Yesterday, we shared reader photos of Friday's pro-Palestine rally downtown. Today, we have some photos to share from the pro-Israel rally held earlier Friday at the Federal Plaza, organized by the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago. One reader said of the pro-Israel rally:

The message of the rally, I thought, was that Israel was out of options and they couldn't just let rockets rain down on their citizens. They're doing everything they can to preserve life while Hamas is doing everything they can to destroy it ... Foreign Minister Livini and all the speakers also made a point of saying that their enemy is not the Palestinian people, but Hamas and that all they want is an end to the rocket fire.

Temple Sholom, a North Side synagogue (3480 N. Lake Shore Dr.), was hit early this morning with a Molotov cocktail and has investigators considering the incident as both arson and a hate crime. Police were notified of the incident around 2 a.m. and found the small fire on the wall of the temple in a fenced-in playground area. No injuries were reported and damage from the fire was minimal. more ›