In a city that arguably invented the notion of “good vibes” in the counterculture 1960s, newly minted San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is looking to lead a vibe shift in a town whose aura has been clouded, and not just by fog rolling in off the Bay.

He knows what brings the residents of San Francisco together: pride in their city, even when it’s the punching bag of national politics. He is committed to the city at least no longer being the punching bag of the people who live there.

“I’m getting calls from all over the world saying, ‘Oh, thank god, there’s optimism,’” Lurie said. “Hope is alive and well in San Francisco for the first time in a number of years.”

In San Francisco, people describe local politics as being like a knife fight in a phone booth. “It’s very much hand-to-hand combat, a very challenging place to do politics,” said Jim Ross, a Democratic consultant in San Francisco. 

An heir to the Levi Strauss fortune who is best known for his work leading the anti-poverty organization Tipping Point Community, Lurie is a political neophyte who will have to figure out how to master the system if he wants to make a difference in a city that faces serious challenges — and where the machinations of political dealmaking can get ugly.

In an interview with Jewish Insider last week, Lurie pitched himself as a politician who will bring the city together as he champions local issues such as fentanyl addiction, homelessness and cost of living, and not an ideologue seeking to pander to the city’s progressive reputation. For now, he’s enjoying a honeymoon period before the political challenges of governing set in. 

The night before his inauguration, Lurie attended an interfaith ceremony at Congregation Emanu-El, a Reform congregation near the Presidio. It’s a longtime tradition, but the service usually takes place at a church. For Lurie, who has attended Emanu-El his whole life, the choice to mark the celebration there was obvious. His father, Rabbi Brian Lurie, worked at the historic synagogue more than five decades ago, before going on to serve in leadership roles across the Bay Area, including as executive director of the local Jewish federation.

“It was an amazing evening, and we wanted to bring everybody together during this time where there’s just a lot of divisiveness,” Lurie told JI. “It was a signal to the city that we are no longer going to find things that divide us, but we are going to come together.”

Lurie’s parents met on a trip to Israel, but the couple divorced when Lurie was young. His mother, Mimi, later married Peter Haas, an executive at Levi Strauss & Co. and the great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss. 

“All four of my parents, both step-parents, were Jewish, and so it was a really integral part of my growing up,” Lurie said. “I’m the son of a rabbi, a rabbi that was committed to not only the Jewish community here in the San Francisco Bay area, but also to lifting up Israel. I would walk into his home office on a Saturday or Sunday, and he’d be on the phone, and he’d be like, ‘Give me a minute. I’m on the phone with Israel.’” 

“There was a rise in antisemitism, but there was also a rise in anti-Asian hate over the last few years here in our city, a rise of Islamophobia, and so there was this feeling of people being pulled apart in our city. We had many instances of antisemitism, and I spoke out loudly about it, just as I did when there was any type of religious hate that reared its head in our city,” said Lurie.

The Bay Area faced a significant rise in antisemitism after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, including disruptive anti-Israel protests that shut down the Golden Gate Bridge last year. Lurie has spoken out against antisemitism in the city, including last month, after the San Francisco Hillel near San Francisco State University was vandalized. “Acts of antisemitic vandalism, like the attack on SF Hillel, have no place in San Francisco,” Lurie wrote on X in December. 

Jewish community leaders in San Francisco consider Lurie, who has been part of that community for his whole life, an ally. He discussed antisemitism in the context of his quest for unity — that discrimination of any kind is a divisive force in the city. 

“There was a rise in antisemitism, but there was also a rise in anti-Asian hate over the last few years here in our city, a rise of Islamophobia, and so there was this feeling of people being pulled apart in our city. We had many instances of antisemitism, and I spoke out loudly about it, just as I did when there was any type of religious hate that reared its head in our city,” said Lurie. In early 2023, he traveled to Washington and New York on a trip for local Jewish and Asian American leaders to learn about each other’s communities.

He connected his message on hate crimes to his larger focus on public safety: that if the police department gets back up to full staffing, the issue will be taken seriously.

“There was a sense over the last few years in San Francisco that you could get away with graffiti and swastikas and the like,” said Lurie. “We need to get back to the core principles of keeping the people of San Francisco safe.” 

But Lurie was reticent when it came to discussing some of the specific ways that antisemitism has reared its head in San Francisco. When asked how he would address antisemitism in public schools, he didn’t respond directly. 

“It’s going to be really important for the Jewish community to see their mayor standing up for them,” said Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council. “I know there’s always a concern about lifting up one side, but there’s a way to do it in defense of the Jewish community without being divisive.”

“The schools have gotten too focused on politics,” he said. The newly elected school board, he added, will make “sure that we’re focused on student outcomes, not politics.” 

Lurie declined to say how he would act if anti-Israel measures come before the board of supervisors, saying he wouldn’t speculate on “hypothetical legislation.”

“We have really core problems and challenges here in San Francisco that we can overcome, but we’ve got to be focused on that. I was not elected to give political advice or to focus on international issues, or, frankly, national issues,” said Lurie. “I’m also focused on unifying people, not dividing people. If there is ever an attempt to divide us, you will see me focused on bringing people together.”

Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, hopes Lurie will agree that divisiveness comes from the people bringing controversial legislation, such as last year’s Gaza war cease-fire bill, before the local government — and that he will choose to support the Jewish community amid targeted vitriol. 

“It’s going to be really important for the Jewish community to see their mayor standing up for them,” said Gregory. “I know there’s always a concern about lifting up one side, but there’s a way to do it in defense of the Jewish community without being divisive.”

While some of the cities around San Francisco, particularly Oakland, have seen Jewish activists work to unseat local leaders over their handling of antisemitic incidents, that was not a factor in the mayoral race. 

“He is a moderate, but our measurements don’t fit the way everybody else’s does,” said Sam Lauter, a pro-Israel Democratic activist and public affairs consultant who backed Breed over her ties to the Jewish community but who is also close to Lurie. “Take me, for example. On the national stage, I am a true-blue liberal. I’m not left of center. I’m left on the national stage. But here in San Francisco, I’m a mod.”

“Mayor Breed also had a lot of support from the Jewish community in San Francisco, so that wasn’t necessarily a defining issue in the race,” said Brian Brokaw, a political strategist who ran a political action committee that supported Lurie. “This happened to be an election where there was a wide anti-incumbent sentiment, not just locally, but around the country, and he was somebody who didn’t have the baggage of years and years in office without a lot of success to point to.”

Lurie was perceived by many to be in a similar political camp to Breed, although he challenged her on fentanyl policy: he came out strongly against safe injection sites, which she had supported. Otherwise, he was neither the most conservative nor the most progressive candidate in the race.

“He is a moderate, but our measurements don’t fit the way everybody else’s does,” said Sam Lauter, a pro-Israel Democratic activist and public affairs consultant who backed Breed over her ties to the Jewish community but who is also close to Lurie. “Take me, for example. On the national stage, I am a true-blue liberal. I’m not left of center. I’m left on the national stage. But here in San Francisco, I’m a mod.”

In his first couple weeks, Lurie kept his focus local. He declared a “fentanyl state of emergency” in the city and spoke about plans to try to revive downtown San Francisco, which was hollowed out by remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I think he’s somebody who recognizes that the voters elected him to focus on San Francisco,” said Brokaw. “I do not see him positioning himself as an anti-Trump bulwark.” 

While avoiding national politics might be a noble goal, it’s easier said than done; just days into the Trump administration, the city of San Francisco joined a lawsuit challenging his executive order that took aim at birthright citizenship. If Lurie is faced with the prospect of immigration raids — will he comply with Trump’s demands, or will he abide by the state’s “sanctuary” law declaring local law enforcement is prohibited from automatically handing residents over to federal immigration authorities? 

“There’s pretty black-and-white choices there,” Ross, the local political consultant, noted. 

But that’s a decision for another day. For now, Lurie is riding the high of running the city he has called home all his life. 

“We are the greatest city in the world,” Lurie said, “and that’s what I’m focused on getting us back to.”