Responding to reports of rising Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, Palo Alto elected officials on Monday pledged to host more cultural events, recognize more holidays and increase training on tolerance and diversity for city employees, city councilors and the general public.
The recommendations follow a series of hearings the city’s Human Relations Commission has held since last fall, inviting residents to speak about their experiences in Palo Alto. These included a session last December that focused on Muslim and Arab experiences and another in January that focused on Jewish and Israeli experiences.
“The experiences were moving, shocking and sad,” said Commissioner Adriana Eberle.
“Some of them were afraid to identify with their religion, culture or origin, especially in the city.”
According to a report the commission presented to the City Council on Aug. 19, some members of the Muslim and Arab communities said they felt unsupported by the larger Palo Alto community. The commission cited a 2021 statewide survey showing that 56% of school-age Muslim respondents said they felt unsafe at school and 20% said they missed school because of those feelings.
Local resident Uzma Minhas told the council that conditions in Palo Alto have not improved in recent months.
“In fact, they have become increasingly worse for the Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities,” Minhas said. “Aggression among us has become more intense and Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are widespread in our community.”
Minhas accused Palo Alto of “atrocities denial” by not condemning Israel for its military action in Gaza. She was one of dozens of residents who had urged the City Council to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, an issue that dominated public comment at council meetings in the first half of this year. The council declined to do so, instead adopting a new policy in May that prohibits council members from taking official positions on foreign policy matters.
“If there are people in our community who deny the atrocities, then that is a denial of those atrocities and that affects us locally,” Minhas said.
Members of the local Jewish community have expressed similar sentiments about increasing hatred and decreasing compassion. In January, Palo Alto police reported seeing a swastika spray-painted on the sidewalk near Peers Park. And in May, a visitor to the Rinconada Library saw numerous books about Israel and the Jewish people defaced with Nazi motifs.
Local resident Lori Meyer said she has been confronted with hate chants at demonstrations in recent months and has heard residents, including parents of students, making anti-Semitic statements.
“As far as I know, this type of repeated hate behavior within a matter of months has never happened in Palo Alto until it started in March and has continued since then,” Meyer said.
While the council did not take any votes during Monday’s meeting, members generally supported the Human Relations Commission’s six recommendations to address community concerns. The commission suggested that the city provide training on religious tolerance and discrimination to all city employees, board members and commissioners. It also recommended that the city strengthen its messages on equity and inclusion. Eberle said some of the community members who responded to the commission said they would miss or mourn the loss of the “Palo Alto Way,” which to them meant diversity and inclusion.
“People moved here thinking they were in a very inclusive, respectful community, but then felt that wasn’t the case,” Eberle said.
The commission also recommended that the City Council review its meeting calendar to ensure it recognizes the important holidays of the various faiths represented in Palo Alto, and the city should review the legality of jointly promoting religious holidays. To address recent concerns from leaders of local religious institutions who complained they were not being heard at City Hall, the commission recommended the formation of an “interfaith community advisory group” to build bridges within the local community, including schools and libraries. It also suggested that Palo Alto Police designate a point person for the faith community for non-emergency matters.
Council members praised the commission for holding the hearings and supported its proposals. Mayor Greer Stone, a high school teacher, said he experienced the kind of fear residents are talking about firsthand last year when one of his students missed several days of class. When he asked her, she told him she was afraid of being identified as a member of a particular group and then bullied, he said.
“This is the first time in my teaching career that I’ve seen this,” Stone said. “I pray it’s the last time I see this, but I know that unfortunately it probably won’t be as these divisions continue to grow.”
“So I think we as a community need to have better conversations and be more respectful and kind to each other to begin that healing.”
Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims, who serves as the council’s liaison to the Human Relations Commission, said she supported the idea of increasing education and hosting more cultural events. She attributed the difficult conversations the commission had to the region’s diversity, a quality that is often celebrated but also gives rise to difficult conversations.
“Some communities lack the diversity that we value so much. Some communities are either this or that. We are a community that is struggling tremendously right now, especially in the last 10 months, because we have everyone here. We have people here from all corners of the world,” Lythcott-Haims said. “And when the tragedies and violence of the world erupt elsewhere, it often impacts people here because this place — Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, the Bay Area — has become a welcoming place for everyone.”
Lythcott-Haims and her colleagues cited reports that the council had heard from members of both the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel communities who felt persecuted and frightened. It was the city’s job, she said, to try to “honor all of that pain equally.”
“The only way to do that, I think, is to break bread with people and in doing so, to create a desire to know more about the other person than just telling about ourselves, and to care about the other person as much as we care about ourselves,” she said. “It’s hard, but we can do better.”
