like a Christmas for the Christian community,” said Dabbagh, 57. “It’s very important to us. This occasion is a gathering and appreciation and celebration of the month of hardship, fasting.” For the rest of the day, he planned to meet family, visit his deceased ancestors in the cemetery, and then have dinner with friends and family.

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WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times

• Traffic stop turned police shooting raises questions: The head of Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability has questioned whether a group of cops lied about why they stopped Dexter Reed in Humboldt Park last month, setting off a gun battle that wounded one of the officers and killed Reed.
• Reed’s brother arrested at protest: Julius Reed was arrested at a protest Tuesday evening following the release of body cam footage showing the police shooting of Dexter Reed. Authorities have charged Julius Reed with misdemeanor battery and resisting arrest.
• Remembering Julius Russell: The Chicagoan quit a career in sales to pursue his dream of being a chef, finding success as a personal chef and caterer to a long list of well-known clients that included Ye, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and more. Mr. Russell died March 30 at age 53.
• 3.5 stars for ‘Civil War’: In this purely fictional, yet searing, brutal and highly charged dystopian film, the story plays as much like a horror film as a war movie, writes Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper.

SUN-TIMES BOOK CLUB 📖

Flatiron; Manuel Martinez/WBEZ

‘The Divorcées’ luxuriates in westerns, cowboys and the thrill of separation

Reporting by Elly Fishman | For WBEZ

Rowan Beaird first started thinking about divorce while on her bachelorette trip in Las Vegas.

The Chicago writer was taking a spin through the famed Neon Museum Las Vegas when a tour guide shared a piece of Nevada history Beaird couldn’t shake: “everyone comes to Las Vegas to get married and goes to Reno to get divorced,” Beaird recalls. “I had never heard that in my life.”

It turns out that, for a couple decades, Nevada had the most lenient divorce laws in the country, which made it a popular destination for American women stuck in unhappy unions.

“It just felt like this story that had been lost with time,” says Beaird. “It felt like a really rich setting for a novel.”

Six years later, the 37-year-old’s debut novel “The Divorcées,” released last month, brings that world to the page. The story follows Lois Gorsky Saunders, an unhappily married Lake Forest woman who flees to a mid-century divorce ranch — the fictional Golden Yarrow — for six weeks before filing for divorce.

In Beaird’s confident hands, a story that appears relatively slow at first quickly reveals tumult beneath the surface.

While Lois serves as the protagonist, much of the book’s plot centers around her friendship with the elegant, mysterious Greer Lang. Together, the two form a “Thelma and Louise"-inspired bond that propels them toward trouble.

“I really wanted the book to feel almost like a coming-of-age novel,” Beaird says. “Lois is a character who feels like an outsider and is still very much finding her place in the world.”

Beaird will be at Lake Forest Book Store for a discussion about “The Divorcées” Wednesday evening.

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BRIGHT ONE ✨

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Chef shares the flavors of his childhood at Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen

Reporting by Dorothy Hernandez

Bhim Rai grew up in the northern part of Nepal about three hours away from Mount Everest cooking with his mom.

He left home in 1992 and cooked in kitchens in Germany and England before coming to the U.S. and settling in Chicago. While he would cook in restaurants that served Nepalese and Tibetan food, many of those places leaned heavily on Indian dishes, focusing more on that country’s flavors.

When Rai (along with three other partners who have now moved on to other restaurants) opened Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen in Lincoln Square in 2019, it was time to focus on “our cuisine,” he said, highlighting unique, less common dishes of Tibet and Nepal alongside Indian favorites.

At Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen, some of the most popular dishes include sephaley, an empanada-like dish stuffed with minced chicken and slow-cooked in Himalayan spices and rubbed in ghee; and gundruk ko achar, a pickle made from fermented mustard greens that manager Binita, Rai’s wife, drives to a market in Aurora to source specifically.

The signature dish is the fiery C Momo (or chile momo), a fried dumpling filled with chicken or vegetables and then served in a multilayered chile sauce with bell peppers, onions and ginger.

Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen restaurant will celebrate its five-year anniversary in July and the team is already looking forward to bringing even more unique Nepalese dishes to Chicago and perhaps beyond.

“I’m very happy to make my home cuisine in Chicago,” Rai said, adding, “and maybe in the future other cities.”

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Editor: Satchel Price
Newsletter reporter: Matt Moore