Illinois
Where we met Lincoln and discovered deep dish pizza.
Chicago · Springfield · Champaign
The Journey
Illinois was the closest we felt to home, to New York.
Chicago is enormous, energetic, and vibrantly American. The skyline, the architecture, the museums, the crowds, and the constant movement gave us plenty to explore. At the Museum of Science and Industry, we spent hours moving from one exhibit to another, the kind of museum where the girls could learn without realizing how much they were learning.
We visited Willis Tower, the tallest building in Chicago, and, of course, made a stop to pick up our very own, or rather Chicago’s own, kosher deep dish pizza.
But once we left Chicago, Illinois began to change. Much like upstate New York, the buildings became smaller, the roads opened up, and the skyline slowly gave way to fields.
In Springfield, we visited the State Capitol, in a city where the memory of Abraham Lincoln seems to be everywhere. We made ourselves comfortable in Lincoln’s home, saw the table and chairs he used, walked through the rooms where he lived with his wife and children, and saw his iconic hat, papers, and pieces of his life. Lincoln suddenly became less of a figure from a history book and more of a real person.
We then visited Lincoln’s resting place, where we had a chance to pay our family’s respects to this great man, while telling the girls who he was and why he still matters.
Champaign showed us another side again, a lively college town surrounded by the wide open landscape of central Illinois.
Illinois can give you one of America’s greatest cities, and only a few hours later make you feel like you are in the middle of the prairie.
Jewish Illinois
Writing about Jewish Illinois would require a bit more than a short note.
While there, we visited Khal Ohr Yisocher Chodorov and other shuls, meeting some wonderful communities and seeing just how vibrant Orthodox Jewish life in Chicago is.
We also visited the enormous Jewish Waldheim Cemetery on Des Plaines Avenue, with seemingly endless rows of graves and separately gated plots belonging to synagogues, families, and communities. Among the graves we visited were the Makarover Rebbe, Rebbe Yaakov Yitzchak Twersky, and the Hornosteipler Rebbe, Rebbe Ben Tzion Yehuda Leib Twersky. Walking through the cemetery felt almost like walking through generations of Chicago Jewish history.
That history runs deep. Chicago’s first Jewish congregation, KAM, today KAM Isaiah Israel, was founded in 1847, when Chicago itself was still a young city. Since then, Jews have become deeply woven into Illinois through synagogues, yeshivos, kollelim, businesses, hospitals, charities, and public life.
Illinois has even had three Jewish governors: Henry Horner, Samuel Shapiro, and its current governor, JB Pritzker.
From old rabbinic graves to thriving shuls and kosher restaurants, Jewish life in Illinois did not feel like a small chapter of the state’s story. It felt like part of its fabric.
What Stayed With Me
What Illinois left me with was the feeling of a truly great state sitting in the Midwest, surrounded by Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin, all great states, but significantly less hectic. It was the first time on our journey that I felt like I was in a New York outside of New York.
But Illinois also gave me a much deeper look into the life of Abraham Lincoln.
Beyond the great man was simply a man. He had a wife and children. He woke up in the morning, went to sleep at night, shared a bed with his wife, sat around a table, and had rooms where his children played.
And somehow, this ordinary man living an ordinary family life also changed the world forever.
That, to me, was the biggest moment of Illinois.
Have a story, an idea, or a reason to connect?
For editorial inquiries, media, speaking, collaborations, historical research, or simply a story you think I should know I'd be glad to hear from you.
Contact Dov