Hundreds of hearts and stars adorn Shawnee Park following October hate crime

Earlier this year, Shawnee Park in Skokie was the setting for a hate crime. Since, it’s been turned into something more.

A group of youths on Oct. 7 reportedly fired pellets from a toy “gel blaster” at another group of youths and then chased them, as one teen shouted “antisemitic and hateful things,” Skokie’s Police Chief Jesse Barnes said during a public forum on the incident. 

Shawnee Park has now become home to a makeshift art installation with approximately 500 handmade hearts and Stars of David adorning the space’s greenery, fencing and playground equipment as part of one group’s effort to show public support for the Jewish community. 

“We were so emotional about it primarily because of the kids and the fear the kids felt and we wanted to respond in a way that felt positive and uplifting for the kids,” said Lynn Horwitz Coe, a coordinator with the Chicago Jewish Alliance who helped facilitate the park’s decoration. 

“But (we) also to make sure that the powers that be in Skokie, and in the North Shore and in that district, could see that we weren’t going to stand down, that we wanted to be visible and we were proud Jews. We’re not afraid, we’re not going to be silenced.” 

Coe said she previously owned a knitting store in Chicago and so she contacted a friend in the craft world after the hate crime took place with the idea of assembling similar decorations in Skokie to those that hung in Pittsburgh after the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting. 

Coe ultimately received knit, origami, and wooden hearts and stars from all over the country, with 200 handmade items coming from New York alone. Coe said she believes the project had the benefit of giving Jewish people and allies who feel “helpless” something to do. 

After Coe brought the project to the Chicago Jewish Alliance in early November, the nonprofit helped secure a live DJ, candles, coffee, hot chocolate and kosher donuts for an art installation and community rally event held at Shawnee Park on Dec. 11. 

About 60 people attended despite the temperatures dropping to 12; speakers, including a local Holocaust survivor and one the teen victims of the park’s hate crime incident, addressed the crowd on the need to keep Jewish children safe, Coe said. 

More than 100 people gathered in the Skokie Police Department during a Skokie Human Relations Commission meeting that centered in part on how the village responded to the Shawnee Park hate crime and can prevent one in the future. 

Because the alleged aggressors in the Oct. 7, 2025 incident were juveniles, the legal resolution of the case will only be shared with those directly involved in the investigation, Barnes said. 

Village leaders and staff from the Skokie Police Department have since met on Nov. 17 to further discuss neighborhood safety and ideas for ways to address the Oct. 7 Shawnee Park hate crime — something with which the commission’s Community Engagement Sub-Committee is tasked. 

The Human Relations Commission is also currently working with “Skokie faith leaders to plan and provide training and education on antisemitism to the community,” said Patrick Deignan, Skokie’s communications manager, in an email.

In the meantime, while Skokie leaders and community members discuss how to move forward from the hate crime, those hundreds of wooden hearts and knit stars will dangle from the tree branches and metal railings and evergreen bushes of Shawnee Park. 

For Coe, as she saw people dancing and singing and coming together last week, the event was a reflection of the Jewish community’s both joyousness and unity in the face of real danger. 

“There’s something so special in the Jewish community when we recognize our shared identity and our shared values and we come together — we are so strong. And it makes me feel what it means to be Jewish,” she said. 

“I was overwhelmed. I really went home that night feeling freezing cold and honestly, it sounds corny, but so warmed by the response.”

The Record is a nonprofit, nonpartisan community newsroom that relies on reader support to fuel its independent local journalism.

Become a member of The Record to fund responsible news coverage for your community.

Already a member? You can make a tax-deductible donation at any time.