The San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council's Bad Greek Drama Tours Fairfax
As Fairfax Council Ponders A "Peace Proclamation", A JCRC-linked Mini-Mob Re-enacts Aeschylus – and Runs Straight Into A Misdemeanor Charge; Video of Powerful Men Behaving Badly; New CPRA'd JCRC Doc
On Wednesday outside Fairfax's historic Women's Club, the warm, early evening air was suffused with the perfume of redwood trees. The familiar scent was so intoxicatingly nostalgic that it cast the last year's fraught meetings over land and property at Town Council meetings, all held at the Club, in a different light. Who could blame those fighting over who gets to stay in this tiny slice of heaven?
So while the big item on Wednesday's agenda was the watered-down "Peace Proclamation" (a document several steps short of the desired ceasefire resolution already passed in multiple Bay Area cities), it was difficult to view the reception of the proclamation from town residents as being entirely separate from the ongoing rental ordinance fight. That issue had resulted in an effort by certain property owners to recall those councilmembers who had supported the ordinance. And thus ceasefire proponents, many of whom supported rent control, were in the awkward position of accepting the soggy "proclamation", even though the language of it bent over backward to ignore Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinians, its many decades of war crimes, and its violations of the very UN Charter that established the state in the first place.
Frank Egger, a former seven-term mayor and a rent control opponent, arrived fresh from a memorial for a longtime local resident, seemingly still wistful from the intensity of that experience. Joe McGarry, a longtime resident, activist, and organizer whose support for rent control put him on Egger's opposing side, had arrived straight from work. Some seismic activity seemed to be happening between the positions these two represented: like many who had fought bitterly over rent control, they had found common cause on support for a ceasefire.
This was a relief, as the news out of Gaza and the surrounding region grew worse by the hour. The same day we were breathing in redwood-scented air in Fairfax, The Times of Israel reported the IDF was dropping white phosphorous on residential buildings in Lebanon, which had previously resulted in wildfires. The redwoods of Fairfax were filtering our air, but the cedars of Lebanon were being destroyed by IDF bombing. The Times of Israel article does not indicate the manufacturer of the white phosphorous, but a December article in The Arkansas Times indicates that the white phosphorous munitions Israel used to burn and kill civilians in Gaza were made right here in the USA.
The Jewish Community Relations Council's "Furies" And the Cycle of Rage and Revenge:
As opposite sides of the rent control issue metaphorically joined hands to push for a ceasefire resolution in Fairfax, there had appeared a common opponent: a vocal group of anti-ceasefire, pro-Israel public speakers. For many of the past month's meetings, this group was alternately shepherded by San Rafael Councilmember Rachel Kertz, a co-Chair of JCRC's BANJO, and by Tiburon Councilmember Holli Thier, who had served on the board of JCRC.
This JCRC-linked party had been entirely female, and had proved immediately contentious by dismissing Jewish speakers who argued for ceasefire, or who stood up for the rights of Palestinians. And they had, along with Kertz and Thier, distinguished themselves as a group through their fear-mongering about Islam. For lack of a better term, I had begun to refer to them in my notes as the eumenides (the furies), the ancient creatures so vengeful that, as Aeschylus wrote it, few dared address their inchoate rage. In this less mythical space, no one on Town Council dared contradict them, and ceasefire proponents listened patiently when they spoke, even as most of their talking points, and much of their rage, seemed scripted.
At the start of this particularly long night, the "furies" were greeted upon arrival at Town Council not by Kertz or Thier, but by Jonathan Mintzer, a Director at the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). According to two attendees, Mintzer provided the group with paper handouts or flyers, although it is not clear from accounts whether he is the person who supplied the group with the printed "Unity Over Division" placards. The women then took the front seats in the room and brought out a collapsible cooler of drinks and a large beach tote filled with snacks which they consumed openly in the front row during the meeting. More seriously, the JCRC-linked group jeered at pro-ceasefire speakers; and as a group, proved generally intimidating to many of the peaceniks. Multiple prominent older Fairfax residents, several of them Jewish, stated that they had never seen behavior like that in a Town Council meeting, with one stating that he felt "embarassed" by the conduct. The word "entitled" was used repeatedly to describe their behavior. But that was perhaps being generous.
Due to the placement of the microphones and cameras at Fairfax Town Council, very little of the group's jeering or hissing of ceasefire advocates is audible on the zoom recording, but a later video I recorded of their harassment of an elderly Jewish activist outside the meeting gives an indication of how hatefully they behaved toward others.
JCRC's Role In Pushing Back on Ceasefire Resolutions and A New CPRA'd Document:
SF JCRC has come under increasing scrutiny since October 7, as progressive Bay Area residents have noted how aggressively they have worked against something as innocuous as mere ceasefire resolutions, and for their work in smearing groups that criticize Israel or defend Palestinians. A CPRA request I submitted to Marin County produced multiple emails showing JCRC leadership pressuring local elected reps not to permit a ceasefire resolution to be agendized. The persistent claim is that such a resolution would promote "divisiveness" but it was more than clear from the Fairfax meeting that the divisiveness was being sown by the JCRC and its linked group. What JCRC seemed to fear most was people in the community citing evidence that supported the Palestinian cause and thus contradicting the propaganda put forward by the JCRC and like-minded organizations like the ADL and AIPAC.
In that sense, the 501(c)3 status the JCRC enjoys seems misleading, as JCRC functions far more actively as a lobbying group than as a traditional nonprofit; lobbying as a central activity is something most would associate with a 501(c)4.
The County's latest CPRA response was delivered on Friday, and included this email showing correspondence between Mintzer and an elected supervisor in Marin County, Mary Sackett of District 1, arguably the most politically powerful district in Marin. Sackett had asked Mintzer to expand a JCRC letter to include the words "anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and all other forms of hate" in order to avoid the appearance of bias.
Mintzer rejected her request, and in response, Sackett, to her credit, asked to have her name removed from the letter.
JCRC was also instrumental in organizing a trip that escorted many California elected reps, including Assemblyman Damon Connolly, to Israel last February, amid an ongoing genocide. Despite repeated requests for his office to publicly disclose the trip, Connolly has not done so, although he did discuss the trip in a largely unpublicized meeting at Congregation Kol Shofar in mid-April. When I called Kol Shofar to inquire about it, Executive Director Gordon Gladstone graciously took my call and explained that the meeting had at least been open to the public. I explained that this was good to hear, but it was of little use since the public had no notice of Connolly's appearance. Gladstone then made a point to note that he didn't know who paid for the trip, or what Connolly's obligation to disclose the payment was, even though I hadn't asked him any questions about payment for the trip. As the kids say: “Huh.”
(It's my understanding that Connolly has still not reached out to the Islamic Center of North Marin to express any condolences for the violent attack they sustained, allegedly at the hands of Connolly's constituent David Margoliash, on March 11, 2024, the first night of Ramadan.)
Who Is Jonathan Mintzer?
Jweekly describes Director Mintzer as the kind of guy a multimillion-dollar operation just sends around to drink a bunch of coffee with local council people:
What Jweekly leaves out is Mintzer's apparent propensity to whip up a pro-Israel crowd into a righteous fury, and then sneak out long before they explode, as apeared to happen in Fairfax on Wednesday night. Several ceasefire advocates stated that they felt uncomfortable with Mintzer's glaring at them while he filmed them from the front of the room, as they were doing nothing noteworthy; merely sitting patiently in their chairs waiting for the meeting to start. Given the violent beatdown on pro-Palestinian activists at UCLA funded by Jessica Seinfeld and Bill Ackman, and new legislation criminalizing mere criticism of the State of Israel, I don't think their anxiety about Mintzer's conduct was necessarily unreasonable. To their credit, the ceasefire advocates didn't make a big deal about it, it was a public place, and there was no expectation of privacy.
Mintzer's Comments Precede Another Hateful Zoom Bomb:
Mintzer was the first speaker on non-agenda public comment, and he used that time to “ask” that Fairfax and other councils organize a training on Jewish identity and anti-semitism for town officials and staff. His tone was testy, which may have been a signal for the group. And then he was gone.
Was it pure coincidence that, when there was an item that so agitated the JCRC leadership, the town council's non-agenda public comment was struck by a "zoom-bomb" attack, with unknown callers making viciously anti-LGBTQ, antisemitic, and anti-Black comments via zoom? This had the potential effect of dissuading pro-ceasefire speakers from commenting, as they feared being associated, however irrationally, with the hateful comments.
A CPRA to the County indicates that the zoom-bombers were believed to the linked to a Sonoma County hate group. The same group had targeted meetings in multiple municipalities including Fairfax, San Rafael, and Sausalito. But who benefited from these anonymous callers? San Rafael had subsequently ended zoom access entirely, thus severely limiting the possibility for people to criticize, say, the City's use of Israeli-based surveillance technology, or CM Kertz' behind-the-scenes pushback on a ceasefire resolution at the County level.
There is no shortage of hateful white supremacists, but it's worth asking why there was so little public disclosure or media attention regarding the investigation of the zoom bomb calls. And I was not the only one who noted that, once again, the zoom bomb callers were almost all given their full time to speak, while many of us had been cut off merely for politely bringing up relevant aspects of US foreign policy.
Peace Proclamation Agendized Last, But Peaceniks Are Undeterred, Nearly All Stay Late To Speak:
The Council's watered-down “Peace Proclamation” was last on the agenda's numbered items, which meant it started just after 10:30 pm. The proclamation was read, and Council expressed an interest to hear public comment. The JCRC-linked group lined up first to speak, but they proved incapable of building any argument to match that of the strongest pro-ceasefire public speakers, a group which included Ace Thelin; Two-Term Former Fairfax Mayor Larry Bragman; Joe McGarry; Seven-Term Former Fairfax Mayor Frank Egger; Naomi Shultz; Attorney PJ Feffer; Mark Bell; two Palestinian Americans who used only their first names; and David Glick. (I note that of the ten pro-ceasefire speakers I just listed, at least half are Jewish.)
On the recording, now on youtube, the pro-ceasefire public speakers on the item start with David Glick at 4:12:47. Many who spoke in favor of the peace proclamation still politely pointed out that it was insufficient, and offered cogent arguments and respectful explanations of their positions.
The comments of Mark Bell, a longtime Fairfax resident of Ukrainian-Russian Jewish descent, were powerful enough that I reproduce them nearly in full:
"For the elucidation of part of the audience here, Palestinians have nothing to do with the Holocaust. There was no reason for them to have their lands taken from them, (land that) was promised by the British for fighting the Ottomans. They're the ones who fought and died for it. There's a binding UN resolution for an immediate ceasefire. There's an International Court ruling for an immediate ceasefire. What we have going on is a mass starvation of an unarmed civilian population, indiscriminate use of white phosphorous bombs on the same, and specific targeting of hospitals and medical personnel, aid workers, and reporters. Why is that? What we're looking at is the ethnic cleansing and the genocide of the Palestinian people."
With reference to the JCRC-linked group's insistence that the matter was not a local one, Bell pointed out that we have a responsibility "to tell the federal government that they're breaking the law, they're aiding and abetting a genocide and it has to stop, and we're going to hold them accountable."
Attorney PJ Feffer stated it was "telling" that the opponents to the peace proclamation were not acknowledging how favorable the language was to Israel, and specifically critiqued the proclamation for ignoring Israel's decades-long violations of the 1948 UN resolution. With reference to the anti-ceasefire, pro-Israel group, he stated, "It's very difficult to sit and listen to people lying repeatedly to justify something that is unjustifiable."
(Feffer's comments rhymed with those of a young Palestinian American caller who pointed out that no one who had been opposed to a ceasefire could tell you how many Palestinians had been killed by Israel in 2023 prior to October 7, or how many times Israel had bombed Gaza prior to the post-October 7 onslaught.)
Because of the placement of the microphones, the Fairfax zoom recordings do not capture the jeering from the JCRC-linked group. Unless you were in the room, you would not know how disruptive and contentious they were. This contentious behavior had to be repeatedly addressed by Mayor Coler to little effect during the peace proclamation item, which lasted until approximately 1:00 a.m. As had occurred at the previous week's "Special Meeting", Council did not find it worthwhile to check any of the group's Islamophobic comments. It appeared to be the strategy of the council to simply let them vent.
A Video:
I provide the video below which I began filming after the JCRC-linked group had harassed a 79-year-old Jewish peace activist, referring to him as a "kapo", as he tried to leave. The JCRC-linked group had formed a kind of gauntlet through which you had to walk to leave through the front door of the Women's Club. I have not yet secured permission from the victim of the harassment to share that part of video, so I am not sharing it at this time.
The video I am sharing from that night (hopefully it works, this is the first video I’ve uploaded to substack) shows one of the many incidents in Marin County where I have either been assaulted or had my camera grabbed merely for making a fairly unobtrusive and completely legal video record of unlawful or unethical conduct, or a video record of an attempt to interview a County official. I have not had that experience while filming in San Francisco or Alameda counties. I will be sharing more of that larger Marin County video record later this month.
Obviously, anyone unlawfully grabbing my phone after I calmly and unobtrusively filmed their harassment of an elder warrants a complaint. And yes, the claim the woman makes is false, but it is demonstrative of the crudeness of this JCRC-linked group.
What should be more concerning is:
1. that the police did not apparently feel comfortable dispersing the JCRC-linked crowd that was engaged in harassing ceasefire advocates, and
2. the reaction of the person on my left in the video, barely seen, who is Councilmember and former Mayor Chance Cutrano. Cutrano had not merely witnessed without comment the intimidation by the JCRC-linked group throughout a nearly seven-hour meeting, but he had just witnessed their misdemeanor behavior when the woman in the video grabbed my phone in order to block me from filming. Tellingly, his reaction is not to explain to that individual that her conduct is unlawful. Rather, it is to chide me, and further, to let his wealthy and powerful pro-Israel constituent, Michael MackIntosh, harass and berate me with absolutely zero pushback.
Imagine being a slight, 56-year-old female with severe asthma and a long ride home, being physically boxed in by two men — one an elected official and the other his wealthy constituent — both chiding me for filming. When powerful men try to stop you from legally documenting what is actually happening in their town, keep filming. My retreat from an entirely legal and peaceful position, at the behest of two such men, is a failure on my part.
To date, I have received neither explanation nor apology from either Cutrano or Mackintosh. And days later, I still have no apology from Jonathan Mintzer or Tye Gregory of the JCRC, who are apparently working with the group that engaged in the unlawful conduct.
I registered an initial complaint with FPD Officer Carter, and am in process of filling out the rest of the paperwork. As soon as I finished my conversation with Officer Carter, I began the ride home to the East Bay. It was after 1:30 a.m., and I felt rattled enough that I walked the first mile or so before getting on the bicycle. When I was still walking, just steps from Pastori Avenue, a parked white SUV pulled out of a parking lot and raced toward me. It was Michael MackIntosh, who had apparently been waiting for me to walk past. He shouted out his car window, "Do you need help with the bike?" I was nonplussed. MackIntosh arrogantly seemed to want me to respond to him after his abusive behavior, but responding to such a man seemed unwise, so I turned, said nothing, and kept walking.
The Bear or the MackIntosh?
In the choice of Bear or Mackintosh, I chose the Bear, or in this case the Bike, and I got home fine. I cannot say the same thing for the hundreds of Palestinians killed today with the help of US forces in order to rescue four Israeli hostages who would have been returned last year if Israel had not rejected an earlier exchange offer.
The next day I submitted a CPRA for the bodycam of the officers who were on scene last Wednesday. I did that because it's important for the larger community to examine just how much latitude this group of white women, linked to a powerful Bay Area group such as JCRC, were given to menace and intimidate ceasefire advocates. Meanwhile, ceasefire advocates were expected to be infinitely polite, which they fulfilled, as is their nature. Unfortunately, that double standard fits a larger pattern in the County, and across the US.
Marin I-J Coverage Is Misleading, As Usual:
The Marin Independent-Journal published an article on the following day, June 6, which makes no mention of the harassment by the pro-Israel crowd. The article, by Giuseppe Ricapito, declines to report pro-Israel Mark Solomons’ profanity-laced tirade against the Council at the end of the meeting. Rather, it refers to a "shouting match" outside without noting that all of the shouting came from the JCRC-linked group and Solomons.
Marin I-J columnist Dick Spotswood was present throughout the meeting, and is aware that I had to file a police report. He apparently has an article coming out early this week. Although he has my contact information, he has not bothered to reach out to me, nor has he asked to see the video of the harassment of any of the ceasefire advocates.
So once again, we appear to have a situation where the I-J declines to view the relevant video. That, too, is part of a pattern, which I'll be following up on after Spotswood's article runs.
©️2024 Eva Chrysanthe