We’re currently in the midst of the Jewish festival of Sukkot – the harvest festival that commemorates the wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness. I’ve always been fascinated tension by an inherent tension in this holiday: on the one hand Sukkot is referred to as “Zman Simchateinu,” the “time of our rejoicing,” but it is also a time tinged with seriousness and an innate sense of existential fragility.

Yes, this is the season in which we rejoice over our bountiful harvest – but this is also the time in which we plant a new set of crops and begin our prayers for rain, keenly aware that they/we are ultimately dependent upon forces outside our control. Yes, we rejoice as we arrive at this latest point in our journey – but we build and dwell in impermanent sukkot, as if to acknowledge the challenges and trials that most certainly await us on the road ahead.

I can’t help but think of this Sukkot-tension in relation to two local struggles going on here in Chicago. The first is the movement to save Dyett High School in the South side neighborhood of Bronzeville. Dyett was one of the many Chicago public schools that was closed by the city in predominantly black and brown communities. In response, a local coalition formed that developed an extensive plan to reopen Dyett as open enrollment neighborhood school focused on Global Leadership and Green Technology.

After first refusing, CPS eventually agreed to consider the community’s plan – but when it became clear that CPS had no intention in engaging in an honest, engaged process with the community, twelve members of the coalition went on a hunger strike in protest. (It was my honor, along with members of my congregation Tzedek Chicago, to draft a Jewish community letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel demanding that he respond to the Dyett hunger strikers request. We delivered it to the mayor’s office on the second day of Rosh Hashanah)

After three weeks, CPS announced a “compromise.” It would reopen Dyett as a neighborhood public school, but not according to the Global Leadership Plan or any of the two other plans that had since been put forth. At the time the hunger strikers rejected this decision, stating that it was made over the heads of community members and without any due consideration of the desires of those who actually live in Bronzeville. The hunger strike continued on for a total of 34 days before they ended their action due to the health concerns of some of the strikers.

In announcing the end of the strike, hunger striker Monique Redeaux-Smith commented:

While we cannot yet claim complete victory, we do understand that our efforts so far have been victorious in a number of ways … Last year, Dyett was closed. But through community resistance, it was slated to be reopened in 2016 and ’17. And even though there was a request for proposals, we know that the plan was for that space to become another privatized school within Bronzeville. But again, through community resistance and this hunger strike, we pushed CPS and the mayor to commit to reopening Dyett as a public, open-enrollment neighborhood school. So that is an accomplishment.

The other local struggle I’m thinking of this Sukkot is the movement to establish a Level 1 trauma center on Chicago’s south side.  There are eight adult trauma centers serving Chicago, but none are in this area that includes some of the city’s most gun violence-prone neighborhoods. Victims of gun violence are much more likely to die when more than five miles from a trauma center. As a result, large sections of the south side comprise Chicago’s only “trauma center desert.”

The campaign for a south side Level 1 adult trauma center was formally launched after 18-year-old student and youth activist Damian Turner was shot near the corner of 51st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, just a few blocks away from the University of Chicago hospital. Turner was transported to a hospital farther away due to the absence of a nearby Level 1 trauma center, but he died an hour-and-a-half later.

The trauma center coalition was led by the remarkable youth-based grassroots organization, Fearless Leading by the Youth. Here’s an excerpt from an interview with FLY organizer Veronica Morris Moore:

As a young Black queer organizer, I feel affirmed by the trauma center campaign. The principles of the BLM movement helped us frame our tactic around the Obama library and I believe that framing our message with BLM principles put the [University of Chicago] in a big spotlight locally and nationally in terms of race issues. Having this national conversation about police shootings created opportunities to address gun violence in the Black community and the reality and root of the problem. Gun violence is the leading killer of young Black people in poor neighborhoods across this nation, and growing up on the South Side of Chicago, FLY members understand that gun violence stems from the economic violence that bankrupts our communities and bankrolls big business hospitals like the University of Chicago.

Like the Dyett HS struggle, this grassroots effort leveraged people power to shift political power. On September 10, the University of Chicago and Sinai Health System announced that they would partner to open a Level-I Adult Trauma Center at Holy Cross Hospital. But like the Dyett struggle, it was clear to organizers that the victory was not complete – having been made with no accountability or transparency to the community impacted by this decision. Moreover, in making their decision, the University of Chicago reneging on its previous commitment to raise the age of its pediatric trauma center.

If you are a member of the Chicago Jewish community you should should know that on Sunday, November 1, the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs – one of the members of the trauma center coalition – will host “L’Chaim: JCUA Community Meeting for Trauma Care” at KAM Isaiah, 1100 E. Hyde Park Ave. This meeting will provide an important opportunity to:

► Celebrate the growing momentum of this campaign, and be a part of the next victory.
► Take part in one of the most important racial justice issues facing Chicago today.
► Hear from the youth leaders that started the campaign for trauma care.
► Take action so the University of Chicago keeps all of its commitments for trauma care.

This Sukkot, let us rejoice in our victories – and let us give each other strength for the struggle that inevitably lays ahead…