October 30, 2002

By Camille T. Taiara

In Berkeley, strife over the U.S. role in the Middle East is spilling over from campus into the halls of government. Prominent members of Berkeley's Jewish community are charging progressive council member Kriss Worthington with anti-Semitism – and putting their weight behind Worthington's challenger, outspoken Zionist and UC Berkeley sophomore Micki Weinberg.

"Worthington has a history of siding with anti-Jewish and anti-Israel forces," states an e-mail circulated by a group going by the name Berkeley Pro Israel and calling on readers to contribute to Weinberg's campaign coffers.

The e-mail, Worthington says, "is making some Jewish voters nervous." The District Seven representative, one of the more progressive voices on Berkeley's City Council, has been responding to any communications he receives repeating the allegations, but he fears it isn't enough. "The problem is, how many people got the e-mail and didn't hear my side of the story?" he says. "That's the danger of these secret e-mail dirty tricks. They hurt someone's reputation without giving them the opportunity to respond."

In the meantime, Berkeley mayor Shirley Dean – a moderate with whom Worthington regularly butts heads on everything from affordable housing to how the city should respond to hate crimes – is backing Weinberg.

But some say the charge is totally unfair. "Kriss Worthington is the last person I'd put that label on," says Barbara Lubin, executive director of the Middle East Children's Alliance, who says she's been called "a self-hating Jew" by pro-Israeli forces similar to those that issued the e-mail. Lubin equates the attack on Worthington with that faced by Cynthia McKinney, a veteran representative from Georgia who recently lost her seat in large part due to similar allegations of anti-Semitism. "This is not new," Lubin continues. "AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] has a history, for decades, of going after politicians who recognize the only hope for peace in that region is justice for Palestine.... These are new names, but it's the same old dance."

Indeed, Worthington sponsored a failed resolution May 21 asking the district attorney not to pursue criminal charges against students arrested during the sit-in at Wheeler Hall as part of a multi-campus action launching a national Israel divestment campaign. "Yes, I'm guilty of thinking young people should not lose their chance for an education because of their political beliefs," Worthington says. "When we got arrested for protesting in favor of affirmative action, none of us got treated so severely."

Worthington's hate crimes initiative posed a challenge to a competing proposal by Mayor Dean, also submitted in late May, that entailed contracting the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization, to train police and other city personnel. The proposal drew criticism from members of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, and others who argued it was inappropriate to place the ADL at the helm of Berkeley's hate crimes response plans, as the organization was implicated in a 1993 scandal in which its operatives spied on Arab American and progressive groups in the Bay Area, obtained confidential information on thousands through an informant in the San Francisco Police Department, and shared its findings with Israeli and South African intelligence agencies. As it is, advocates for Arabs and South Asians say, many don't report hate crimes because they distrust the authorities. Worthington's initiative called for groups representing the various communities victimized by hate to provide input on Berkeley's hate crimes response plan.

What's more, Worthington's appointee to the Peace and Justice Commission spearheaded a proposal for Berkeley to boycott establishments that do business with Israel or the occupied territories – an item that Worthington himself voted against and that never made it past the Berkeley City Council.

There is little question that political tensions sometimes find racist expression and that Jews are among the targets. According to police department records, more than 20 percent of hate incidents in Berkeley since Sept. 11, 2001, have been directed against members of the Jewish community. Most involved anti-Jewish or anti-Israel graffiti or threatening phone calls to local synagogues. In one case, two Orthodox Jews were assaulted and robbed on Claremont Avenue. But charges of anti-Semitism are being hurled around quite freely these days – and sometimes those charges are aimed at valid criticism of Israeli policies.

This time local pro-Israel forces have chosen an unlikely candidate for allegations of anti-Jewish sentiment. When student activists took over Wheeler Hall April 9, Worthington was commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day, reading off names of Jews who perished in World War II. Worthington estimates he has been actively commemorating the day for the better part of 25 years. He also lobbied local police to treat an incident in which a Jewish student was punched in the eye as a hate crime. He called for a town hall meeting on hate crimes after Berkeley Hillel was vandalized. And he participated in a "Stop Anti-Semitism Nor Cal" sit-in at UC Berkeley earlier this month in support of Jewish students who might feel threatened.

There's no question whose camp Weinberg is in. The 18-year-old sophomore, who was president of Shalom Club at Beverly Hills High School prior to moving to Berkeley, told the Daily Cal earlier this year that he plans to enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces once he graduates. He established a chapter of the Akiva Movement, a Zionist youth group, at UC Berkeley, which launched a campus campaign opposing divestment from Israel, and has spoken out numerous times in the media in support of Israel.

Weinberg told the Bay Guardian by phone that he had not seen the e-mail calling for contributions to his campaign. Asked whether he agreed with the description of Worthington as "anti-Jewish," he would only say "that's a decision people can make by themselves, based on his record."

Of the four people whose names appeared as signatories – Noah's Bagels founder and former owner Noah Alper, Lois Marcus, UC Berkeley professor Robert "Uri" Alter, and attorney Paul "Buddy" Warner – only Warner admitted to lending his name to the communiqué. In retrospect, Warner told us, the charges of anti-Semitism were not accurate in his view. "I make a distinction between being anti-Semitic and anti-Israel," Warner says. "I think the stand Kriss Worthington has taken is anti-Israel." Warner couldn't say with whom the e-mail had originated or to whom it had been sent. Alter admits to signing a "general letter" of support for Weinberg, but "can't remember if it said anything about Worthington." Neither Alper nor Marcus responded to our repeated attempts to contact them.

Thankfully, numerous other Jews have come to Worthington's defense – including two Holocaust survivors who spoke in his favor at an Oct. 24 rally against hate campaigning organized by the council member.