Just talked to a 90 year old Holocaust survivor about municipal politics in Berkeley. During our conversation she, almost casually, told me how she was saved from Dachau at the age of 4 and hidden by a Dutch family during the Holocaust. 1/x She went on to a career as a microbiologist and geneticist and today, at the age of 90, attends and participates in city council meetings in Berkeley. Her name is Susanne DeWitt.

Blistering decision filed yesterday by a federal judge against UCLA, ordering that UCLA may no longer offer programs that Jewish students are blocked from accessing. Judge is Mark C. Scarsi of the Central District of California, who writes: "For purposes of this order, all references to the exclusion of Jewish students shall include exclusion of Jewish students based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel."

Just got off the phone with a young professional in the Bay Area who broke down sobbing about the amount of vitriolic antisemitism coming from his colleagues. It was striking to hear a grown man cry, but my main takeaway was that the worst part is the gaslighting-- the insistence that no, this isn't racism, this is antiracism. This is speaking truth to power. It's subversive in an essential way--such that any pushback only reinforces the righteousness of the cause. Second is the abject dehuminization of anyone cursed enough to bear the 2/x

Speaker at Berkeley tent encampment critiques the infiltration of "Zionism" into American feminism.
Naming Betty Friedan, she says, "Jewish women participated vivaciously in this, and sometimes imported Zionist political operations into feminist networks themselves." Critiques Friedan as a "liberal" feminist rather than a class-oriented one, etc.

The Diller family maligned here as Zionists by a UCSF professor have pledged more than $1 billion to the hospital system. Also, Zuckerberg-Chan family have committed over $600 million...the Zuckerberg General Hospital is considered one of the best public hospitals in the U.S.

The UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is named for the family. Sanford Diller, who died in 2018, was a real estate magnate whose parents owned a Jewish deli in SF during the Great Depression.

The ethnic studies debate in Washington is arguably even more fraught than in CA on Jewish issues. Here's the director of the nonprofit hired by the state to implement ES question why "white Jews" make such a big deal about their "experiences with oppression and genocide" Here's the full blog post

waethnicstudies.com/2022/05/01/jew…

This truck, which says "Berkeley Bans Jews," was spotted driving around Berkeley today. It was paid for by the right wing group Accuracy in Media. Someone threw a rock at the vehicle, I am told, damaging it. The truck says "All in favor of banning Jews, raise your right hand." It was a response to the controversy surrounding Berkeley Law groups banning Zionist speakers.