A Muslim civil rights group and different non secular teams on Friday known as on Democratic state Sen. Sara Feigenholtz to resign following a social media submit that appeared to help a message the group branded Islamophobic.
Feigenholtz apologized on Friday for her response to a submit on X by Mosab Hassan Yousef, a critic of Hamas and Islam, who wrote that “Westerners who reward Islam are bootlickers.”
“If they love Islam and Muslims, why do not they transfer to an Islamic nation and put their heads within the floor a number of instances a day to realize enlightenment,” Yousef mentioned in a submit revealed Monday.
“MHY… you’re a troublesome man who tells the reality,” Feigenholtz responded the identical day.
His response has since been deleted, and on Friday he known as it a “mistake.” Feigenholtz advised his submit was written in error and mentioned he “doesn’t subscribe to or help any inflammatory remarks made on the submit during which my remark appeared.”
Ahmed Rehab, government director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago, mentioned the senator’s apology “insults our intelligence.”
Feigenholtz’s submit was “horrible, offensive and racist,” Rehab mentioned at a information convention on the CAIR Loop places of work, the place leaders of spiritual and civic teams together with Jewish Voice for Peace Chicago and the Muslim Civic Coalition gathered within the request for the senator’s resignation.
Rehab described Yousef as “an expert Islamophobe”.
Senate President Don Harmon’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Friday morning on whether or not any motion must be taken towards Feigenholtz, who’s vice chairman of the highly effective Senate Appropriations Committee and chairman of the Financial Institutions Committee.
Feigenholtz, who’s Jewish, was amongst state elected officers, together with Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who earlier this week known as for the resignation of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s college board chairman over anti-Semitic and in any other case controversial social media posts . The Rev. Mitchell Johnson resigned from his CPS place Thursday
“Our expectations must be constant for all of our public officers,” Dilara Sayeed of the Muslim Civic Coalition mentioned at Friday’s information convention.
State Reps. Lilian Jimenez of Chicago and Abdelnasser Rashid of Bridgeview additionally appeared on the CAIR information convention and criticized the state senator’s place, although neither explicitly known as for her resignation.
Jimenez famous that she spoke out earlier this week towards anti-Puerto Rican feedback made at a rally for former President Donald Trump, and mentioned she was at Friday’s information convention for a similar causes.
“Words spur actions, and so we’re right here once more at this time due to the phrases that have been spoken,” Jimenez mentioned.
In an announcement launched by Feigenholtz’s workplace on Thursday, she advised that her response to Yousef was meant as a response to his latest speech to the European Union Parliament during which he criticized Hamas.
On Friday, he merely mentioned he “made a mistake and, because of this, I shared a message that I don’t consider. It was by no means my intention to reply to — not to mention amplify — that particular person’s inflammatory remarks.”
Feigenholtz, who represents a district on Chicago’s North Side, will not be working for re-election this yr. She served within the Illinois House of Representatives for greater than twenty years earlier than being elected to the state Senate in 2020.
