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Our politics are inevitably shaped by our own experience and the experience of those around us. My father and grandmother came to the United States on a boat in 1951, Jewish refugees from the terrors of Nazi and post-Nazi Europe. They were able to make a life in the United States, with my grandmother eventually opening a deli on Chestnut Street in the Marina District and my father going to UC Berkeley for college and graduate school, where my parents met.
Between childhood illnesses and more than a fair share of familial dysfunction, my early years were not easy ones, but I was supremely lucky in that the challenges were more than matched by even greater opportunities. My grandmother’s financial support allowed me to attend Brandeis-Hillel Day School and Lick-Wilmerding High School here in San Francisco. After graduating from Lick, I went east to earn my B.A. at Yale College, where I focused my studies on ancient Athenian democracy, argued politics inside and outside the classroom, and began to think about the mark I would like to make.
Following graduation from college, generally eager to help save the world, but unsure exactly how to take on that project, I did what many young people in that familiar position do – I went to law school. I earned my J.D. at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law and concurrently earned a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The programs complemented each other: law school developed my sense of justice, while policy school developed my skepticism about easy solutions to complex problems.
Since my graduation from law school, I have worked at several law firms, but I have always tried to ensure that my practice does not stray too far from my values, and I have been fortunate in being able to make a career primarily representing public agencies and affordable housing developers.
In my hours away from the office, I have largely devoted myself to local politics and civic affairs. In addition to serving on the Democratic County Central Committee (where my colleagues selected me to serve as a vice chair after my election in 2006), I was recently appointed by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin to serve on San Francisco’s Building Inspection Commission. I am the president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, and I am a former president of the Noe Valley Democratic Club and a member of a number of other Democratic Clubs around the City. I serve on the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, the public affairs arm of the Bay Area’s organized Jewish community, and am a member of the New Generations Board of the New Israel Fund, an organization that raises money throughout the world to promote organizations that work to secure civil, social and economic rights in Israel. I also serve on the Board of Livable City, an organization that promotes urban livability by educating the citizenry and policy-makers and advocating for policies that improve public transportation, advance sound planning and encourage the production of affordable housing.
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