Jewish Council on Urban Affairs - JCUA

We're celebrating a big victory for Treatment Not Trauma — our campaign to build a public health and safety system rooted in care, not criminalization.

A key demand of Treatment Not Trauma is the expansion of Chicago's Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement (CARE) program, which provides emergency mental health and social support from behavioral health professionals.

On Friday morning, Mayor Brandon Johnson announced that CARE is expanding its availability to 8 am - 10 pm. This is a huge step forward and the result of powerful organizing by JCUA members and our partners.

We'll continue pushing to make CARE available 24/7, so Chicagoans in crisis can always get the help they need.

We were proud to join Congresswoman Delia Ramirez this morning as she announced the "Reimagining Safety Act" — a new piece of federal legislation that would dismantle DHS and create a new Department of Community Safety.

Our Executive Director Anna Rubin provided the following testimony:

"Hello, my name is Anna Rubin, and I'm the Executive Director of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. For six decades, JCUA has organized the Jews of Chicagoland to pursue justice in close partnership with our neighbors.

Through our work with ICIRR, including with Congresswoman Ramirez, we've helped make Illinois one of the most welcoming states in the nation for immigrants. But we know we must go further. We must dismantle DHS and create a new Department of Community Safety.

Many members of our Jewish community are immigrants themselves or come from immigrant, refugee, or asylee families. Our own histories teach us that we cannot stand idly by when our neighbors are the targets of state violence. We know that our safety is bound up together, that true safety is a multiracial democracy where everyone has what they need to flourish.

That is the department Congresswoman Ramirez's bill creates. That is why JCUA stands proudly behind it. Thank you."

We're excited to launch JCUA's new basebuilding teams!

Over the next three years, we're working to make JCUA bigger and more powerful than ever. Regional basebuilding is a core part of that strategy, with members organizing members across three areas of Chicago:

Northwest: Wards 1, 30, 33, 35
Northeast: Wards 40, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49
South: Wards 4, 5

Our regional basebuilding teams have a number of important functions. They bring JCUA members together to build community. They invest in members' leadership. They help us build accountable relationships with elected officials. And they get people ready to respond fast.

The Northwest team hosted a Shabbat dinner last Friday in Albany Park, and our two other teams are holding their first meetings this week:

Northeast team: Sunday, September 27 at 6:30 pm in Uptown
South team: Tuesday, September 29 at 6:30 in Hyde Park

You can sign up for both meetings through the link in the comments.

Shana tova from all of us at JCUA! Wishing everyone a 5787 filled with joy and justice.

These High Holidays, our Executive Director Anna Rubin is asking three questions: How are we caring for ourselves? For our fellows? And for our opponents?

You can read her answers here: https://jcua.org/blog/a-high-holiday-message-from-jcuas-executive-director/

JCUA is hiring a staff organizer!

This person will anchor JCUA's community safety work — leading our Community Safety Committee, recruiting and developing members, and driving our campaigns for mental health care and police accountability in Chicago.

Learn more about the role and apply at jcua.org/jobs

Today we're excited to share Building Power for Justice, our strategic plan for 2026–2028.

We spent the last year asking an important question: how might we best take action in this political moment? Our answers came from more than 100 people, including staff and Board, members who've been with us for decades, and partners across Chicagoland.

It commits JCUA to two strategic priorities.

Growing and organizing our base: members organizing their neighbors block by block, and our Kol Or, Sephardi & Mizrahi, and Youth Organizing Caucuses doubled in size.

Confronting white supremacy in all its forms: training hundreds of people a year to speak with clarity about antisemitism, anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, and how these systems intersect.

Read the full plan at jcua.org/power

JCUA gathered in Edgewater yesterday in support of our congregation partner Emanuel Congregation. A series of flyers and newspaper articles opposing a planned housing development on the synagogue’s property have been circulating in the neighborhood, several of which used antisemitic rhetoric.

While opponents of the development rallied in front of the synagogue, JCUA members, Emanuel congregants, and Edgewater neighbors gathered across the street to show solidarity with Emanuel and to highlight the need for affordable housing in Edgewater. Speakers highlighted the spirit of diversity and solidarity in Edgewater, expressed the need for more affordable housing in the face of displacement, shared the history of Emanuel as a cornerstone of community care in the neighborhood, and lifted up community demands for the project to include as much affordable housing in perpetuity as possible.

JCUA will always stand with our community in the face of antisemitism, and we will continue fostering solidarity between neighbors in the collective work of building communities where everyone can afford basic needs, worship in peace, and thrive.

Our second renter roundtable is coming up next Thursday, 8/27!

Join our Housing & Economic Justice Committee for an evening of conversation about the realities of renting in Chicago — and the steps we can take to build power as renters and level the playing field with landlords.