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‘Repulsive’: Dachau Holocaust survivor shouted down by pro-Palestinian loudmouths in Berkeley

March 30, 2024 | | Print Article

“Repulsive.”

That’s how one user on X described a Berkeley City Council meeting that turned shameful on Tuesday when pro-Palestinian protestors hurled antisemitic tropes at an 89-year-old survivor of the notorious Dachau Concentration Camp who was urging council members to pass a resolution in support of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“This is repulsive. The mob burst into a Berkeley City Council meeting to scream obscenities during a discussion on Holocaust remembrance programming,” wrote Aviva Klompas, a speechwriter and the Associate Vice President of Strategic Israel Engagement at Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston. “They managed to hit all the classic Jewish tropes: ‘Go chase the money. You money suckers’;  ‘You are traitors to this country’; ‘F*ck you Zionist pig’; ‘Genocide enablers.'”

Susanne DeWitt was just four years old when she was arrested and sent to Dachau, the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) noted on X.

When the disrespectful dissenters began shouting her down, she had just mentioned the millions of Jews who were slaughtered in the Holocaust.

“Over 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust and many more were left with scarred lives,” DeWitt said. “I urge the Berkeley City Council to pass the Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation, because we are currently witnessing a horrendous surge in antisemitism. Jews are now under existential threat.”

“The invasion by Hamas, which broke a ceasefire –” she said, when protestors began yelling, “Time!”

The councilman running the show allowed DeWitt to finish her thought: The Hamas attack, she said, “led to the murder of 1,200 Israelis and the brutal torture and rape of women.”

“The incident became increasingly hostile as one protester threw the lectern microphone at the man who had set it up, and a staff member with the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area had his phone grabbed and thrown across the room when he tried to record the demonstrators,” reports The Jewish Chronicle.

“A demonstrator laughed when a Jewish parent talked about an antisemitic incident at her child’s elementary school,” stated the JCRC. “Berkeley Unified School District is currently under federal investigation after numerous allegations of antisemitism across its campuses.”

“Absolutely vile Jew hatred at the Berkeley City Council meeting yesterday,” wrote Ari Ingel, director of Creative Community for Peace. “They weren’t targeting Israelis, but the Jewish community at large in Berkeley.”

“A circus of Jew hate and Israel Derangement Syndrome at a Berkeley CA city council meeting,” wrote Sia Kordestani, a self-described Iranian-born Jewish American. “The agenda was supposed to be about Holocaust remembrance, not Israel.

“This should worry every decent person in America.”

Melissa Fine
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