Chicago Tribune • 25th March 2018

Willow Creek pastor faced years of misconduct inquiries; denies allegations

After 42 years building northwest suburban Willow Creek Community Church into one of the nation’s most iconic and influential churches, the Rev. Hybels announced he was stepping down as senior pastor. What much of the church didn’t know was that Hybels had been the subject of inquiries into claims that he ran afoul of church teachings by engaging in inappropriate behavior with women in his congregation — including employees — allegedly spanning decades.

Chicago Tribune • 18th January 2015

Chicago Muslims battle militants’ youth recruiting

Sahira Sadiq recalls her teenage son reading an online article after the Paris terrorist attacks and asking about a verse in the Quran with several interpretations, some of them troubling. “Mummy, where in the Quran does it say this?” the Muslim mother of two recalls him asking. “It can’t be true, is it?”

Chicago Tribune • 16th September 2013

Rabbi deals with addiction, loss of pulpit

Rabbi Michael Sternfield had just started pushing buttons at an Indiana casino on a June day in 2011 when he watched the icons flash across the screen: a video poker royal flush and $10,000 jackpot. But the big payoff proved to be unlucky.

Chicago Tribune • 1st March 2013

Pope Benedict bids farewell after private moment with Chicago's Archbishop

ROME—Cardinal Francis George hopes to become the first Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago to live to retire. But he didn’t expect the Holy Father to take that same approach.

Chicago Tribune • 21st January 2007

Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.: Pastor inspires Obama’s ‘audacity’

When he took over Trinity United Church of Christ in 1972, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. was a maverick pastor with a wardrobe of dashikis and a militant message.

Religion News Service • 27th April 2021

In Poway and Pittsburgh, mayors join fight against hate after synagogue attacks

Mayor Steve Vaus counts his days from April 27, 2019, when a gunman burst into a Chabad synagogue, killing one congregant, injuring three others and shattering the Norman Rockwell vibe of the small, Southern California town of Poway.
“When something like this happens so close to home, it’s seared in your memory,” Vaus told me on what he noted was Day No. 642.
Exactly six months before the Poway attack, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto was awakened by a call that an active shooter was inside...

Moment Magazine • 30th March 2022

Susannah Heschel: The Rabbi’s Daughter

As many Jewish families set their seder tables this year, they will place an orange next to the parsley, egg and shank bone—a contemporary ritual invented by Susannah Heschel, the biblical scholar, Jewish feminist and daughter of the late Jewish philosopher and civil rights icon Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Legend has it that the custom came about after an Orthodox Jewish heckler interrupted one of Susannah Heschel’s lectures on feminism, shouting, “A woman belongs on the bimah as much as an or...

Chicago Tribune • 28th December 2020

The complicated legacy of Roald Dahl

It was with some trepidation that I brought the mad genius of Roald Dahl into our home. I now read his fantastic novels with a cautious eye, combing for anti-Jewish sentiments or dog whistles.

The Times of Israel • 28th January 2022

Who am I to teach a course on Judaism?

The lesson was intended to demonstrate for the students the myriad ways of being Jewish, the fluid nature of Jewish culture and faith and the age-old debate of what we Jews are. Are we a religion? Are we a peoplehood? Are we a nation? What are we?

The Forgotten Exodus • 26th July 2022

The Forgotten Exodus: Season 1 Premiere

Who are the Jews of Iraq? Why did they leave? And why do so many Iraqi Jews, even those born elsewhere, still consider Iraq their home? The premiere episode of a new limited narrative series from American Jewish Committee (AJC) uncovers the answers to these questions through the inspiring story of Mizrahi Jewish cartoonist Carol Isaacs’ family. Feeling alienated growing up as the only Jew in school from an Arab-majority country, Carol turne...

Architects of Peace • 4th September 2025

Behind the Breakthrough

In episode two of AJC’s new limited series, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, U.S. Army General Miguel Correa, and AJC Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer Jason Isaacson unpack the first Trump administration’s Middle East strategy, share behind-the-scenes efforts to engage key regional players, and reveal what unfolded inside the White House in the crucial weeks before the Abraham Accords signing.*The views and opin...

People of the Pod • 1st December 2024

What the mother of hostage Edan Alexander wants the world to know

“Listen to me, Edan. I'm here. I'm with you. I love you. Just protect yourself. Just be safe.” These were the last words Yael Alexander spoke to her then-19 year old son, Edan, on the morning of October 7, 2023. Edan, an IDF soldier stationed on the Gaza border, was later taken hostage by Hamas terrorists.Yael joins us from her New Jersey home to tell her story of pain, uncertainty, and anguish since October 7. Yael was among 17 American...

TIME • 30th June 2003

Religion: Missionaries Under Cover

Not for a century has the idea of evangelizing Islam awakened such fervor in conservative Christians. Touched by Muslims’ material and (supposed) spiritual needs, convinced that they are one of the great “unreached megapeoples” who must hear the Gospel before Christ’s eventual return, Evangelicals have been rushing to what has become the latest hot missions field.