When 6-year-old Palestinian American boy Wadee Alfayoumi was stabbed to death in October of 2023 in suburban Plainfied Township in an alleged hate crime, it was as though the Muslim community itself had been stabbed.
That’s how Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, described the effect of Wadee’s killing during a remembrance ceremony at the Muslim Community Center marking one year since the attack in which Wadee’s mother was also wounded.
“They were not only attacked for their personal identities, but for their ethnic and religious identities that we all share,” Rehab told the nearly 50 people in attendance at the center in Albany Park.
“They were picked almost randomly to represent all of us, and so in that sense we were all stabbed, we were all wounded, we were all killed that day.”
Wadee’s father, Odai Alfayoumi, sat in the front row, flanked by family, some of whom wiped away tears during the ceremony. Speaking in Arabic with Rehab translating, Alfayoumi thanked his family for standing by him over the last year, and took solace in knowing that his son hasn’t been forgotten.
Wadee Alfayoumi’s father, Odai Alfayoumi, right, was grateful that his son’s memory has not been forgotten.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
“The fact that his son is not forgotten means for him that in the end victory is ours,” Rehab said. “He also says that his son, if he has to be taken, let him be a sacrifice for Gaza, because in Gaza children are being taken every single day by the same forces of hate and dehumanization.”
Will County prosecutors have said Joseph Czuba — the man charged with killing Wadee and wounding his mother, Hanan Shaheen — may have been radicalized by what he was hearing on conservative talk radio in the days following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel.
Czuba, the family’s landlord, told his wife that he was afraid that Shaheen’s “Palestinian friends were going to harm them,” according to a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the Alfayoumi family.
Rehab said the media was also partly to blame for Wadee’s killing based on narratives reported following the Hamas attack. He accused the media of dehumanizing Palestinians, inflaming the conditions that fueled Czuba’s hate.
“While our kin and our friends and our family were being slaughtered in Gaza, here at home, our community members were vilified at the same moment,” Rehab said.
But just as those at the memorial mourned Wadee, they also remembered his brief life, describing him as a “bright” young man who loved to play with Legos and his soccer ball. How he had his future ahead of him.
Wadee’s death reverberated across the southwest suburbs, an area with a large and established Palestinian community, and far beyond.
Thousands of people gathered in suburban Bridgeview for the boy’s funeral days after his killing. Thousands more gathered in Plainfield for a vigil days later to honor Wadee and to call out anti-Palestinian hate and Islamophobia.
In September, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution honoring Wadee. Shaheen also attended a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the rise of hate crimes against Jewish and Arab Americans.
Hate crimes have spiked since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza. Several organizations in the Chicago area held events last week to mark one year since the start of the conflict.
Vice President Kamala Harris in a statement Tuesday reiterated her condemnation of the “heinous” attack on Wadee and Hanan. She also spoke out against the rise in anti-Arab incidents since Oct. 7.
“These hate-fueled attacks are unacceptable, and stand against our fundamental values,” Harris said. “President Biden and I have made taking on hate a national priority, and we will continue to do everything in our power to combat hate in all its forms, and against any community. We must be unequivocal: in America, no one should be made to fight hate alone.”
“Today and every day, Doug and I hold Wadee’s memory in our thoughts. And we recommit to doing all we can to continue building a country where all people can live safe from hate, bigotry, and violence,” Harris said, referring to her husband, Doug Emhoff.
Rehab said his organization is working on building a permanent memorial to Wadee in Plainfield to honor his memory.
“His life will continue through the memory that we will hold in our hearts, in our bodies and in our collective consciousness,” Rehab said.
Contributing: David Struett, Lynn Sweet