www.montereycountynow.com AUGUST 21-27, 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 17 Even before it was easy to be a performative activist on social media, Seth Pollack’s instinct has been to do something, not just talk about it. “You can’t just have these great dreams,” he says. He volunteered for the Peace Corps in Mali, and then in 1997 arrived at still-new CSU Monterey Bay, where he was the founding faculty director of the service learning program, bringing students into the community. After he retired in 2022, he decided to pursue a social justice project himself. “I thought, maybe where I should be doing work is in Israel-Palestine, and working within my Jewish community,” he says. Before the brutal Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 rocked the foundations of a chilly status quo, prompting a war of devastation that continues to this day and is still upending global alliances, Pollack made understanding modern Israel his project. He became a member of J Street, a national lobbying organization that defines itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy”—with the premise that such goals can only be achieved with Palestinian buy-in. The Washington-based group, which formed in 2009, is sometimes described as a more liberal, expansive alternative to AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Pollack felt like he had finally found an ideological home. “You can be pro-Israel and still be critical of the policies of the Israeli government; you don’t have to be an anti-Zionist and reject Israel’s ‘right to exist,’” he says. In a world that was already deeply polarized even before Oct. 7 and now, nearly two years later, with tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, “J Street is able to really respectfully offer a middle ground,” Pollack says. He and Karen Paull, both members of Congregation Beth Israel in Carmel Valley, are members of the local J Street chapter, both advocating for a humane middle ground. Paull describes her personal journey beginning on a trip to Israel in the early 2000s, shortly after the Second Intifada, when she saw the occupation of the West Bank in person. “I was reminded of the ways Jews were treated in Europe where they were confined to ghettos and humiliated daily,” she says. “I thought, oh my god, Jews are treating people the way they were treated themselves. That feeling was so intolerable to me that it came into my head: Not in my name. As an American Jew, I have to do something. I have a role to play.” That role is being an active member of J Street’s Silicon Valley chapter, where Paull and Pollack interface with both congressional members who represent Monterey County (Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, and Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose). Pollack serves as synagogue liaison to Congregation Beth Israel (where recently retired rabbi Bruce Greenbaum joined the J Street rabbinical cabinet, which counts over 1,000 members). Pollack and Paull both describe a mission that is much more about morality than religion, but J Street embraces both. In late July, J Street convened a virtual meeting just a few days before the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av, a solemn occasion that commemorates the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. “This is not just a political issue, this is a moral issue,” Rabbi Jill Jacobs said. “I really believe that as we’re crying today, God is up above also crying, both over the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis. Our hearts are big enough to cry for everybody. The good news is that more and more of us are crying out.” That includes groups like the Union for Reform Judaism, which on Aug. 8 issued a statement opposing Israel’s expansion of the war against Hamas. Pollack believes that most American Jews share his and Paull’s views that their hearts are big enough to cry for everybody, that there is a middle ground, and that groups like AIPAC—despite their influence—are not representative. “The more we are able to help our elected officials hear that from us,” Pollack says, “the more willing they are to advocate to support policies to help us to get there.” “Getting there” is built upon old-fashioned organizing. Whether informed by divinity or humanity, the desire is the same: to find a solution that acknowledges the dignity of all. Sara Rubin is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com or follow her at @sarahayleyrubin.bsky.social. Voices Rising Faced with a crisis in Gaza, local Jews organize for a different approach. By Sara Rubin BIG BROTHER…Like any journalist, Squid is often nagged by doubts—did Squid remember to double-check a certain fact, or the spelling of someone’s name? There’s no edit button once ink hits the page. One might think that a governing body, tasked with making decisions that affect the public, would be even more concerned about getting the facts right. But if that governing body is the California Public Utilities Commission, you would be wrong. After two administrative law judges spent more than a year wrestling with just two questions—what the current water supply in the Monterey Peninsula is, and what the water demand will be in 2050—the commissioners approved at least one answer they knew to be wrong. The current supply, as determined by the judges in their proposed decision earlier this year, was to be 11,204 acre-feet. But on Aug. 14, the CPUC approved a current supply of 11,114 acre-feet, 90 acre-feet less, due to a typographical error that had been brought to their attention but still went uncorrected. Oh well, too bad, it’s now legally binding! It was a fitting coda to a farcical process that Squid has been watching unfold over years. BACK TALK…Squid doesn’t like to dwell in the past, but there are some who cannot let it go. Former Pacific Grove councilmember Luke Coletti is hanging on to his animosity toward former city manager Ben Harvey. Harvey, now city manager of Ojai, and the P.G. City Council parted ways in July 2023, with Harvey resigning and both sides agreeing not to disparage the other in a separation agreement. Coletti, Harvey’s biggest critic, was a member of the council at the time. (He later lost reelection in 2024.) In July, Coletti popped up on a Facebook post by the Ojai Valley News, which was reporting a lawsuit filed by a former Ojai city finance director, alleging Harvey and others discriminated against her. “I am a former Pacific Grove City Council member who served during Ben Harvey’s time as city manager. Harvey’s tenure was fraught with controversy,” Coletti replied. He wrote a similar letter to the Ojai City Council, saying the complaint “sounds very plausible.” Coletti himself was a source of controversy— Harvey and others filed complaints with P.G. alleging Coletti mistreated them, costing the city a pretty (undisclosed) penny. Squid’s colleague reached out to Harvey, who says he’s abiding by the non-disparagement clause and he would hope the city would too. (Coletti did not respond to a request for comment.) Squid is predicting a cease-and-desist letter in Coletti’s future, but is not sure if Coletti can ever help himself from ceasing or desisting in running his mouth. THE LOCAL SPIN SQUID FRY THE MISSION OF MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY IS TO INSPIRE INDEPENDENT THINKING AND CONSCIOUS ACTION, ETC. “Our hearts are big enough to cry for everybody.” SEND SQUID A TIP: squid@montereycountynow.com
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