CHICAGO (WLS) — Taking place Oct. 5-26 in North Lawndale at James Stone Freedom Square, the 2025 Chicago Sukkah Design Festival brings together neighbors, community organizations, designers, artists, students, and faith leaders to co-create sukkahs-structures inspired by Jewish tradition-reimagined as places of belonging, solidarity, and hope.

Rooted in North Lawndale’s shared Black and Jewish history and the neighborhood’s legacy of resilience, the festival fosters interfaith, multicultural, and multiracial collaboration.

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Together, participants build “third spaces” where diverse communities gather, create, and envision just futures – affirming our humanity and interconnectedness in a time of global division and struggle.

“The Chicago Sukkah Festival celebrates cultural heritage and amplifies solidarity among the Jewish community who lived in North Lawndale historically, the predominantly Black community that resides there today, and the broader Chicago community,” said Joseph Altshuler, CSDF artistic director and cofounder of Could Be Design. “During the Festival days, the landscape of unique sukkah structures is activated with cross-cultural public programming, co-organized with the Lawndale Pop-Up Spot, bringing together intersectional pairings of neighborhood groups.”

After the 20-day festival, each sukkah will be relocated and permanently re-installed at the facilities of the community organizations that co-designed them, as vibrant new program spaces. For more information, visit https://www.chicagosukkahfestival.org/.