More than 100 people filled Al Manarah Square in Bridgeview Friday evening to celebrate the village’s installation of Ramadan and Eid lights along Harlem Avenue, in the corridor known as Little Palestine.
The celebration marked the beginning of Ramadan, the first day of fasting in the Islamic holy month. As hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world enter this sacred four-week period of worship, they will abstain from food and water from dawn until dusk, coming together with family and friends for indulgent meals after sunset.
According to Islam, fasting draws the faithful closer to God and reminds them of the suffering of the poor.Islam, fasting serves to deepen the connection with God and serves as a reminder of the struggles faced by the less fortunate.
The celebration kicked off with Nasheed, a song that praises Allah, as children waved sparklers and some proudly held miniature Palestine flags. Sadia Nawab, a cultural organizer who led the lighting event, climbed atop a red pickup truck adorned with loudspeakers and several Arab Liberation flags.
Nawab called out to the crowd, “Where are we?” and they chanted back, “Little Palestine!”
The inspiration for the lights came from Rev. Munther Isaac, pastor of Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, Nawab said. In 2023, Isaac, alongside other Palestinian Christian leaders in the West Bank, chose to forgo all Christmas lights and celebrations as an act of solidarity with their fellow Palestinians in Gaza, she said.
After asking the village to remove the Christmas lights in honor of the more than 46,000 Palestinians killed in the Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas, the village instead offered to install lights for Ramadan, Nawab said.
“These lights needed to happen because Bridgeview needed to reflect the spirit of its people, the faith, the resilience, the joy and the successes of its people,” said Jinan Chehade. “Ramadan as we know, it’s a time of faith, of reflection, but it’s also a time of community.”
Nawab said the lights were custom designed with input from the Palestinian community in Bridgeview. The designs feature a crescent moon and star, lanterns and another depicts a crescent and the Dome of the Rock, Nawab said, which symbolizes the sacred site in Jerusalem where Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven.
“If that’s not a sign that our victory is coming, that our liberation is coming, and that we need to remain steadfast and fight harder than ever, then I don’t know what is,” Nawab said.
Ramadan ends March 29 with Eid al-Fitr, a three-day holiday celebrating the end of the fast.
Palestinians flocked to Chicago in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and were a significant part of the contingent of “Syrian” Arab traders at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, selling religious artifacts, textiles and handicrafts from the Holy Land, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago. In the 1980s, many Palestinian families moved to the southwest suburbs, bringing significant Palestinian populations to Burbank, Oak Lawn, Hickory Hills, Bridgeview, Alsip and Palos Hills.
The Chicago area is home to the largest Palestinian diaspora in the U.S., Nawab said.
For Nawab, their work is not done. Next, she wants to work on getting more cultural representation in Little Palestine.
“We’ve seen in other neighborhoods in Chicago, specifically, we see arches, we see murals, we see plaques, we see all types of things,” Nawab said. “We want to see that here. Little Palestine is not just a bunch of businesses.
“We are a people of culture, of values, and we come from a rich tradition, and we want to showcase that more through our art, through our culture, through our institution. We want to see the names of the streets reflect who we are as a people. We want to see us more embedded into the infrastructure of this city.”
As she spoke to the crowd Friday, Nawab acknowledged ]the road to the official recognition of the Palestinian and Muslim community in Bridgeview has not been easy.
“We’ve been through a lot as a community,” she said. “Some of us remember when we were under heavy FBI surveillance and the trauma that that put us through. Some of us remember the backlash that we experienced after 9/11, the harassment, the accusations, the hiding that we went into. We stayed in that hiding for many years, and now, of course, this past year, our community has been activated in ways that we couldn’t even have imagined.”
Although the Palestinian community in the southwest suburbs have greatly contributed to area’s economic and cultural growth, the community has not always had representation in village government or equitable investment in Bridgeview, Nawab said. Around 1990, more than 45% of employed Palestinians in the Chicago area worked in retail trade, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago.
Nawab said the Ramadan lights could not have been made possible without support from Trustee Khalid Baste and Bridgeview Mayor Steve Landek.
“It takes everybody to make things happen,” Landek said. “We’re a community, and we’re like a tapestry: We have Muslim Americans, we have Christians, we have everybody — Polish, German, Jordanian — it all works together to make a beautiful community.”
As you drive down Harlem Avenue, storefronts, law offices, restaurants and barber shops display signs in Arabic. Now, for three months, the street is illuminated by lights that celebrate the Muslim culture and the community that has called Bridgeview home for so many years.
“It brings so much joy,” Nawab said. “We feel seen, we feel celebrated, we feel like we can be ourselves.”
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