A couple of months ago, a disturbing incident occurred in River Forest of which the board was informed. The parkway trees of one home were singled out to receive a complaint about the plastic ribbons tied around them. The ribbons were blue and white in support of Israel in the wake of the brutal Oct. 7 massacre there.
This complaint occurred when there were up to 46 other trees in the village with plastic ribbons on them supporting various other causes. The other trees received no complaint.
This complaint was, ostensibly, based on the village’s tree ordinance protecting trees from having damaging materials mounted on them. One must ask, why were these trees targeted? Why these trees, alone? This complaint prompted three responses from the village.
1) The owner was told to take the ribbons down.
2) When the owner protested and said she felt specifically targeted, she was told all tree ribbons in the village would be taken down, which didn’t happen. Then this issue was brought to a village board meeting, and the owner said the complaint felt antisemitic. The response?
3) The village president said all ribbons could stay up and directed her staff to “revisit the ordinance.”
Here is the point: At no time did the board respond to the owner’s core concern and call out a clearly antisemitic act, asserting, as signs around the village state, “Hate Has No Home Here.” The complaint, of course, was not about the ordinance. It was about support for Israel. Why has the board not stated, unequivocally, that antisemitism, as well as intolerance of any group, is not welcome here?
The board had three chances to get it right, and they failed three times. If River Forest is really a community that values and aspires to practicing tolerance, it must call out when people demonstrate intolerance.
Values don’t die because people don’t live by them. Values die when those who care about them are silent. Silence is complicity.
River Forest Village Board, you failed.
Phyllis Rubin
River Forest