As the Richmond City Council prepares to spend a second Tuesday meeting discussing whether to censure Mayor Eduardo Martinez, dueling measures on the agenda highlight the ongoing split between the Richmond Progressive Alliance-affiliated council members and their allies and those who are ideologically opposed to them.
The council on Tuesday will consider a measure to censure Martinez authored by Districts 1 and 2 council members Jamelia Brown and Vice Mayor Cesar Zepeda and one proposed by the mayor where he promises to “acknowledge” his participation in an antisemitism training recommended by Temple Beth Hillel leadership.
The controversy over the mayor erupted in December over LinkedIn posts he shared that perpetuated conspiracy theories about the Bondi Beach massacre. The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) Bay Area chapter issued a Dec. 18 open letter calling for his resignation.
In the aftermath, Martinez issued a formal apology through social media and has said he has met with members of the Jewish community. Meanwhile, numerous regional and local elected officials, including Brown and District 1 Contra Costa County supervisor John Gioia, are either calling for his resignation or for the mayor to “repair the harm” through formal steps lined out by the proposed censure.
At the council’s Jan. 6 meeting, Brown and Zepeda introduced an emergency agenda addition to censure the mayor. The inclusion of the item on short notice needed a two-thirds majority to be added to the agenda but that failed by a 5-2 note, with only those two supporting it.
If you go
What: Richmond City Council meeting
When: 6 p.m. Tue., Jan. 20
Where: Richmond Civic Center, 440 Civic Center Plaza or via Zoom.
More info: See the agenda here, including details about attending remotely.
Brown and Zepeda’s Jan. 6 censure measure would have required Martinez to complete 16 hours of antisemitism training and six hours of cultural sensitivity training by March 31. It also asked that he defer six months of his salary — equivalent to his last pay raise — and donate it to a Richmond nonprofit focused on “bringing communities together.”
The censure on Tuesday’s agenda has been significantly scaled back, removing the salary penalty and other proposed restrictions on Martinez, including one asking that he remove himself from regional committees for one year. The training requirements were also reduced from 22 hours to 16 hours, eliminating a separate six-hour cultural sensitivity training component. The resolution now includes language stating it is not intended to infringe on the mayor’s “First Amendment rights.”
Martinez’s drafted resolution says he will meet with Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller of Richmond’s Temple Beth Hillel at least two additional times in the first quarter of 2026 and will issue public apologies at both a city council meeting and in a local newspaper.
Richmondside reached out to Saxe-Taller about the training and Martinez’s effort to reconcile with the Jewish community. She confirmed that Martinez has met with her and is “taking steps” toward making amends with the community.
After the emergency censure item was swatted down on Jan. 6, the council heard dozens of speakers during a fiery open forum that went late into the night and pushed all other new business off the agenda. Many commenters who identified themselves as Jewish were seemingly split on what should happen, with some calling for the mayor’s resignation and others affirming their support of him while condemning his LinkedIn reposts as antisemitic.
Jewish community members disagree on best path forward
Rob Lipton, a Point Richmond resident who was a founding member of the anti-zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), told Richmondside he believes that part of the schism within the community is the belief that there is not one group that can speak for Jews as a whole — something he says that the JCRC is attempting to do.
“There’s never been a monolithic voice for the Jewish community,” Lipton said, adding that the JCRC has an “entitlement” that looks at JVP as a “splinter group.”
“We have about 100,000 members in the Bay Area and about 750,000 members nationwide so we are hardly a splinter group,” Lipton said.
When Richmondside spoke to the JCRC before the Jan. 6 city council meeting, Jeremy Russell, marketing and communications director for the group, pushed back on the idea that they were an outside group and said the JCRC represents members in all of the Bay Area’s counties.
“The Richmond Jewish community is absolutely taking the lead,” Russell said.
After Martinez’s posts surfaced, another local rabbi, Yitzchok Wagner of Chabad of Richmond launched a fundraising campaign to found a new permanent home in the center of Richmond via the purchase of a property. The group’s temple is currently on Vale Road in San Pablo.
He wrote on Facebook and said that many in the community have reached out to express worry, anger and deep hurt.
Richmondside reached out to Wagner but did not hear back by publication time.
At the crux of the ongoing rift in the community, Lipton said, are those who equate anti-zionism — the opposing of Zionism, which is the movement for Jewish self-determination in the land of Israel — with antisemitism, which is the hatred of Jewish people. Lipton added that distinguishing between the two was a core reason for starting JVP in 1996.
“This idea of a split is typically old-line Zionists and the younger cohort of people like me,” the 66-year-old Lipton said. “The younger generation, and those under 35, when you look at polls, those are not at all supportive of Israel or the genocide. That’s the schism, so to speak.”
Lipton, who is also a member of the RPA, said that the LinkedIn controversy is taking up so much bandwidth on the council and that Richmond has “a lot of good things going on with a large part due to the RPA with Eduardo.”
“We want to be able to talk through this (controversy) and deal with our actual city problems,” he said.
Lipton added that he believes that, because Richmond is one of the more “far left cities” in the country and that Martinez was instrumental in the first-of-its-kind Gaza ceasefire resolution in 2023, opponents of the city’s progressive successes have put a target on the mayor’s back.
Lipton said that some RPA members have begun organizing themselves under an adjacent ad-hoc committee called Richmond Jews for Palestine in order to continue galvanizing support for Martinez as the primary election approaches and he believes that this is a “hinge” moment in Richmond politics.
Martinez already has a number of challengers vying for his seat at the center of the dais in the June primary. His opponents and their respective allies, such as mayoral hopefuls Ahmad Anderson and Demnlus Johnson, as well as council District 3 candidate Brandon Evans, have put out statements condemning the mayor’s social media reposts and those who are defending him.
Multiple sources close to the mayor’s race have told Richmondside that many inside Richmond’s political scene are looking at the mayor’s posts as a galvanizing political moment that could alter the course of the race. Those sources also said they believe that the moment is bringing in a number of outside voices hoping to change the composition of Richmond’s City Council.
“I think the idea is to take the high road but use it as a way to help us self organize,” Lipton said. “I think we are strong here in regard to this. This is a way of helping us kind of self organize and say ‘Hey, let’s keep this energy going through the primary.’ ”
Daniel Nathan-Heiss, a Richmond Annex resident who is Jewish and a member of the Contra Costa County Board of Education, told Richmondside he doesn’t believe that the topic of Israel-Palestine is a simple two-sided one but rather a “37-sided die.”
“This isn’t black and white,” he said. “I would say that, asking if there is division in my community, but I haven’t experienced a Jewish community in Richmond since living here.”
Nathan-Heiss, who said he is not a practicing religious Jew, said that Martinez’s reposts are not a Jewish community issue but rather a “Richmond issue” in which Jewish community members may fall on different sides.
According to a 2021 study published by the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, the Bay Area Jewish population is approximately 350,000 with about 122,000 in the East Bay.
“I am all for members of the Jewish community who feel safe living in Richmond and I applaud that, and I’m very happy for them,” Nathan-Heiss said. “ There are times where I don’t, and that has absolutely nothing to do with anything that’s going on anywhere else in the world with the exception of what’s happening here in Richmond. Why don’t I feel safe in Richmond? At times I don’t feel safe because of the rhetoric the mayor uses, which makes it OK for someone to look at me and mistake me for being someone who is on the side of one thing or another.”
Nathan-Heiss questioned the timing of the uproar regarding Martinez’s comments as the primary election approaches and said that he felt it falls into a “pattern” that surrounds Martinez and his allies. He also added that those defending Martinez and telling those in the Jewish community who felt harmed to essentially get over it are being an “arbiter” of who gets to feel offended.
“I think that this religion is deeply personal and faith is deeply personal and culture is deeply personal and when that faith, culture, etc., is attacked and someone feels attacked, you can’t tell someone they shouldn’t feel upset,” he said. “That’s like punching someone in the mouth and saying ‘Hey, why are you upset about that? I support the mayor who punched you in the face.’ ”
Nathan-Heiss detailed that after he spoke at the last council meeting, other attendees hurled insults at him and called him a “baby-killer.” He also referenced a brief tense exchange between Saxe-Taller and another attendee who told her she supported genocide after she had addressed the council during the meeting.
Nathan-Heiss said he agrees the council is spending too much time “talking about a person’s social media posts” instead of talking about the city’s business — noting a pair of District 1 residents who were the only ones speaking about a topic outside of the failed censure of Martinez.
“There are more pressing issues, quite frankly, anywhere in California than someone’s social media (posts),” he said.
Nathan-Heiss doesn’t believe that Martinez is evil, he added, though he did question the mayor’s decision making by sharing conspiracy theories that, by comparison, would be chastised if it were a topic like vaccinations.
“All he would have to do is say ‘I don’t like what is happening there. I don’t like this.’ That is what intelligent, thoughtful people would do when they want to express themselves,” Nathan-Heiss said. “Instead what you have is someone who has conspiracy theories that are unfounded. In my mind, there’s no difference between where he’s posted an anti-COVID vaccine post. Both are conspiracies, both are unfounded.”
Harry Wiener, a Jewish Richmond resident who also serves on the West County Wastewater District and attends city council meetings regularly, agreed that Martinez’s reposts were antisemitic in nature and condemned all hate speech. Wiener, however, also said that being critical of Israel is not the same thing as being antisemitic.
“What I can say is that some American antisemitism is the conflation of Israel and Judaism. Unfortunately, many American Jews make the same conflation adding fuel to the fire. Genocide is the far greater evil,” Wiener said. “Speaking ill of a whole people pales in comparison. I hate that Jews are being used as props for the political careers of petty politicians.”
Wiener, who described himself as a leftist, said it is difficult to support what Israel is doing while maintaining that political identity. He said that the conflict in Gaza has caused a rift in the Democratic party between leftists and the traditional, moderate liberals.
“It’s just not possible for me but for others that’s what they are doing. The Democratic Party hasn’t stood against genocide so they’re putting us all in a bad place,” Wiener said, adding that Democratic leaders, in his opinion, have been more critical of those within the party who support Palestinians versus right-wing Republicans.
Both Wiener and Lipton told Richmondside that they believe that both the religious and secular American Jewish communities need to address where they stand on the conflict between Israel and Palestine and “recognizing genocide.”
According to the United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as of Jan. 6, there have been 71,391 Palestinian casualties since the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023 — more than 20,000 of those being children.
“It’s being broadcast on TV and everybody sees it,” Wiener said. “It’s no longer a battle of words. The images are overtaking the words.”
Agenda item on $550 million Chevron settlement also signals a split council
Additionally, a proposal on the agenda authored by the mayor and his allies on the council, Districts 3 and 6 council members Doria Robinson and Claudia Jimenez, and a separate item authored by Zepeda, indicate another split, one involving how the city is approaching community engagement regarding the $550 million Chevron settlement.
Since the council formally settled with Chevron in the fall of 2024, in exchange for dropping an effort to put an oil refining tax before voters, the city has yet to define how the annual payments will be spent due to ongoing uncertainty with how the city could be affected by ongoing federal cuts by the Trump Administration.
In the trio’s resolution, city staff would be directed to spend somewhere between $150,000 and $300,000 on a consultant who would lead a community engagement program to solicit opinions on how the $550 million should be spent.
Zepeda’s resolution, by contrast, would instruct the city manager and staff to “schedule and lead a minimum of six (6) community meetings each year, all around the City, in each district and every part of the community.”
Apology NOT accepted!!!
You are antisemite and should go to your hole where you came from.
Speaking as a Jew, I agree with the councilman from El Cerrito and the rabbi at Beth Hillel. I believe that some antisemitism is due to ignorance, just like some racism. I support education as a first step, and if the person still doesn’t get it, that’s when you write them off.
Thanks to Richmondside for your clear presentation of the issue created by Mayor Martinez’s post. Many people were hurt at Bondi Beach. They were not killed because of Zionism, they were killed because they were Jews. Martinez’s post was stupid and anti-semitic, and spread a false conspiracy theory blaming Jews for even their own murder. That said, there has been enough debate about this and I agree with Joel Umanzor that Richmond has plenty of other problems and opportunities for the Council to work on. Martinez apologized, he is going to meet with a rabbi hopefully to understand in a deeper way how his anger at Israel allowed him to slip into the trap of Jew hatred. I do think it is time to move on.
Is being a “humanitarian,”
being concerned about starving communities to death….termed anti anything….except sad to see such horrors anywhere…I’m basically a pacifist…I hate war. GJ….
Thank you to Joel of Richmondside for covering this thoroughly and for including a range of voices.
What feels missing in much of this discussion is an acknowledgment of duration and pattern. For many Jewish residents, this was not an isolated social media mistake or a single moment of poor judgment. It was part of a sustained pattern over more than two years in which conspiratorial narratives and antisemitic tropes were amplified by the city’s highest elected official. That context matters.
Education, training, and dialogue can be meaningful when they happen early. When harm persists over time, apologies and “atonement plans,” especially those authored by the person who caused the harm, can feel insufficient to those who have been directly affected. Accountability cannot be self-designed, nor can it be rushed on a timeline that serves political convenience rather than community healing.
It is also important to say plainly: criticism of Israeli government policy is not antisemitism, and many Jews hold diverse views on Israel and Palestine. That is not what is at issue here. What is at issue is the sharing of conspiracy theories that blame Jews for their own murder and echo rhetoric that has historically put Jewish communities in danger. That kind of speech, especially from a mayor, has real-world consequences.
Several commenters have suggested it’s “time to move on.” For those who felt safe all along, that may be easy to say. For those who felt targeted, silenced, or suddenly viewed as suspect in their own city, moving on requires trust, and trust requires more than apologies. It requires recognizing when leadership has caused lasting harm and when stepping aside may be the most responsible act.
This is not about vengeance or politics. It is about safety, belonging, and leadership standards in a city as diverse as Richmond. Those concerns do not disappear simply because they are inconvenient or uncomfortable.
Thank you Cesar Zepeda and Jamelia Brown. You are the only two “council members” who think for themselves and are NOT run by the RPA. The RPA sticks up for their own like Trump and the MAGA movement. Martinez by the way, only got 35% of the vote in the last election! He never was popular in the first place. Step down Martinez.
As always, JVP sabotaging the Jewish community, making excuses for hatred and violence. Absolutely shameful. The vast majority of members of this organization are not Jews or are so removed from the Jewish community that they have no idea what being Jewish even means. Like Hindu people, Jews are an ethnicity, not just a religion, with a 4000 year old culture, Hebrew language that the Bible was written in, and countless archeological artifacts that attest to the history of Israel, including in the Quran. The Mayor’s posts casting doubt on a massacre of peaceful Jewish families at Bondi beach are inexcusable. Making excuses or minimizing his behavior is unacceptable in civilized society. Imagine if a slaughter of Chinese families was being justified because people don’t like that China exists and people don’t agree with the Chinese government or slaughter of Russian families was being justified because people don’t like that Russia exists and people don’t like Russia’s government. The Mayor’s actions and the public’s mob conduct at these meetings are inexcusable. The Mayor’s meeting with one rabbi does not remedy the harm.