For many LGBTQ Jews in the Bay Area, state Sen. Scott Wiener has long been “their guy” in the Legislature.
“He’s always had the back of trans people,” Levana Schector, a Jewish Berkeley resident and member of the LGBTQ community, told J. “I thought, here’s a politician that really has my values. This is a politician I really trust.”
After Wiener’s video post on Jan. 11, in which he stated that Israel’s government has “tried to destroy Gaza and push Palestinians out,” which to him “qualifies as genocide,” — a word he had not previously used in his criticisms of Israel’s handling of the war — Schector said she felt many emotions, from shock to outrage to betrayal.
Schector said she felt as if he was “throw[ing] Israel under the bus.”
From the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, many LGBTQ rights activists in the Bay Area have turned their focus to pro-Palestinian activism. Schector, who identifies as a Zionist, has felt alienated from many of her old friends.
“My large social group really shrank,” Schector, 46, said of her friendships, particularly in the trans community. Schector chose not to attend San Francisco’s Pride Parade last June because of growing anti-Zionist sentiment. Signs displaying slogans like “No Zionists at Pride” and accusing Israel of “pinkwashing genocide” were seen at the parade.
Organizers with the S.F. Trans March that preceded the parade called for people to show up with Palestinian flags because, according to the group’s social media, the “Trans March is not a parade, but an act of resistance… to draw connections between the struggles of oppressed people.”
Wiener, who has attended the Trans March every year since 2004, as well as the Pride Parade, has taken hits for his Zionism.
In 2024, “some folks were calling me a Zionist pig and a genocider, and as far as I could tell, non-Jewish leaders were not being targeted,” Wiener told J. in June, days before last year’s march, though he doesn’t believe such harassment reflects the views of most participants.
Tye Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, said he has Jewish LGBTQ friends expressing feelings of “alienation” over Wiener’s statement on genocide.
“The senator, for many years, has been a champion of both LGBTQ and Jewish issues, and someone that we look to to represent us on these issues. So I think this has led a lot of people just to feel like the person that’s been taking blows for our community and defending us in great vulnerability, they’re not sure whether he’s still there in quite the same way,” said Gregory, who is gay.
Wiener has made LGBTQ rights and Jewish community leadership central to his work. In the last year, the Legislature passed two bills he authored to strengthen legal protections for California’s transgender community and to fight antisemitism in K-12 schools.
Wiener is running to fill Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat when she retires at the end of the year. Last week, he announced he is stepping down as co-chair of the Legislative Jewish Caucus, partly because of the intense backlash he’s facing from his statement on genocide, and also because his congressional campaign is “heating up.”
Rafael Mandelman, president of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, who is also gay and Jewish, said he understands the disappointment many in the Jewish community are expressing over Wiener’s statement, and said it’s reasonable for them to question whether it was the right decision.
However, “I also think people need to take a deep breath and recognize that he is, I think, the best choice for the Jewish community in this race,” Mandelman said.
Gregory, who has sharply criticized the remarks on genocide, agrees. He told J. he believed the joint statement from JCRC and partner organizations condemning Wiener’s decision was appropriate, but his criticism ends there.
“Those that are trying to permanently cancel him, I think that they need to think twice about that, because he is still a queer Jewish leader who has a strong voice,” Gregory said. “He still recognizes that antisemitism in the LGBTQ community is a major issue, and I’m counting on him to continue to stand up for our community, even if there’s been a rupture here.”
Wiener is running against San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan and former tech engineer Saikat Chakrabarti, who served as chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
In a now viral moment at a Jan. 7 forum in San Francisco, the three candidates held “yes” or “no” signs as they faced a lightning round of quick questions, including whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Chan and Chakrabarti immediately turned their signs to “yes,” while Wiener flipped his back and forth and did not answer.
Chakrabarti has said that if elected to Congress, he would call for ending all military aid to Israel. He has also stated that he opposes AB 715, California’s new law to combat antisemitism in K-12 schools, and supports a resolution issued last November by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.
“I believe that Saikat actually means the Jewish community harm, and he’s throwing bombs on this issue, not just using bad terminology but basically calling for the end of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Gregory said. He also said Chan appears uneducated about the U.S.-Israel relationship and ill-equipped to speak about it.
“I would just express caution about people who are making very permanent determinations about the senator right now,” Gregory said.