While the City Council recently was pondering the political, not economic, feasibility of allowing "big box" stores such as Wal-Mart to locate in poorer areas, Alderman Ed Burke (14th), the dean of the council, made a wry comment about other kinds of boxes.

Remarking on the propensity of his colleagues to cling to their posts, Burke noted that they're usually, and involuntarily, hauled away in three types of boxes: A pine box, signaling death, a ballot box, signaling defeat, or a jury box, signaling an indictment and conviction. Since 1973, 29 aldermen have been found guilty of assorted felonies.

However, in the West Rogers Park 50th Ward, there are additional wooden specimens: A litter box, signifying the ward's catty, bitchy rivalry between Alderman Berny Stone, who was first elected in 1973, and state Senator Ira Silverstein (D-8), who trounced Stone for Democratic committeeman in 2008 and who may run against Stone for alderman in 2011.

Or Silverstein may run his wife, Debra, against Stone. Or the aging Stone, who decries "senior prejudice," may retire and back his daughter, Ilana Stone Feketitsch, his aldermanic chief of staff, against one of the Silversteins.

The alderman, ever tactless, tabbed Ira Silverstein a "boychik" and an "ingrate" and said that his wife's candidacy "would be a joke" and that Silverstein has been a "total failure" as a committeeman. "The 2008 Democratic presidential vote was the lowest since the 1970s," Stone said.

The ward also may be a tinderbox, indicative of the highly incendiary demographic and religious rivalry between the ward's sizable Orthodox Jewish and Muslim/Asian communities. The 50th Ward's majority non-Jewish population is becoming increasingly restive and resentful of Jewish dominance.

"It's a line of demarcation," said 2011 aldermanic candidate Greg Brewer, referring to California Avenue. Many Orthodox Jews, along with reform Jews and white gentiles, live in the 24 precincts west of California, while many Muslims, including Hindus and Bosnians, as well as Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hispanics and blacks, live in the 21 precincts east of California, Brewer said. "It's two different worlds," Brewer said.

Call them the "West Bank" and the "East Bank," an appropriate analogy, since Israel's foreign policy is the subject of intense concern in the ward's "West Bank" Jewish sector, the political base of both Stone and Silverstein, but not at all relevant in the "East Bank."

Silverstein "supports Obama's defeatist approach in Israel, which insists on a freeze of Jewish settlements" on land claimed by the Palestinian State, Stone charged. Stone, who was a Hillary Clinton delegate candidate in 2008, asserts that Obama is "disrespectful" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that the Arabs, not the Jews, should be blamed for existing problems.

"Absolutely untrue," retorted Silverstein, who served with Obama in the Illinois Senate for 6 years and who endorsed Obama in the 2008 presidential primary. "I support the president in most matters, but I definitely oppose his Mid East policies," Silverstein said.

Of the 45 precincts in the ward, 24 are in the "West Bank," which cast 53.4 percent of the vote in the 2007 aldermanic election. Stone won 6,015-5,310, with 53.1 percent of the vote, a margin of 661 votes over Naisy Dolar, a Filipino American whose base was the "East Bank." Indicative of the ward's Jewish/non-Jewish dichotomy, Stone won the "West Bank" 4,141-1,912, with 68.4 percent of the vote, while Dolar won the "East Bank" 3,398-1,874, getting 64.4 percent of the vote.

If, as Samuel Johnson said, patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, so, too, is waving the Israeli flag the last refuge of desperate Jewish politicians. "The issue (in next year's election) is who can best serve our community as alderman," Silverstein said. "It is not who can best criticize America's foreign policy."

The 50th Ward, which is bordered on the west by Lincolnwood and the north by Evanston, extends from Ridge Avenue to Kedzie Avenue, between Howard Street and Peterson Avenue, plus three southwest precincts around the Lincoln Avenue-McCormick Boulevard shopping area. According to Stone, the population is roughly 30 percent Jewish, 35 percent Muslim, Hindu and Asian, 12 percent Hispanic and 6 percent black, with the remainder mixed. However, because of the large number of non-citizens, Jews make up more than 40 percent of the registered voters.

Muslims predominate in the northeast section of the ward, with large numbers of Bosnian Muslims near Warren Park. Filipinos and Asians are a majority around Rogers Park, in the area near Touhy and Western avenues and along the strip east of California Avenue. The Jewish vote is huge in the Winston Towers complex, extending from Touhy Avenue south to Albion Avenue, east of Kedzie, encompassing six precincts. Stone beat Dolar there 1,060-267. The majority of the Orthodox Jewish voters are concentrated east and west of Kedzie-Devon, in single-family homes.

The ward's population is approximately 66,000, but there are only 26,270 registered voters. Population growth in the 50th Ward is spurred by Orthodox Jews and Muslims, who tend to propagate large families.

The aldermanic election is 9 months away. Here's the outlook:

With the exception of Brewer, an architect who got 18.2 percent of the vote in 2007, nobody is yet committed to run.

Dolar, the early 2011 favorite based on her near miss, moved to Florida to open a restaurant. Dolar had the backing of U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-9) and her "Jan/Bob Evanston Machine." The ward is in Schakowsky's congressional district, and Schakowsky has exceptionally close ties to the Asian/Indian community. Schakowsky will recruit somebody to run against Stone.

Stone, who will be age 83 if he seeks another term, said he hasn't made a decision." I love what I do," he said. "I'm healthy enough to run. I will decide by September." Stone said that if he doesn't run, he will endorse somebody, but he added that "it's unlikely" that his daughter Ilana will run. Don't believe it. If Stone retires, there is nobody else in his organization to back, simply because there is no organization.

Stone won in 2007 only because Mayor Rich Daley and various South Side Democratic committeemen sent workers into the ward. Daley endorsed Silverstein for committeeman in 2008. The Stone name has a certain cachet of support, but he has no precinct workers. In fact, he lost his Winston Towers base, where he resides, to Silverstein in 2008 by 485-411.

"It's time for new leadership," Brewer said. "His time is past. He does nothing." Brewer predicted that the 2011 winner will be "ABS - anybody but Stone."

Silverstein, who was first elected senator in 1998, was Stone's longtime protege. After Stone eked out his 661-vote win over Dolar, Silverstein was pressured to run for committeeman "to save the (Democratic) organization" and "keep a Jewish alderman," according to ward sources. Stone got 5,059 votes in the 2007 primary election and 6,015 in the runoff, and just 2,863 votes against Silverstein in 2008.

"I may or may not run (for alderman)," Silverstein, age 50, said noting his seniority and possible ascension into the Senate leadership if he stays in Springfield, where he has a safe seat. "I will decide by the autumn. But I will not support Berny." Silverstein added that it is possible that he will back his wife, a certified public accountant, who he said is "well qualified."

The 2008 scenario is unfolding in 2011: If Silverstein or his wife do not run, then Stone or his daughter will gain a place in the runoff and will lose to "ABS." As Stone is the only remaining Jewish alderman, and as the West Rogers Park area has had Jewish aldermen since the 1940s, pressure from constituents is already intense on Silverstein to run. The bottom line: If Silverstein runs, he wins.

Silverstein won the "West Bank" by 2,882-1,558 over Stone in 2008, and he won the six heaviest Jewish Orthodox precincts by 776-315.

To be sure, Stone has some significant accomplishments. The ward is not in an economic coma. The new Boone Clinton School will soon open, and new classrooms were built at Armstrong and Clinton schools. Forty new homes were constructed at Pratt and Kedzie avenues. An Aldi opened at California and Granville avenues, a new parking garage was erected at Devon and Rockwell, and a Dominick's reopened at Ridge and Pratt. The business corridors along Devon, Touhy and Howard avenues, consisting largely of Indian, Pakistani and Korean merchants, are thriving, with low vacancy rates.

But the defunct Northtown Theater is still a hole in the ground, and the criminal trial of Anish Eapen, Stone's ward superintendent, and Armando Ramos, for alleged vote fraud in the 2007 race is about to conclude.

My prediction: There will be a "Stone versus Silverstein" matchup in some combination -- Ira/Berny, Ira/Ilana, Debra/Berny or Debra/Ilana. That will split Jewish voters in the primary, but they will unite behind one of the Silversteins in the April runoff. The incumbent, as Brewer said, "is no longer viable." There is, as yet, no emerging "East Bank" candidate capable of uniting that disparate area.

As of now, the aldermanic seat is Ira Silverstein's for the taking, but he can't dawdle too much longer. Schakowsky will find somebody to run, and Brewer is getting traction. After 37 years as an alderman, Berny Stone is ready to be hauled away in a box.