SF Board of Supervisors Candidate Says She’s “Very Sorry” for Calling Jewish Journalist a Nazi

A candidate for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors issued an apology to a Jewish journalist after calling him a Nazi.

Leanna Louie, who is running for the seat in the 4th District on the western side of San Francisco, referred to journalist Joe Eskenazi as “Joe EskeNAZI” in a since-deleted Instagram post. Louie had just been interviewed by KQED, a local public news station. She had written that “it was so nice to talk to a journalist who actually had a dialogue with me” before deriding “EskeNAZI” for “talking over me” during an interview and writing “what he wanted.”

Louie shared a picture of Eskenazi on her social media accounts and said she didn’t know that he’s Jewish and claimed that she was frustrated with Eskenazi’s “inflammatory” and “inaccurate” reporting. “This formatting of his surname was in poor taste and I want to sincerely apologize to Joe Eskenazi, his family, and the Jewish community,” she wrote. “I did not know that Joe is Jewish when I made the post. I have a long history of advocating for marginalized people and my post was inappropriate. I love people of all backgrounds, sadly not everyone loves me back. I am very sorry.” Louie offered to meet with Eskenazi “to build bridges and try to turn this into a teachable moment.”

In a recent Facebook post, I used all caps to highlight the word NAZI in the last name of a journalist who has written several inflammatory articles about me recently.

I expressed my frustration with Mr. Eskenazi’s barrage of news articles in a highly inaccurate manner. 1/4 pic.twitter.com/IWTJDIcDIZ

— Leanna Louie 雷千红 (@leannalouie28) August 24, 2022

I expressed my frustration with Joe’s barrage of news articles in a highly insensitive, inappropriate and uncharacteristic manner. This formatting of his surname was in poor taste and I want to sincerely apologize to Joe Eskenazi, his family, and the Jewish community. 2/4

— Leanna Louie 雷千红 (@leannalouie28) August 24, 2022

I did not know that Joe is Jewish when I made the post. I have a long history of advocating for marginalized people and my post was inappropriate. I love people of all backgrounds, sadly not everyone loves me back.

I am very sorry, Joel.

3/4

— Leanna Louie 雷千红 (@leannalouie28) August 24, 2022

I would like to meet with Mr. Eskenazi to build bridges and try to turn this into a teachable moment to heal and build my relationship with Mr. Eskenazi.

Joe has my phone number and we can certainly agree to a date, time, and location to meet up soon. 4/4

— Leanna Louie 雷千红 (@leannalouie28) August 24, 2022

Eskenazi didn’t accept her apology though, telling The Jewish News of Northern California: “Ms. Louie continues to make self-justifying, false and inflammatory statements on social media. I believe this devalues any apology. I have no plans to sit down with her in the near future, nor with any other politicians. I would hope Ms. Louie would deign to answer my calls and messages and respond to my questions truthfully, as I’d expect of any candidate for public office.”

Eskenazi is the managing editor and columnist for the local news site Mission Local. He has been reporting on allegations that Louie has committed residency and voter fraud. Louie has denied the allegations, though Eskenazi has referred to her explanations as contradictory and “head-scratching.”