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American Arab Chamber of Commerce Illinois to host 2025 “Best of the Best” Awards Dec. 9
The American Arab Chamber of Commerce of Illinois will host its annual “Best of the Best” Awards night on Dec. 9, 2025, at the Orland Civic Center, 14750 S. Ravinia Avenue, in Orland Park.
Orland Park Mayor Jim Dodge will be the keynote speaker. Dodge won the election in April 2025, defeating former Mayor Keith Pekau, who was criticized for his hostility towards Arab Americans.
The Chamber will present awards to a dozen Arab American community leaders and elected officials who have gone out of their way to support the Arab American community, and community activists who have worked at their own expense to support community needs.
“We are very proud of the work we have done over the years. We don’t grab headlines, but we help those in our community who are targeted by racism or other issues to help them address those issues,” said Chamber Chairman Hassan Nijem.
“Our award recipients are people in elective office, community leaders, activists who are Arab and non-Arab, who have stood up to defend the rights of our community.”
The chamber volunteers to help Arab American and Muslim businesses that encounter challenges. Recently, the Chamber was instrumental in helping Arab and Muslim rideshare drivers to keep a prayer and driver tent that they funded open on an unused corner of the staging parking lot.
The drivers were being threatened to take it down by Chicago Aviation Department officials, who originally approved the erection of the tent for prayer and resting.
The American Arab Chamber of Commerce intervened, and the Chicago Aviation Department agreed to allow the tent to remain and promised to soon replace it with a more permanent structure.
The tent is open to everyone of every nationality and religion and provides a place to rest or pray while waiting for ride share assignments. The staging lot is located at Mannheim and Higgins roads.
The Chamber has also worked closely with Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, who single-handedly organized a program to refund millions of dollars to property owners who have overpaid their property taxes. Treasurer Pappas worked with many ethnic community groups, including the Arab and Muslim community, to ensure they received their refunds.
Since 2009, Pappas has refunded and prevented nearly $544 million in property tax overpayments. including several million in overpayments to Arab and Muslim property owners. And, Pappas has translated her website into many languages, including Arabic, to ease the access of information to all residents of Cook County.
Additionally, working with responsible community leaders, the Arab Chamber assisted in confronting the City of Chicago under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot, who discriminated against Arab American business owners. Emanuel targeted the Arab community by closing the Arab Advisory council, cancelling the annual Arab Arabesque Festival, and hosting community events that excluded Arab American community leaders.
Lightfoot targeted Arab American business owners, falsely tying them to neighborhood crime, solely because after committing crimes, suspects who go to their stores because they were open overnight. Lightfoot apparently believed that closing the Arab owned stores would remove the option for criminals to hide at the stores after committing their crimes.
Under Lightfoot’s action, some 50 Arab American stores were targeted and harassed by building inspectors until the Arab Chamber publicized the problem and brought the news media to expose the discrimination.
“We are proud to help our community and defend them against discrimination. And we did it without asking or soliciting funds. We are volunteers who work for our community on our own time. We want to recognize others who also have put the best interests of the community above their own interests, including elected officials, community leaders, and activists who are Arab and non-Arab,” Nijem said.
Recipients of the 2025 “Best of the Best” Awards will be announced at the banquet, which is open and free to the public to attend.
Food is being donated by the owners of Al Bahar Restaurant which is located in Orland Park in the Orland Park Mall.
For more information, contact Hassan Nijem at [email protected].
Or visit the American Arab Chamber of Commerce website at www.AACCUSA.org.
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Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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