Scott Wiener, a veteran California state senator from San Francisco, has long coupled his lifelong support for Israel with vocal opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right members of his governing coalition.

Now, the 55-year-old Jewish Democrat finds himself navigating delicate political terrain as he balances those competing views while mounting a new campaign to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in the Bay Area congressional seat that she has held for nearly four decades.

With Pelosi rumored to soon announce she will retire at the end of her current term, Wiener has been fielding attacks from a far-left primary rival, Saikat Chakrabarti, as Israel and Gaza emerge as a source of division in the nascent race that is already shaping up to be among the more bitterly contested Democratic battles of the upcoming election cycle.

Chakrabarti, 39, a former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), is a fierce critic of Israel who has called its war in Gaza a genocide and pushed for ending all military funding to the Jewish state. He has also backed a controversial House bill, called the Block the Bombs Act, that aims to impose severe restrictions on U.S. weapons sales to Israel — and is needling Wiener for so far declining to clarify his own position on the measure, which is not likely to pass.

In an interview with Jewish Insider earlier this week, Wiener continued to deflect when asked for his stance on the matter, saying only that, if elected next year, “there will be new bills introduced” when he serves in the House. Despite treading cautiously around the legislation, however, Wiener confirmed that he is broadly in favor of withholding offensive arms to the current Israeli government that, in his view, “is not committed to peace or democracy.”

The U.S.-Israel alliance, Wiener emphasized, “is incredibly important, and the U.S. should continue to support Israel’s defense,” such as funding for its Iron Dome missile-interception system. But he said he could no longer justify sending weapons to Israel because of his increasing disgust with Netanyahu’s government.

“I have been very clear and consistent for years, going back before Oct. 7, that I think the current government of Israel is horrific,” he said. “It’s an extremist, messianic government that, in addition to destroying Gaza and upending the West Bank, is harming Israel by upending Israel’s standing in the world and undermining democracy in the country — and it’s very troubling to me.”

Even as he endorsed a measure that represents a red line for many pro-Israel advocates, Wiener has continued to show his support for the Jewish state, co-leading a legislative delegation to Israel last year, where he visited sites targeted by Hamas in the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and met with Israeli leaders, including President Isaac Herzog. 

His evolving views on the Middle East policy underscore a broader shift within the Democratic Party in the wake of the war in Gaza, as a growing number of candidates and elected officials embrace efforts to impose conditions on military aid to Israel that, until recently, had seen more narrow support among anti-Israel detractors on the far left.

“I pray the ceasefire holds and we can move toward a more durable peace,” Wiener told JI. “But we also have a situation where you have Netanyahu and his government, and you have Hamas, so the situation is being driven by extremes. I hope that changes.”

In a heavily progressive city like San Francisco, Wiener’s more pointed views on Israel are hardly unusual — even if his approach is unlikely to satisfy the hard-line activists who, in the months after Oct. 7, frequently accosted him in public and accused him of supporting genocide.

Wiener, who co-chairs the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, believes much of the rhetoric that he faced was antisemitic and that protestors failed to recognize he had voiced support for an end to the fighting, as well as the release of all hostages, going back to the fall of 2023. “For some people, it’s never going to be good enough, unless you call for Israel’s elimination,” he said.

“I pray the ceasefire holds and we can move toward a more durable peace,” Wiener told JI. “But we also have a situation where you have Netanyahu and his government, and you have Hamas, so the situation is being driven by extremes. I hope that changes.”

“Without judgement, I don’t think that he’s in a different place than a lot of his would-be colleagues, and that is something the Jewish community has to grapple with,” Tyler Gregory, who leads the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, told JI, referring to changing attitudes toward Israel among Democrats.

Tyler Gregory, who leads the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, described Wiener as “the Jewish community’s champion” and said that “he has taken so many hits” that Jewish community members feel “a protective instinct” and “a strong sense of loyalty to him and what he has represented since Oct. 7.”

He called Wiener “firmly pro-Israel,” even if “a lot of people in our community may not be fully aligned with his politics.”

“Without judgement, I don’t think that he’s in a different place than a lot of his would-be colleagues, and that is something the Jewish community has to grapple with,” Gregory told JI, referring to changing attitudes toward Israel among Democrats.

Wiener said he has not yet engaged in discussions with pro-Israel groups like AIPAC — as Democratic candidates have faced pressure to swear off donations from the lobbying organization over its support for the Israeli government. “Obviously I have some disagreements with AIPAC,” Wiener told JI. “I’ll leave it at that.”

While he has been seen as a progressive leader in the state for his advocacy on such issues as LGBTQ rights and criminal justice reform, Wiener, who has said he moved to San Francisco nearly 30 years ago so that he could live more openly as a gay man, has faced local backlash from the left over his efforts to promote increased real estate development, fueling attacks that he is aligned with corporate interests.

But as the city’s voters have recently shown an appetite for more measured local representation, Wiener could find a more receptive audience than his chief opponent, Chakrabarti, who is running an insurgent campaign to push Pelosi into retirement.

Asked to comment on a recent social media post in which Chakrabarti said that “legislators continue to give Israel a blank check because of money from the Israel lobby,” Wiener said “that kind of rhetoric can tip into antisemitism.”

“There are times when some of those criticisms basically are like attacks on people for accepting contributions from Jewish community leaders,” he told JI, citing a recent questionnaire distributed by the California Faculty Association asking political candidates if they had ever accepted money from AIPAC or the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California.

“I have a real criticism of what the government of Israel is doing today, and I do not believe our government should be complicit in it,” Chakrabarti said in a statement to JI. “I have a criticism of lobbying groups that spend huge amounts of money in our elections to influence our foreign policy. And it is precisely because we have a real issue with antisemitism today that I hope Sen. Wiener does not use this campaign to conflate a criticism of Israel with antisemitism to score political points.”

Such instances, Wiener argued, “can very quickly bleed out into attacking candidates because they have support in the Jewish community and receive contributions from respective leaders in the Jewish community — and then that gets lumped in as, ‘Oh, that’s the Israel lobby,’ and that can be antisemitic.”

“I hope this doesn’t go there,” he said of the race. “But we will see.”

In a statement to JI on Wednesday, Chakrabarti said that he “will always call out antisemitism no matter where I hear it, and I would hope we can all agree that we should never target any group with hate. This should be a basic American value.”  

“I have a real criticism of what the government of Israel is doing today, and I do not believe our government should be complicit in it,” he added. “I have a criticism of lobbying groups that spend huge amounts of money in our elections to influence our foreign policy. And it is precisely because we have a real issue with antisemitism today that I hope Sen. Wiener does not use this campaign to conflate a criticism of Israel with antisemitism to score political points.”

Wiener, who says he raised $730,000 in the 24 hours after launching his campaign last week, has long been interested in running for Pelosi’s seat and created an exploratory committee two years ago to plant a marker in the district as he waited for her to retire. 

But he moved forward with his bid rather than deferring to Pelosi’s schedule after Chakrabarti, a wealthy former tech entrepreneur, entered the race last February and drew national attention.

Wiener’s top priorities include housing, healthcare, clean energy and “always standing up for the Jewish community” amid a rise in antisemitism “across the political spectrum,” he said.   

Pelosi, who is expected to announce her plans for the coming election cycle early next month, “is fully focused on her mission” to pass a state redistricting measure in the Nov. 4 election, a spokesperson told JI. 

Her daughter, Christine Pelosi, is among other potential primary candidates viewed as eyeing the House seat.

“We’re ready to go,” Wiener said of his fledgling campaign. “I’ve been in this community, working in this community, representing this community, for a long time. I feel great about our support.”

Over the weekend, the California State Assembly passed a bill that is intended to address what Jewish community advocates describe as crisis levels of antisemitism in the state’s K-12 schools. 

The bill passed despite the objections of the powerful California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, which had stalled the legislation in July, claiming that efforts to combat antisemitism could impinge on teachers’ academic freedom when it came to discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

It was just one of several examples of influential state and national teachers’ unions presenting a roadblock against efforts to fight antisemitism in public schools, where discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students has skyrocketed over the past two years — even though many of those efforts have broad support from within the Jewish community, and from outside it, too. 

In California, the CTA and anti-Israel groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations were on one side of the issue, facing a diverse coalition of the bill’s backers that included the legislature’s Jewish, Black, Latino and Asian American and Pacific Islander caucuses. In an effort to appease the CTA during negotiations, some parts of the bill were removed, including language that would’ve defined what constituted an antisemitic learning environment. 

But the union never changed course. 

The CTA debacle began in July, just days after the representative body of the National Education Association — the national union to which CTA belongs — voted to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a move that shocked many Jewish educators. And last December, an American Jewish Committee report accused the Massachusetts Teachers Association of promoting anti-Israel educational materials to its members. These developments have come amid a steady trickle of news reports over the last two years showcasing educators bringing controversial and at times antisemitic views into the classroom. 

All of which raises an uncomfortable question for many Jewish parents: Why are unions that are committed to equity and representation often resistant to incorporating protections that Jewish families say will keep their kids safe and supported at school? 

In California, the CTA said that a bill focusing only on antisemitism “might be seen as prioritizing one form of discrimination over others, potentially alienating groups facing other forms of systemic discrimination, such as Islamophobia, ableism or xenophobia.” But a companion bill passed by the legislature this weekend that takes aim at racism, gender discrimination, religious discrimination and homophobia in schools should render that argument moot. A CTA spokesperson declined to comment last week. 

So far, though, the teachers unions have not been successful in their efforts to marginalize Jewish organizations and counter antisemitism measures. 

The NEA’s top leadership quickly backtracked on the anti-ADL resolution (although they took a swipe at the organization in the process). In Massachusetts, a statewide antisemitism committee said in August that K-12 schools should implement the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. In California, the 300,000-member CTA was not able to muster the political capital to quash the antisemitism bill. Gov. Gavin Newsom now has a month to decide whether to sign it.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” the ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, told Jewish Insider in July, to ensure “our community is respected for who we are.” 

A key California Senate committee voted on Wednesday to advance an amended bill targeting antisemitism in K-12 schools, following two months of closed-door negotiations that came after the state’s largest teachers’ union announced its opposition to the bill and stalled its passage. 

The version of the bill that came before the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday night was markedly different from an earlier version that had been approved unanimously by the State Assembly in May. But when the 300,000-member California Teachers Association came out against the bill in July, arguing that its targeting of antisemitism could affect teachers’ “academic freedom,” lawmakers scrapped a planned hearing in order to take time to try to assuage the powerful union. 

The CTA never withdrew its opposition to the bill, and the group’s chief lobbyist urged senators to vote against it at a Wednesday hearing that saw more than 500 people testify about the legislation. Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area, said the union had been “negotiating in bad faith.” A CTA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

“I am disappointed that they’re still opposing the bill so aggressively. We’ve worked so hard to address their concerns,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who chairs the Legislative Jewish Caucus, told Jewish Insider. “It’s a narrower and more focused bill than it was before, but it’s still quite impactful and it sets some clear standards, and creates an antisemitism coordinator, so it’s a good bill.” 

The bill would create a statewide Office of Civil Rights, where a new antisemitism prevention coordinator would be located. If the bill passes, that office will track antisemitism in California schools and provide antisemitism education to California teachers and administrators to help prevent and combat discrimination. 

Although the legislation would provide educational materials about antisemitism to school personnel, the biggest change from the prior draft was the removal of a section that defined antisemitism and provided examples of what would constitute an “antisemitic learning environment.” 

These examples included “assertions of dual loyalty directed at Jewish individuals or communities,” “equating Jews or Israelis with Nazis or Nazi Germany,” “denial, erasure, or distortion of Jewish history, ancestry, identity, or culture” and “language or images directly or indirectly denying the right of Israel to exist, demonizing Jewish people, or saying that Jewish people do not belong in a country or community.” 

Instead, the plan endorsed a 2024 antisemitism strategy authored by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the 2023 plan released by the Biden White House. 

“There was a lot of discussion about how antisemitism should be defined, and ultimately there wasn’t sufficient consensus for that to be a part of the bill,” said Robert Trestan, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s western division. “There are sufficient effective provisions of the bill that will make a difference for Jewish students in California, and if we didn’t think it’s going to be effective, we wouldn’t support it.” 

A CTA board member wrote in an August op-ed that the bill’s sponsors “are trying to bring right-wing, Trump-style censorship to California schools while undermining legitimate efforts to fight antisemitism.” 

Wiener said Trump’s heavy-handed approach to antisemitism at U.S. universities has complicated efforts for California lawmakers to address the issues. 

“It’s made our lives harder. I understand the sensitivity given the current political environment,” said Wiener. “That said, when you have a large number of Jews, including Jewish parents and Jewish students, coming forward and saying, ‘We have a problem and we need to solve it,’ you shouldn’t just dismiss that or say, ‘Oh, well, it’s too harsh because of academic freedom.’”

He suggested there’s a double standard at play when it comes to arguments about academic freedom and its connection to antisemitism. 

“If a teacher started teaching that there were good sides of slavery, I am confident that the school would shut that down immediately and that no one would argue,” Wiener said. “But when it comes to Jews, well, then it’s about academic freedom.”

The Senate Education Committee voted the bill out of committee unanimously, and it was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday night. It still needs to be passed by the full state Senate and then go back to the Assembly, all by the end of the week, when the legislative session ends, in order to make it to Newsom’s desk for his signature. A spokesperson for Newsom declined to comment. 

When Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) was first elected to Congress in 1996, his two opponents in the current race, Democrats Jake Rakov and Jake Levine, were 8 and 12 years old, respectively. 

Both candidates are making a generational appeal: They argue that California’s 32nd Congressional District, which encompasses several tony neighborhoods on the west side of Los Angeles, including Malibu and the Pacific Palisades, as well as much of the San Fernando Valley, needs bold new representation to respond to the challenges of the moment. 

Neither Rakov, 37, nor Levine, 41, has held elected office before, and both have spent the past several years away from Los Angeles — Levine as a senior climate advisor in the Biden administration, and Rakov as a roving campaign staffer in Connecticut, Texas and New York. They will each face a tough, drawn-out fight if they hope to have a chance against a battle-tested incumbent in a primary election that’s still more than nine months away. 

The San Fernando Valley district is solidly blue, but it’s also an affluent constituency that isn’t all that enamored with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. That doesn’t mean Sherman, who is 70, is automatically safe from an upstart candidate who might excite the base in his district.

“At this point, he’s pretty much become background noise. There’s no animosity against him. His constituents are perfectly content to continue sending him back to Congress, and most of them believe that he does a perfectly serviceable job,” said Dan Schnur, a political analyst in L.A. who teaches at both the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley. “But that’s exactly the type of incumbent that’s vulnerable to a generational challenge in this landscape.”

Sherman enters the campaign cycle with a healthy fundraising advantage, with $4 million on hand at the end of June. He has raised $477,000 so far this year. Rakov has raised $82,000 in three months. Levine’s campaign said he raised $250,000 in the first 24 hours after announcing his candidacy. 

One Democratic political official in the Valley, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about a race in which they know all three candidates, said Sherman would be wise to take the challengers seriously — but that neither entered the race with any momentum.

“I don’t think anybody in the San Fernando Valley knows who the two guys are. And what I’ve seen from most of the insiders is sort of a collective shrug about both of them, to the extent that they’ve heard that they’re running,” said the Valley politico. “This is a part of a national phenomenon, and voters are obviously cranky about a lot of different things. But Brad Sherman works really hard. He is absolutely everywhere. And he’s been very present in this district for a long time.” 

The district is heavily Jewish, and Sherman, who has been endorsed by AIPAC, told Jewish Insider on Monday that he intends to make his pro-Israel bona fides a selling point for him as the race picks up. 

“I think that the main thing is going to be, ‘What did you do last year or the year before?’ I don’t think that you can come in and say, ‘I’ve done nothing. I’ve said nothing when Israel faced the greatest attack ever. But I’m young and energetic, so count on [me] — and I’ve now adopted the positions that my pollster tells me to adopt, so vote for me,’” Sherman said in an interview. “If you weren’t there on Oct. 7 of 2023, who’s going to be there for you in November?”

Rakov told JI in an interview in April that while he thinks Sherman is out of touch with what voters want, he is generally aligned with Sherman on Middle East policy. “I’m a strong supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” said Rakov, a onetime staffer for Sherman whose campaign experience includes communications roles with Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer. Rakov is not Jewish, but his husband is. 

Levine, who did not respond to requests for comment from JI, served as the senior director for climate and energy at the National Security Council until the end of last year. Before that, as the chief climate officer at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, Levine was responsible for investing federal funds in the Palestinian private sector through the Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, a widely supported 2020 bill that appropriated money to build grassroots ties between Israelis and Palestinians. 

Otherwise, Levine, who is Jewish, has publicly said little about Israel. His father, Mel Levine, served in Congress from 1983 to 1993, and his stepmother is New Yorker staff writer Connie Bruck. 

So far, Rakov and Levine have shared little in the way of policy proposals. Levine’s pitch is more optimistic, while Rakov is taking direct aim at Sherman.

“The politicians running Washington are burning it all down, but here in L.A., we understand that what’s much harder and much more important is the work of building something new,” Levine said in a two-minute launch video. “To solve today’s problems, we need more, not less. More housing, more energy, more leaders who will actually show up when it counts.” 

One question mark hanging over the race is California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting play, which could affect the boundaries of the seat. But barring any major changes, the main question is whether two first-time candidates will be able to find the momentum needed to credibly take on Sherman — and if one of them drops out before the June 2026 primary. It’s possible that Sherman and another Democrat both advance to the general election. (In California, the top two finishers in the primary election, regardless of party, move on to face each other in the general election.)

“The best thing for Brad Sherman would be no millennial opponents. The next best thing for him is two,” said Schnur. “If either of the two Jakes were running one-on-one against Sherman, they very well could have the same type of opportunity that a lot of other young Democrats have tapped into around the country over the last few election cycles. But the best thing for Sherman is it appears that they could end up cannibalizing each other.” 

California’s state Senate has delayed consideration of a bipartisan bill meant to strengthen statewide protections against antisemitism, four key senators announced on Tuesday, days after the state’s largest teachers’ union announced its opposition to the legislation. 

The bumpy road for the bill, which is focused on countering antisemitism in K-12 education, stands in contrast to its earlier passage in the state Assembly. In May, the body voted unanimously to pass the legislation. 

It was slated to be debated by the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday in a hearing that has now been postponed indefinitely. 

“Antisemitism must never be normalized, and we must put a stop to it in our schools,” wrote Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire; Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, the education committee chair; and Sen. Scott Wiener and Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, co-chairs of the Legislative Jewish Caucus. All are Democrats. “We are committed to doing so and will be working overtime with a broad coalition over the summer to send an antisemitism bill to the governor by the end of this year’s legislative session in September.”

Wiener told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that the delay is “good news for the bill.”

“We just need more time, and now we have it,” said Wiener, who represents San Francisco. “I’m optimistic we’ll pass a strong antisemitism bill this year to protect Jewish students in our schools.”

The Senate has until Sept. 12 to pass the bill and send it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. It is not expected to be considered again until mid-August, after a monthlong summer recess. 

A spokesperson for the California Teachers Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. 

Leading Jewish communal groups in California sharply criticized the CTA on Monday and pledged to lobby hard for the bill’s passage. 

David Bocarsly, executive director of Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California — the umbrella group leading Jewish advocacy efforts for the bill — said the fact that the leader of the Senate and the chair of the education committee signed onto the statement signals that Democratic leadership is taking the bill seriously, though he acknowledged that passage is not guaranteed.

“We lose a little bit of the tangible reassurance, but we’ve gained some significant commitments from Senate leadership, which might be even more important,” Bocarsly told JI.

Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, a Los Angeles Democrat and the bill’s co-sponsor, said the delay will also allow the Legislature to consider concerns from some in the Jewish community that the measure does not go far enough in actually addressing “the kinds of harm, ostracism and incidents that are actually occurring in the schools.”

Navigating the competing concerns of the teachers’ unions and the Jewish community has already been a balancing act for the bill’s authors. When asked if he thinks the bill can pass without the support of the CTA, Zbur did not offer a firm answer.

“I think we are committed to doing what we need to do to get the bill passed,” he told JI. “It can’t wait another year and I think we’ve got the entire Jewish caucus — this is our highest priority, and we’re determined to get this bill passed, and that means doing everything we can to help everyone understand that this is a problem and that there are things that we need to do to try to rectify it.”

A yearslong debate in a California school district over ethnic studies education culminated on Wednesday night with a unanimous vote to renew a contract with a controversial consultant whose curriculum has sparked antisemitism allegations among local Jewish leaders. 

The move has fueled concern by some of those leaders that the vote could potentially lay the groundwork for other school districts to follow suit. 

The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees voted 7-0 in favor of returning to Community Responsive Education (CRE) as the vendor to provide consultation on teaching ethnic studies in the district, which is near Santa Cruz. “CRE has produced some frameworks that have [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel] in the curriculum, with no balance about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” David Bocarsly, executive director of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, told Jewish Insider. 

Several local Jewish leaders pushed the district for months to secure a more inclusive ethnic studies training provider — and three of them gave public testimony at Wednesday’s board meeting.

Roz Shorenstein, a retired physician whose grandchildren are students in the district, was one of those advocates. She told JI that some of the board members used “classic antisemitic tropes” at the vote. This included an accusation that the Jewish community is not using their “privilege and power” to help underprivileged communities, according to video footage obtained by JI.

Another school board member said that they were “a little taken aback by the lack of acknowledgement of the economic power historically held by the Jewish community that the community of Black and brown people don’t have … there is that economic power that really does exist.”

Shorenstein told JI: “We’ll still be active in the field of fighting antisemitism and liberated ethnic studies. Our experience giving testimony has brought out some significant antisemitic behavior in the community.” 

Marc Levine, the Anti-Defamation League’s Central Pacific regional director, echoed the sentiment that there was “raw antisemitism” on display at the board meeting.

“Most disturbing was that the rhetoric came from elected board members,” Levine said in a statement.  “What does that say about their willingness to allow ethnic studies to be used as a gateway for antisemitism to seep into their classrooms?” 

In 2021, California became the first state in the country to pass a law that high school students must take at least one semester of ethnic studies to graduate. The intent, according to  the state’s California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, “is to encourage cultural understanding of the struggles of equality, equity, justice, racism, ethnicity, and bigotry that have been prevalent throughout the history of America.” 

The bill, AB101, allows school districts to either adopt the state’s ethnic studies curriculum — without the need for an outside consultant — or develop their own. 

That same year, the Pajaro Valley school board approved a contract with CRE, a for-profit consulting firm founded by San Francisco State University professor Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, to offer guidelines for ethnic studies curricula at the district’s three high schools. CRE is marketed as a Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, or simply “Liberated.” 

The contract was canceled after two years due to pushback from the Jewish community, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which alleged the firm was promoting anti-Israel and antisemitic content in its curriculum. A push from the board to renew CRE’s contract soon followed. 

Four local rabbis opposed using CRE’s curriculum in an October open letter to Pajaro Valley district leadership. “We strongly support the inclusive model of Ethnic Studies that focuses on the history of minorities and celebrates their contributions to our country. In contrast, Community Responsive Education led by its co-founder, Allyson Titiangco-Cubales, espouses a ‘Liberated Ethnic Studies’ model,” the rabbis wrote, adding that “based on CRE’s public statements and past performances, we do not believe that the CRE approach to Ethnic Studies is appropriate to train your educators.”

The rabbis voiced concern about the first draft of the California Ethnic Studies Curriculum, which Titiangco-Cubales co-authored. CRE was formed by supporters of that draft, which was rejected by Gov. Gavin Newsom “and a large number of community organizations as being offensive, biased and antisemitic,” according to the letter, which was signed by Rabbi Eli Cohen, who leads Chadesh Yameinu Jewish Renewal of Santa Cruz; Rabbi Paula Marcus, senior rabbi of Temple Beth El; Rabbi Rick Litvak, rabbi emeritus of Temple Beth El; and Rabbi Debbie Israel, community rabbi of Santa Cruz County. 

CRE has bid for contracts in districts across California, including with the Fresno Unified School District, one of the largest districts in the state. At least two of those bids have been rejected. Bocarsly called the situation in Pajaro Valley “unprecedented,” especially because there was a successful effort earlier this year to oust sitting school board members who opposed CRE, he said.   

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and ensuing war with Hamas, K-12 classrooms have seen a rise in the use of antisemitic materials — with several of the most serious incidents concentrated in California school districts. In February, Santa Ana Unified School District became the first in the state to cite antisemitism as its reason to stop teaching ethnic studies after settling a lawsuit that claimed course material used by the district was rooted in antisemitic rhetoric. 

Pajaro Valley is a small district among the more than 900 public school districts in California. Still, Bocarsly expressed concern that the vote signals a wider problem.

“We know that there are ongoing efforts in many different ways amongst the liberated ethnic studies community to try to get their harmful content into the classrooms,” he said, adding that “we’ve got our eye on dozens of districts across the state.”  

Part of that effort includes a statewide bill JPAC is currently working on that would create standards and frameworks to advise school districts what should not be taught in the classrooms to prevent harm to Jewish students, including transparency requirements in ethnic studies. 

“If done right, ethnic studies can help build empathy and understanding, and that’s good for Jews,” Bocarsly said. “If done wrong, it’s quite unfortunate to see a lesson meant to alleviate bias in fact create bias against the Jewish community.” 

The Israeli government has offered to send aid to California to assist with the response to the wildfires in the Los Angeles area, which have destroyed thousands of homes and killed at least two dozen people, and said it would pay all expenses associated with that assistance, according to a letter obtained by Jewish Insider.

“In light of the deep, long-standing friendship and alliance between our nations, which in recent years has proved itself stronger than ever, we would like to extend our support and help our friends in their time of need,” Raful Engel, the director general of the Israeli Ministry of Public Security said in a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The Israeli official offered to send a delegation of “expert firefighters who specialize in fire and rescue operations to help combat these fires and share their experience in order to minimize the damage inflicted on property and more importantly on human lives.”

Newsom’s director of communications, Izzy Gardon, said in a statement, “We’re grateful to Israel and many other nations in offering their support to California. Emergency Officials are currently working with our international partners on planning and mobilization.”

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who represents the area affected by the Pacific Palisades fire, explained that U.S. jurisdictions have existing mutual aid agreements with various countries and other jurisdictions for such emergencies. He said that Israel’s offer to pay all expenses associated with its offered aid is a step above and beyond what those agreements usually entail.

“Israel has offered us help that I very much appreciate, and now they’ve gone one step further and said that they would absorb the entire cost,” Sherman said. “Obviously this fire has lots of moving parts, but Israel has gone even beyond Canada and Mexico and our closest friends in terms of not only wanting to help, but not wanting to be reimbursed for it.”

Sherman added that he believes the Israeli firefighters would be able to bring “skills that I think we need,” and said he’d personally raised the offer with Newsom. 

Sherman said the California government has so far accepted assistance offers from Mexico and Canada, partners it has worked most closely with in the past.

Fire crews from surrounding states are also assisting the response in California.

Lt. Col. Shay Levy, head of the Research and Wildfire Branch at The Israeli National Fire and Rescue Authority, told JI on Wednesday that a delegation of expert firefighters in fire and rescue operations was set to leave for California on Wednesday night to assist the forces there. “We will be glad to help with anything we can, we see great importance in helping to save lives and advance fire safety,” Levy said.

The Israeli NGO SmartAid also said it would dispatch resources to help with the fire response. In addition, IsraAid is offering support, and plans to send personnel to assist.

Sherman described Israel’s offer as particularly generous in the context of the ongoing Houthi attacks, the response to which might require similar resources.

And he said that Israel’s willingness to offer these resources reflects confidence in its security situation and the diminished threat it faces from Hezbollah compared to the pre-Oct. 7 period.

Some anti-Israel activists in the U.S. and the Iranian state-owned outlet Press TV have sought to connect the fires to the war in Gaza, claiming that U.S. aid for Israel is depriving resources from the emergency response, or even that the war is contributing to global warming through increased carbon emissions.

JI Israel Editor Tamara Zieve contributed to this report.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla will serve out the final two years of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s Senate term, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday.

Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Los Angeles and earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After a brief career in aerospace, he entered politics, winning a seat on the Los Angeles City Council in 1999 at age 26. Two years later, he became the body’s first Latino leader and youngest president. He subsequently served in the California State Senate from 2006 to 2014, and was elected secretary of state in 2014.

“I think it’s an excellent choice,” Zev Yaroslavsky, a former member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, told Jewish Insider. “He’s very smart. He’s an adult, in a world of political figures that are increasingly falling short of adulthood. He’s a progressive who believes in paying his bills. He’s a center left person.”

“I think he will become an instant player in the Senate and increasingly on the national scene,” Yaroslavsky added.

Padilla has a “very close relationship” with California’s Jewish community, Yaroslavsky noted. He has visited Israel at least twice, Richard Hirschhaut, the head of the American Jewish Committee in Los Angeles, told JI.

“I know just in speaking with friends and colleagues that he has had a particular affinity and fondness for the State of Israel,” Hirschhaut said, recounting that Padilla visited the Israeli consulate in 2016 to pay his respects after the death of former Prime Minister Shimon Peres. “I think it spoke volumes of his genuine affection for the Jewish community and the State of Israel.”

California Assembly Majority Whip Jesse Gabriel, the newly elected chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, described Padilla as a “good friend and ally to our community” and said that Jewish and pro-Israel leaders became excited when it became public that Padilla was under consideration to replace Harris.

“There’s a lot of warmth and affection for him in our community,” Gabriel said. “Alex Padilla is a huge mensch. I think that as more and more folks in the national Jewish community get to meet him and interact with him and work with him on issues important to our community, I think more people are going to share that assessment.”

Padilla, who will be the first Latino senator to represent the Golden State in the Senate, has long been seen as a top candidate for the seat. Gabriel said the announcement did not surprise him. 

According to Sam Lauter, a California political consultant and longtime Newsom associate, the governor’s choice was likely influenced by his strong relationship with Padilla, as well as a desire to recognize the state’s Latino community — which makes up 40% of the state population — and Padilla’s track record in office.

The pick also gave Newsom the opportunity to select a secretary of state to replace Padilla, Lauter added. Newsom announced Tuesday night that he chose Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, the first Black woman to ever hold the position.

Some California Democrats have expressed concerns about Newsom’s decision to replace the only Black woman in the Senate with a non-Black man. A significant lobbying campaign had emerged in the weeks prior to the announcement for Newsom to appoint either Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) or Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), both Black women, to the seat.

Yaroslavsky argued that, given the large Latino population in the state, it would have been “unthinkable not to select a member of that community to represent the state of California.”

Lauter noted that, given the wide field of potential candidates, many of whom had strong qualifications, “no matter what, he was going to pick someone that disappointed an important community.” He said that there were concerted lobbying campaigns not only from the Black community, but also the Latino and Asian-American communities.

“The governor was in a tough situation because there are a lot of different perspectives, obviously, in a state with 40 million people in a lot of different communities. Different folks from different ethnic [groups] and communities who wanted to see themselves represented in the Senate,” Gabriel concurred. “But there’s broad consensus that Secretary Padilla was the leading candidate and very well qualified.”

“For a lot of people this is a really strong choice,” Gabriel added. “Even though there are folks who are disappointed, I think there’s a lot more folks who are excited by the pick.”

Padilla will face California voters in 2022 to secure a full six-year term in the Senate, though he is likely to encounter some resistance from warring factions within the Democratic Party.

But observers say he has a strong shot at maintaining the seat, particularly given his previous statewide electoral victories.

Gabriel said he expects Padilla to “cruise” to reelection in two years. 

Lauter was less sanguine, emphasizing that Padilla will certainly face challengers, some of whom have a “significant head start” in terms of fundraising and organizing for a potential Senate run.

He acknowledged however, that it is “longshot” that Padilla would lose, even if he does face a difficult race.

There has also been speculation that Newsom could end up naming a replacement to succeed California’s other senator, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) — who is 87 years old and is facing questions about her health and memory — should she choose to step down before her term ends in 2024. Should that position open up, Newsom will once again have a wide field to choose from.