Mariusz Wdziekonski, 24, a neo-Nazi, was convicted of felony vandalism on Friday, after desecrating nearly 70 Jewish graves at Westlawn Cemetery in Norridge, with spray-painted swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti. "Hopefully, we can expose with some light--during the season of light--the evils in which this defendant was engaged," said Marc Jacobs, president of Temple Sholom of Chicago, which owns the cemetery in Norridge Park Township, to the Chicago Sun-Times. It only took two hours for a Cook County jury to convict Wdziekonski for vandalizing 67 headstones and memorials with graffiti during a January 2008 vandalism spree. more ›

Scott Lee Cohen may no longer be in the hunt to be Illinois' next lieutenant governor, but that doesn't mean he's ready to shut up about it. The reasons why Cohen got forced out of the race for Lieutenant Governor are legion, but leave it to SLC to come up with one that none of us had likely considered up to this point. In an interview with Chicago Magazine, Cohen blames his Jewish faith and a current of anti-semitism running through the state's political power structure: more ›

• The dispute over the Arie Crown Hebrew Day School expansion in Skokie has raised accusations of antisemitism.
• A Chicago firefighter remains in critical condition. the latest victim in the series of violent Lincoln Park attacks Updated: Police say it is not connected to the recent string of robberies in the neighborhood.
• In another case of sickening violence, a woman was bound and raped Tuesday night in the Logan Square neighborhood.