This story was updated on July 30 to include a more recent response from Councilmember Taishya Adams and additional details from the statements.
Two Boulder City Councilmembers, Mark Wallach and Matt Benjamin, issued a joint statement Monday accusing fellow Councilmember Taishya Adams of a “troubling pattern” of social media activity and saying two recent Instagram posts “crossed a serious line into antisemitism.”
One post asserted that “the biggest genocide in human history didn’t happen in Nazi Germany,” drawing a comparison between the Holocaust and the treatment of Native Americans, and was set to music from Schindler’s List. Another accused the City of Boulder of “funding genocide” through its investments. Wallach and Benjamin described the posts as “divisive” and showing a “profound insensitivity to our Jewish community,” calling the language a “modern form of antisemitism” relying on “double standards, dog whistles and coded messages.”
“Councilmembers are elected to improve the lives of Boulder residents, not to resolve global conflicts. At present, she is doing neither,” they wrote.
Adams defended her posts in a statement issued July 29, saying, “I will not dignify the misinformation shared by Councilmember Matt Benjamin and Councilmember Mark Wallach in an attempt to distract from the real work and conversations our Council has ahead of us. Let me be clear: injustice to any individual or group of people is wrong and must be followed by repair and restitution.”
She added, “the Boulder City Council has an opportunity to match our actions with our values instead of creating an avenue for deeper divisions and mistrust” and pushed for divestment from the city’s investment portfolio “from war criminals that are committing an ecocide and genocide with the help of our local tax dollars.” The city council voted against considering divestment in February.
The rebuke comes amid escalating tensions on the city council, particularly over open comment, which for more than a year has been dominated by calls for the council to pass a Gaza ceasefire resolution — something they also voted not to consider in 2024. In June, Adams declined to sign a city statement condemning the June 1 Molotov cocktail attack on a Run for Their Lives gathering of people raising awareness for hostages in Gaza as “antisemitic,” saying she wanted the language to also include “anti-Zionist.” That attack killed 82-year-old community member Karen Diamond and injured several others, most of them elderly.
Open comment during council meetings will resume Aug. 7 under new rules aimed at curbing disruptions and personal attacks.
Taishya is right. Matt and Mark added SO much more fuel to that fire, and greatly stoked community division with that awful post. Nitpicking about raising the fact of US extermination of indigenous tribes? That can’t be mentioned? That constitutes an “oppression Olympics”? That is some twisted logic there. Zionism is a mindset — no one else matters, especially if it impedes their dominance in Palestine. This is ancient tribal and religious reasoning made new again. Taishya is standing up for human rights and trying to hold Boulder accountable for its actions. That is what decent people do. Those of us who oppose genocide and ethnic cleansing — how can we be any clearer? And do not raise the tired trope of “blood libel.” Everyone knows what is happening in Gaza — if you don’t it’s obvious you don’t want to know, and to try to lie your way out of that is obscene. It’s OKAY to criticize Israel all you fearful Boulder progressives. That certainly does not make you antisemitic. Grow up. Don’t be held captive by ancient religious mythology that justifies this atrocity.
My personal option as someone who’s been following these issues for decades and cares deeply about antisemitism.
Was the post insensitive, perhaps. Was it antisemitic, no.
Again, the city can and should divest and I support Adams’ most recent statement on this issue.