This story was first printed in the Jan. 15 print edition of the Daily Post. To get all of the important local news stories first, pick up the Post in the mornings at 1,000 Mid-Peninsula locations.
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims is under fire for questioning whether a public comment that called an entire Jewish congregation “vile Zionists” was hate speech.
Lythcott-Haims apologized on Monday (Jan. 13) and said she misinterpreted the comment.
The public comment was made by Aram James, a longtime police watchdog who has leaned into his anti-Israel position since the war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023.
James has a history of inflammatory comments that have rubbed council members and city employees the wrong way.
When Mayor Ed Lauing was picked as mayor on Jan. 6, James went after Lauing’s synagogue, Congregation Beth Am.
“Every single person on there — vile Zionists,” James said.
James accused Lauing of “exercising his white male Jewish privilege” to become mayor before Lythcott-Haims and Vice Mayor Vicki Veenker.
After the comment, outgoing Mayor Greer Stone stepped in to disavow James, as he’s done before.
“This council and the listening public have had to sit through many hate-filled public comments, antisemitic comments, especially from this speaker meeting after meeting,” Stone said. “Of course, the First Amendment protects someone’s right to say some of these horrific things, but I want the public to be to be made aware that, where the First Amendment might tolerate your vile rhetoric, I personally find it disgusting.”
Palo Alto is a place of tolerance and respect, and Lauing “is an incredible person,” Stone said.
Don Barr, a member of the city Human Relations Commission, brought up the comment at a meeting three days later.
“Apparently there was hate speech at the City Council meeting,” Barr said on Jan. 9.
“Yes, yes,” Commissioner Michelle Kraus added.
Barr said he wanted to set up an advisory group with Jewish, Muslim and Christian perspectives to look at holding training sessions against hate speech.
That’s when Lythcott-Haims jumped in.
“There is a difference of opinion as to whether the speech that was articulated objectively falls into a bucket called hate speech,” she said. “It falls into this definitional disagreement we have about whether a certain term constitutes hate speech or whether it constitutes a description of a sociopolitical situation.”
Lythcott-Haims said the comment shows the complexity of regulating conversations about Israel.
“I know some people feel it was hate speech, and some people feel it was not. And I just wanted to say that for the record,” she told the Human Relations Commission.
A group of Jewish residents led by Sarit Schube called out Lythcott-Haims at Monday’s council meeting.
“Instead of unequivocally condemning this hate speech, she expressed doubt about whether it even qualified as such,” Schube said. “Mayor Lauing’s Jewish identity was weaponized against him, and an entire Jewish community was targeted. How is this not clear-cut hate speech?”
Congregation Beth Am has been targeted by multiple bomb threats in the last year, and questioning antisemitism “is not just painful, but is also reckless,” Schube said.
Schube urged Lythcott-Haims to undergo antisemitism awareness training and to meet with Jewish community leaders.
Lythcott-Haims should apologize to Lauing, Congregation Beth Am and the community at large, she said.
“Palo Alto has worked hard to build a community of safety and belonging, and moments like this erode that progress,” Schube said.
After Schube’s comment, Lythcott-Haims said she “misinterpreted” what remarks Barr was referring to when he said there was hate speech.
“When he said that, I instantly summoned a memory of the repeated use of the word ‘genocide’ to describe what is happening in Gaza — a term some feel is hate speech but others, myself included, do not. I rang in to make that point,” Lythcott-Haims said.
Lythcott-Haims said she apologized to Lauing privately and that she wanted to apologize to him publicly on Monday.
“I will also take this opportunity to state unequivocally that I absolutely do condemn the personal attacks made against Mayor Lauing last Monday and at prior meetings by a member of the public,” Lythcott-Haims said.
“There is absolutely no place for antisemitism or any form of hate in these chambers.”
Lythcott-Haims declined an interview yesterday.
James didn’t say “genocide” when he was talking about Lauing, but he brought the word up four times in another public comment later in the meeting. James often called former Councilwoman Alison Cormack a “snitch” because she said council mem- bers were on their phones during meetings, but she wouldn’t name them.
HR Director Rumi Portillo asked James to stop addressing City Manager Ed Shikada as “bro” and “my man” in April 2022 because she said the comments were making female employees uncomfortable.
James has called Stone “pompous” and accused Assemblyman Marc Berman and state Sen. Josh Becker of being “Jewish white supremacists.”
At a meeting on Oct. 28, James said he was giving council a nickname of “the genocide six plus one.”
“The plus one is because I believe council member Lythcott-Haims has really made an effort to speak out on this issue — not as far as I would like, but that’s OK … the rest of you, I’ve heard nobody speak out against the genocide,” James said.
Council on May 20 approved a policy to not weigh in on international affairs.
“Our actions really should be limited to what impacts Palo Alto,” Stone said at the time.
Lythcott-Haims hasn’t always gone along with Jewish leaders since joining council in January 2023. City leaders and rabbis pulled out of a 9/11 vigil in front of City Hall last year because the organizer refused to drop a sponsorship by the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR — an organization that’s been accused of defending the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7.
Lythcott-Haims attended the vigil after Stone pulled out of the event as mayor.
If she’s so remorseful, where’s her apology for associating Doria Summa with Jim Crow?