LOGAN SQUARE – Brian Krause-Rivera was not supposed to work on March 11, but a colleague, a person he loved and respected, texted him that day to tell him that she needed moral support. So he got on his bike and pedaled to the Logan Theatre, where he had worked for three years and where he was an assistant manager. One week later, he was fired.
Two weeks before March 11, his superiors learned that the Logan Theatre had been booked for a private screening of the documentary film #NOVA. The film is a compilation of social media footage captured on October 7, 2023, during the Hamas attack on southern Israel, specifically at the Supernova psychedelic trance music festival. Around 300 people were killed by Hamas fighters at the event, while dozens more were taken hostage. Promotional material for the film describes it as a “raw documentary [which] reveals the true, bone-chilling atrocities of October 7th.”
Krause-Rivera saw the film and described it as “manipulative” and “creating a pretty strong permission structure with being okay with genocide.” One of his superiors attempted to pull the screening almost as soon as she learned about it, making an appeal to the theater’s marketing manager Jen Zacarias on the grounds that a screening would be recklessly inflammatory. Not only was the event scheduled during the first days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but the Logan Theatre had for months been the target of a boycott due to the anti-Palestinian actions of its owner, Mark Fishman.
Fishman has owned the Logan Theatre since 2010. It is the crown jewel in a sprawling empire of residential and commercial real estate that he owns in Logan Square. In 2012, he opened the restored theater to the public, and has referred to the venture as “his own private art project.”1 With its central location on Milwaukee and its imposing red neon LOGAN sign rising above the avenue, Krause-Rivera describes the theater as Fishman’s “vehicle for dominating Logan Square,” which “symbolizes ownership over the neighborhood.”
Fishman is a highly controversial figure in Logan Square. He has been described as “the face of gentrification” and as a “profiteer of misery, absentee building owner, and all-around negative force.” He has publicly battled with Alder Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, who has accused Fishman of attempting to “bully and buy” him. Ramirez-Rosa has also told reporters that he believes Fishman wanted to enter into a quid pro quo with him surrounding a storefront he rented from the landlord for his ward office. Fishman has spurred the formation of an organization, the North Spaulding Renters Association (NSRA), whose primary purpose is to oppose him.
Most recently, he has embarked on an attempt to evict residential tenant Manal Farhan for flying a Palestinian flag outside her window. Farhan is Palestinian, and in 1948 her family fled a village near Jerusalem during the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” a war in which Israeli forces led by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion moved to ethnically cleanse Palestinians in order to create the State of Israel. In October 2023, weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks and the ensuing Israeli invasion of Gaza, Farhan placed the handmade flag outside her window. In November, Fishman employees told her that she must remove the flag or face eviction. Farhan refused.
Displaying the flag was “a way to channel our energy, anger and our grief in a way that’s positive,” Farhan told Block Club in December. “I hung it out my window because I was like, ‘I’m here,’ and I know there are other Palestinians in this community and I want them to know that we’re here together.” Over 31 thousand Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7, in a campaign that the International Court of Justice has called a “plausible” genocide.
In January, the organization Salon Kawakib called for a boycott of the Logan Theatre to protest Fishman’s actions. NSRA and the autonomous group BOYCOTT Logan Theatre! also joined the effort, urging the public to stay away until Farhan’s eviction was rescinded. Hundreds of fliers to this effect have appeared around the neighborhood since January. Alder Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has stated his support for the boycott. Krause-Rivera says that theater staff was fully aware of the campaign, as well as Fishman’s ongoing attempt to evict Manal Farhan from her apartment across the street. Dune 2 premiered in early March, and he could tell that the number of customers was lower than it should have been for the blockbuster film. “I do feel like there is an effect,” he told us, “but I don’t think Fishman cares.”
M. Fishman & Co. initially claimed that the reason for Farhan’s eviction was, per a clause in her lease, that items could not be placed outside of windows. However, Farhan claimed in court filings that Fishman employees told her that “because there is a conflict [in Gaza], we want to remain neutral.” She sued for discrimination on the grounds that she was being targeted because she is Palestinian and was expressing support for the cause of Palestinians in Gaza. On Monday, a federal judge ruled against her, stating that she did not make a compelling case that she faced discrimination on the basis of national origin, a protected class under the Fair Housing Act.
Lawyers for the Fishman, who had previously been coy about his reasons for evicting Farhan and stuck to the lease explanation, appear to have changed course. In Monday’s ruling, lawyers for the defendant are described as arguing that “the [Fair Housing Act] does not bar defendants from creating or enforcing rules based on political beliefs,” a position that the court seems to have accepted. “Although defendants’ policy might seem to implicate First Amendment issues,” Judge Robert W. Gettleman wrote, “defendants are not state actors and therefore are not bound by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”
In other words, Fishman switched to openly arguing—in federal court—that tenants can be evicted for their political beliefs, and a judge agreed with him. The ruling is outrageous not only for Farhan, but for anyone who rents in a privately-owned building, as it declares that a landlord can legally withdraw housing on the basis of political affiliation.
Back at the theater, a few weeks before March 11, staff immediately panicked about the prospect of screening #NOVA. Multiple people threatened to quit. One staff member, citing the inundation of anti-Fishman and boycott commentary on the theater’s social media accounts, warned that the screening would light a powder keg. Krause-Rivera says that marketing manager Zacarias, whom he described as Fishman’s eyes and ears at the theater, told staff that the screening would not be canceled. As an olive branch, she decided that the theater would not advertise the event on its own platforms, opting for its host, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, to handle all of the marketing. This would theoretically shield staff from hostile comments and phone calls.
For many staff who had kept their heads down during the preceding months of controversy, and who had privately been in support of Palestinian liberation, the decision to screen this film at this theater just days into Ramadan felt like a turning point, and management’s decision to hide the screening from the public felt like a bad omen.
“This is a nightmare,” one colleague said.
“It would all be done in secret,” Krause-Rivera told us, but “I still said that this was morally reprehensible and threatened to quit.”
Chicago is big, but it isn’t that big. News of the screening was bound to leak at some point. Krause-Rivera did not directly approach BOYCOTT organizers. He instead activated the Logan grapevine, passing information about the screening to a proverbial guy who knows a guy. He also contacted a reporter at Block Club. Word of the screening quickly reached BOYCOTT and, out of sight, the group made plans for a protest of #NOVA, which organizers would later describe as a “Zionist propaganda film.” News got back to Logan Theatre management that demonstrators would be present on March 11, and organizers with the Simon Wiesnthal Center were notified. Alison Slovin, Director of the Midwest Region of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told LLL that the center was not aware of the discrimination allegations against Fishman, nor of the boycott campaign, but that organizers were prepared for the possibility of protestors.
On the day of the screening, the text came asking Krause-Rivera for moral support. He picked out an outfit that contained the colors of the Palestinian flag—black pants, white shirt, green vest, red tie. He arrived at work to find the concessions area filled with people, many of them protestors (whom he said were quite nice). Organizers of the screening had also begun to arrive, and they were not so nice. He describes them as showing “vitriol and hatred” to a colleague. Tensions were high. Chanting from the protestors filled the lobby. In a moment of fear that he would later regret, as he witnessed screening organizers’ anger and protestors filling the street and the sidewalk, he removed the red tie. At that moment, he said, he “lost the respect of someone I truly loved”—the coworker who had asked for his support.
The police arrived shortly after 6:00 and formed a barrier between event organizers and protestors. Krause-Rivera says that Zacarias offered to halt the screening, but event organizers refused. Security guards were posted at the front doors, letting patrons through one by one, searching their bags, and asking them what movie they had come to see. Around this time, a man in his late 50s approached the front doors and, according to Krause-Rivera, unfurled an Israeli flag from his back pocket. Protestors attempted to snatch it from him, but the man held on. A struggle ensued as protestors surrounded him. BOYCOTT claims that he threw the first punch. Krause-Rivera says that the man “definitely provoked the protestors.”
The unidentified man told ABC 7 that “a group of them was swinging me around and threw me into a parked car…I was completely surrounded by maybe six or seven that started punching me in the head.” Slovin told LLL that “I witnessed the attack with my own eyes. The gentleman walked quietly through the crowd of protestors carrying a small Israeli flag and was attacked by 4-5 masked protestors who threw him up against a car, before he reached the theater door.”
When security guards let the man inside, Krause-Rivera offered him first aid, which he refused. The screening went on, although a technical glitch caused a lag. Krause-Rivera says that organizers of the screening accused Logan Theatre staff of “sabotaging” the event, an accusation that Slovin denies. Outside, protestors banged on the windows. Concessions staff abandoned their posts. At the conclusion of the screening, police escorted patrons out of a back door.
LLL has made multiple inquiries about the protest to the Logan Theatre and to the offices of M. Fishman & Co. Krause-Rivera’s statements suggest that individuals with a direct line to Fishman knew weeks in advance that things could get hairy on March 11. Theater staff attempted to stop a conflict before it started, not only out of concern for coworkers but out of respect for the broader Palestinian liberation movement, for Ramadan, and for the theater’s neighbor Manal Farhan. But it wasn’t enough. “This had Fishman’s fingerprints all over it,” Krause-Rivera said. “I think Mark Fishman wanted it to get out,” so that he could “make a stink and then play victim.”
While we cannot say if Fishman intentionally provoked a conflict on March 11, the ensuing mainstream media coverage of the incident has been scathing against protestors. NBC 5 reported that “protestors struck a theater in Logan Square tonight trying to disrupt a documentary about the Israeli heroes on October 7.” ABC 7 described them only as “anti-Israel protestors” and provided no background or context for the demonstration—no mention of the civilian dead in Gaza, no mention of Manal Farhan’s eviction, no mention of the ICJ’s statement of “plausible” genocide by Israel, and no mention of the six-decade occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by Israel.
After the event, Krause-Rivera still felt the nagging shame of removing his red tie. Having seen coworkers and demonstrators bravely stand up to counter-protestors, he felt the need to come clean. “I’ve always been honest,” he told us. A few days after the event, he sent an email directly to Mark Fishman himself.
“I was the one who leaked the information about the #NOVA screening,” the email read. “I spoke to a local activist with the intention of orchestrating a protest against the film and my employer.”
He went on:
I contend that this whole thing was perpetuated either partially or in whole by a malignant narcissism. To show a screening of that caliber, on that day, knowing the history of the fraught, contentious relationship between M. Fishman & Co. and this neighborhood was reckless. To use the cold-blooded murder of over 30,000 people, nearly 61% of whom are known unarmed combatants; not to mention the 1,139 souls who died in the October massacre as a means to air petty grievances was truly disgusting. Having me and the people I love and care for be complicit in such acts was particularly loathsome and it is at that point that I took action.
After sending the email, he went on vacation for a few days. When he returned, on Monday, March 18, he was met by Zacarias and his manager. His desk had been emptied. They didn’t give a reason, but they informed him that, after three years, it was his last day.
Judge Robert Gettleman dismissed Manal Farhan’s discrimination case against Mark Fishman on the same day that Krause-Rivera was fired. Fishman’s termination of Krause-Rivera, as well as his lawyers’ admission in court documents that he discriminated against Farhan on the basis of political affiliation, offer clear and irrefutable proof that he is targeting and punishing tenants and workers for their support of the Palestinian cause. The quiet part is now being said out loud.
“I lost what I thought was my dream job, but the people who are losing their lives every day on the Gaza Strip are losing so much more,” Krause-Rivera told LLL. “If you have the strength, do something, anything.”
—LLL, 20 March 2024
- Fishman received $1 million in TIF funds in 2011 to refurbish the theater. ↩︎
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