Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced on Thursday that she would not seek reelection, ending a nearly 40-year career in Congress and earning plaudits across a wide spectrum of Jewish voices, from J Street to AIPAC and many in the San Francisco Jewish community who have worked with her since the 1980s.

Pelosi, who is 85, rose to become the first and only female speaker of the House, a position she held from 2007-2011 and again from 2019-2023, when she presided over a divided caucus and a resurgent far-left flank of the party. Pelosi was known for keeping tight control over congressional Democrats and squashing intra-party squabbles. 

“In my view, she was able to keep a pro-Israel consensus in the caucus, but it certainly came at a time when there was more angst around the issue,” said Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council. “While we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with her on specific policies, she’s always been pro-Israel, and I don’t think anyone can question that.”

Pelosi spoke several times at AIPAC’s annual policy conference. One year, she invoked  her father, a former Baltimore mayor and Democratic member of Congress from Maryland, who she said “had a love for the idea of a Jewish state in what was then called ‘Palestine.’”

“Her love and close connection to the Jewish community started in Baltimore, with her father, the mayor,” said Amy Friedkin, a former AIPAC president and a close friend of Pelosi’s. “She used to say that the founding of the State of Israel was the most profound achievement of the 20th century.”

Marshall Wittmann, an AIPAC spokesperson, said that during her tenure as speaker, Pelosi “helped ensure that Israel had the resources to defend itself, which advances American interests and values.” 

She sometimes diverged from pro-Israel advocates, particularly in 2015, when she championed the Iran nuclear deal as the leader of the Democratic caucus in the House. 

“Nancy Pelosi was an early and steadfast supporter of J Street and a champion of diplomacy,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement. “She played a pivotal role in securing congressional support for the Iran nuclear deal and consistently advanced pro-Israel, pro-peace policies aimed at strengthening Israel’s security and promoting safety, dignity and self-determination for the Palestinian people.”

Like many Democrats, Pelosi began to take a more critical stance towards Israel during its two-year war in Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks.

In April 2024, she signed onto a congressional letter urging the Biden administration to withhold some weapons transfers to Israel after the killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza, a public condemnation of Israel that went further than previous actions by the former speaker.  

“There are actions and statements that she made that I would disagree with, but when it came down to what was most important, which is Israel’s ability to be a Jewish, democratic state and live in peace and security — never a moment of wavering. Not even the thought process of wavering,” said Sam Lauter, a former longtime AIPAC activist and co-founder of Democratic Majority for Israel. Growing up in San Francisco, Pelosi’s family lived across the street from Lauter’s childhood home. 

“Nancy Pelosi wasn’t just a friend of our community. She was part of our community,” said Lauter. “No one had to teach her about Zionism. She grew up believing in it.”

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.”

Protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations that have engulfed San Francisco’s streets this week took an antisemitic turn on Monday night when a local Jewish-owned civic engagement hub and community space had its windows smashed and walls defaced with slurs including “Die Zio,” “The Only Good Settler is a Dead One,” “Death 2 Israel is a Promise” and “Intifada.” 

“There is no justification for attacking me other than the fact that I am Jewish,” Manny Yekutiel, owner of the Mission District event space Manny’s, which is in disrepair following the vandalism and break-in, told Jewish Insider. “My business is not a pro-Israel business. I am not Israeli. This is not a space that represents Israel in any way.”

The space was also the target of antisemitic graffiti in October around the one year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks. The most recent attack is currently being investigated as a hate crime. 

In the Bay Area, over 150 people were arrested on Sunday and Monday following protests against President Donald Trump’s travel ban, latest immigration policies and ICE raids. Similar protests spread across the country — including in Los Angeles where 4,000 National Guard members and 700 U.S. Marines were deployed on Monday. 

Yekutiel believes the protests against ICE are “necessary” because ongoing deportations are “stoking hatred” and “we need to stand with immigrants.” While Yekutiel says he will continue identifying with left-wing causes, he also said the attack on his business makes the protests concerning for Jews.

The attack on Manny’s “undermines the very values such movements claim to uphold” such as “justice and welcome the stranger,” the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area said in a statement.

Monday’s vandalism in San Francisco comes as the Jewish community faces an “elevated threat” following a surge of violent antisemitic attacks across the country in recent weeks, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned last week. Last month, two Israeli Embassy employees were killed in a shooting in Washington. Days later in Boulder, Colo., 15 people advocating for the release of hostages in Gaza were injured in a firebombing by an Egyptian national who overstayed his visa in the U.S. 

Trump announced his travel ban — which bars nationals of 12 countries from entering the U.S. — last week following the Boulder attack.

“The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas,” Trump said. “We don’t want them.”

A University of California, San Francisco, medical school professor whom Jewish colleagues allege has routinely posted antisemitic content on social media during the Gaza war has been fired by the university, more than a year after concerns about her behavior first surfaced. 

Dr. Rupa Marya worked at UCSF for 23 years, beginning as a resident before becoming a professor of internal medicine and a regular lecturer on social justice topics. With an active social media presence, Marya began posting about Israel’s war against Hamas soon after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. Her posts included attacks targeting Jewish and Israeli colleagues and students. 

In a federal lawsuit filed against UCSF this week, Marya alleged that the university violated her constitutional free speech protections by firing her in a retaliatory fashion over posts published on her personal account, which Marya claimed the university wilfully misconstrued. She asserted that “neither her views nor her posts are antisemitic.” 

In January 2024, Marya published a blog post attacking by name a Jewish colleague who had urged a hospital antiracism task force not to issue a statement calling for a ceasefire, saying it would empower Hamas. She had been criticizing him on social media for weeks. (Marya’s account on X, once a very active home for her commentary, has since been disabled.) 

Marya also published a thread on X arguing that Zionism should not be present in medicine, calling it a “structural impediment to health equity.” 

“There are so many Jewish doctors who don’t espouse an ideology of supremacism and justification of land theft, apartheid and genocide. They are not the issue here,” she wrote in January 2024. “The issue is Zionist doctors who will sit in an ‘antiracism task force’ meeting” — a clear reference to the doctor she later named in her blog — “and try to stop brown doctors who want to issue a Ceasefire statement by saying that a ceasefire would be a bad thing (read: let’s keep killing brown people in Gaza).” 

This post from Marya earned a rebuke by the university — UCSF posted on social media soon after about a “tired and familiar racist conspiracy theory … stating that ‘Zionist’ doctors are a threat to Arab, Palestinian, South Asian, Muslim and Black patients, as well as the U.S. health system.” The university called it a “sweeping, baseless and racist generalization” that “must be condemned,” and identified the trope as antisemitism. 

In September 2024, Marya announced that she had been suspended from her faculty position. The news came after she had raised concerns about an Israeli student attending the medical school. Students are “asking if he participated in the genocide of Palestinians in the IDF before matriculating into medical school in CA,” she wrote. “How do we address this in our professional ranks?” She was fired in May, nine months after her suspension. 

A UCSF spokesperson declined to comment.