State Sen. Scott Wiener is facing intense backlash from Jewish political allies and longtime supporters over his new position, announced Sunday on social media, that Israel’s government has committed genocide in Gaza.
The announcement came as a “gut punch,” a Jewish pro-Israel supporter told J., not simply because Wiener took this tack “but because the political reality is, he had to.”
Wiener, the Jewish San Francisco Democrat who is running to fill Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat when she retires at the end of the year, faced the thorny issue during a debate last week in San Francisco with the two other candidates in the race, Supervisor Connie Chan and former congressional staffer Saikat Chakrabarti.
In a lightning round, they responded to a quick series of questions by holding up “yes” or “no” signs. When they were asked whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Wiener was the only one who did not answer. He flipped the sign back and forth without lifting it up, which elicited jeers from the audience. Both of his rivals swiftly held up “yes.”
“It was painful,” Wiener told J. on Monday, “because there was no way I was going to, in that format, answer ‘yes’ and say it for the first time. And also there was no way I was going to answer ‘no’ because of the horror of what happened,” he said. “It created this viral moment that totally gave an impression like I somehow didn’t take it seriously.”
Wiener posted his 90-second video on Sunday explaining why he had hesitated during the Jan. 7 debate. Wiener, who describes himself as a Zionist and a vocal critic of the Netanyahu government, had until that point called Israel’s war in Gaza a “moral stain” and a “shanda,” but he had not used the word “genocide.” He went on to say that he could no longer refrain from doing so.
“As a Jew, I am deeply aware that the word ‘genocide’ was created in the wake of the Holocaust, which was the industrial extermination of 6 million Jews. For many Jews, associating the word ‘genocide’ with the Jewish State of Israel is deeply painful and, frankly, traumatic,” he said in the video, posted to X and Facebook.
“We all have eyes,” he said, and have seen the “catastrophic levels of death” in Gaza over the course of the war. “And we all have ears,” Wiener said, mentioning “genocidal statements” made by some senior members of Israel’s right-wing government.
“To me the Israeli government has tried to destroy Gaza and to push Palestinians out, and that qualifies as genocide,” Wiener said, concluding his statement.
Wiener told J. he continues to support U.S. funding for Israel’s defense, including the Iron Dome missile interception system, but does not support selling offensive weapons while Israel is under a government that he believes “is not committed to peace.”
Right after Wiener’s video post Sunday, a group of his Jewish supporters in the East Bay backed out of a planned fundraising event.
“Our goal in hosting this event was to support a champion of the Jewish community. Unfortunately, due to his revised position and the pain that has caused, we no longer feel that his views align with ours,” Max Roman of Piedmont, who serves on Piedmont Unified School District’s board of education, told J. on Monday. Roman noted that he was speaking personally, not as a school board member.
Wiener said he’s received positive messages since Sunday from Jewish young adults who feel that his statement about genocide has given voice to thoughts they’ve felt uncomfortable speaking aloud themselves. However, he said, he “owns and respects” the ire and anger many of his Jewish constituents might be feeling.
“All I ask for the people who are really angry with me, as they’re angry with me, is to also remember the work that I’ve done for many, many years for the Jewish community and the many hits I’ve taken for this community over the last 2½ years,” he said.
He is the co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and co-authored AB 715, the new state law aimed at reducing antisemitism in K-12 public schools. Wiener, who is gay, has also been personally targeted with homophobia and antisemitism, including death threats.
In the days before his video statement, Wiener reached out to Jewish and non-Jewish Bay Area leaders and said he had many conversations about his decision.
Tye Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, was among those contacted by Wiener.
“The ways in which the legal definition of genocide has been ignored to fit the description of what’s happening in Gaza is offensive and wrong, and unfortunately, the senator knows better, and he felt like he had to do this for his campaign,” Gregory told J. on Monday.
Genocide was first recognized as a crime by the United Nations General Assembly in 1946 in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust. In 1948, it was formally defined by U.N. member states at a genocide convention as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
In September 2025, a U.N. commission declared that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. The Israeli government vehemently and repeatedly disagreed with the finding, which has divided experts. It was publicly rejected by Scholars for Truth About Genocide in a statement signed by some 500 academics, historians, war crimes prosecutors and others, who stated that Israel’s actions in Gaza did not meet the legal standards of genocide and noted that Israel had taken steps to prevent civilian harm.
“I think the word genocide has moved beyond just being a straight-up legal term,” Wiener told J. “It is a descriptor for an extreme level of devastation of a people” and has become part of American vernacular.
Marco Sermoneta, Israel’s consul general to the Pacific Northwest, called Wiener’s invoking of genocide “baseless” and a view that has been “repeatedly debunked.”
“True leadership requires standing up for what one believes is right, rather than pandering to the purity tests of the mobs,” Sermoneta said in part in an X post. He declined to comment further to J.
On Monday, JCRC Bay Area released a joint statement calling Wiener’s position “incorrect” and lacking in “moral clarity.” It was signed by some of the state senator’s closest Jewish political allies: the American Jewish Committee, S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services’ Holocaust Center, the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California and SF Jews in School.
“Framing this conflict in reductionist and inflammatory terms fuels further hostility toward our community,” the statement said. “We believe that words matter. We call on the Senator and our elected, civic, and education leaders to recognize and reflect on the consequences of their words in this fraught and polarizing environment.”
Gregory doesn’t expect Wiener to walk back his words.
“He’s made his choice,” the JCRC leader said. “We have to make it clear that this is not where the community is.”
In a Washington Post poll published in October, 39 percent of American Jewish respondents said they believed Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians, an opinion that had grown among American Jews over the two years of war.
Last month, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Santa Clara) answered pointed questions at two Santa Clara County synagogues about his public statements calling Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide.
In the wake of Wiener’s announcement, JCRC plans to roll out educational resources around the term genocide, opening discussions of what the word means and what the Jewish communal experience of genocide is, Gregory said. JCRC will also issue guidance to elected civic and educational leaders.
“Now it’s in the limelight for all of us, so we’re going to be focused on that in the days and weeks ahead,” Gregory said.