‘Zionist pigs!’ and ‘End Israel!’ at Berkeley City Council Meeting

 

WATCH: Susanne DeWitt, an 89 year-old Holocaust survivor who was arrested and sent to Dachau Concentration Camp at age 4, was repeatedly heckled by demonstrators as she spoke in favor of the City of Berkeley's Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation. pic.twitter.com/B3mx5mjjSo

— JCRC Bay Area (@SFJCRC) March 28, 2024

 A Berkeley City Council meeting last Tuesday spiraled into disorder as a group of pro-Hamas protesters targeted council members and supporters of Israel, hurling derogatory slurs such as “Zionist pigs,” “Genocide enablers,” “Murderers,” and “money suckers,” and calls to “End Israel.”

The meeting included a vote on marking Holocaust Remembrance Day in Berkeley.

The Jewish Community Relations Council shared excerpts from Tuesday’s meeting on social media, one of which quickly went viral, capturing the instance when the proceedings had to be halted when Susanne DeWitt, an 89-years-old Holocaust survivor, was being drowned out by the shouting antisemites.

They repeated the cry of “Lies!” when DeWitt urged the City Council to adopt the Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation because of what she described as a “horrendous surge in antisemitism.” This was a second opportunity for DeWitt to be attacked by Nazis after she had been hurled at age four into the Dachau concentration camp outside Munich.

The shouting increased when the elderly survivor told the council about the 1,200 Israelis who were tortured, raped and killed by Hamas.