We’re deeply disappointed to see the op-ed alleging that Elana Auerbach, candidate for Berkeley City Council District 4, was unsuited for office based on “insensitivity to one of the populations she would represent.” It claims she disrupted City Council meetings by demonstrating and calling for a “distorted and one-sided cease-fire resolution.”
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The op-ed fails to mention Auerbach is a Jewish woman who represents many voices for peace in the Jewish community. Nor does it mention that Auerbach called for dialogue last fall within the Berkeley Jewish community to try and bridge the divide and cultivate understanding. She was told to look elsewhere for dialogue.
Auerbach consistently says she is a recovering Zionist, having believed for decades the framing of the conflict she grew up with. Her perspective shifted based on what she learned, a trait we should all value in our elected representatives. The notion that she would condone hate against her own family and community is offensive.
It is undeniably true that on the issue of the war in Palestine, our City Council has ground to a halt. The reason for this is both simple and disturbing: Our mayor and his pro-Israel allies on the Council have effectively refused to hear the public comment of demonstrators or calendar the resolution for a vote.
They have hidden behind the false notion that not putting a cease-fire resolution on the agenda is somehow staying neutral, forgetting the powerful words of Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Elie Weisel: “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes, we must interfere.”
Auerbach’s decision to protest this de facto veto, a filibuster not by a speaker but by our city government, makes her the only candidate acting to defend democracy.
Berkeley is honored around the country and the world as the site of historical protests against injustice, whose students and activists subjected themselves to the fear-mongering in the op-ed against Elana. Former mayor Gus Newport ensured that Berkeley was the first city to divest from South African apartheid, which spread across the country, and outside of the courageous African National Congress’s actions, this boycott was the most effective action in ending a regime of outrageous cruelty. Those demonstrators did not confine themselves to polite disagreement or give up when doors were closed.
If implying that Auerbach hates her own people and claims that her protesting the suspension of the rules of democracy is anti-democratic, such is the price of her convictions, and a small one to pay. It’s an accusation that could only be penned by ideology-driven people who don’t know Elana or the thoughtfulness of her big heart. Elana has shown a consistent willingness to engage with people who disagree with her, an approach desperately out of vogue with the current City Council. It’s no surprise to those of us who know her that Elana has repeatedly called out bad behavior she’s witnessed at City Council meetings from both pro- and anti-cease-fire folks because that’s who Elana is, not some myopic ideologue but a person of integrity who knows what’s right.
We value this integrity in our leaders and are grateful that there is someone in this race like Elana Auerbach for us to support.
Otto Pippenger is a campaign manager for Jovanka Beckles for State Senate who lives in District 4; Rabbi Cat Zavis is a long-time resident of Berkeley and leads mediation trainings; Jeff Kahn is an activist who lives in District 4.
