For five days in April, Simone Zimmerman was the most controversial figure in Jewish politics.

The 25-year-old activist served very briefly as Bernie Sanders’ Jewish outreach coordinator, before being fired after an old Facebook post in which she used profanity against Israeli prime minister Netanyahu surfaced — and quickly ended her political stint.

— in Haaretz

Earlier this week, Simone was interviewed by Isaac Luria and the interview is up on +972mag. I recommend a read if you’re interested in the subject:

“Bringing a nuanced sign to a pro-Israeli rally is not enough anymore,” she explains. “There is a crisis on our hands. The occupation is hitting its 50-year anniversary. We care about this community too much to not demand that it be on the right side of history. Even if it makes people a little bit uncomfortable. Disrupting business as usual is actually essential to making change.”

she talks about the year-old facebook post that became a lightning rod leading to her suspension, saying she edited it a few hours after posting it to take out some of the profanity:

Then the Facebook post was leaked on a right-wing news site. The screen shot said “posted 10 hours ago” and was an old profile picture of mine, which means that somebody took a screenshot of my Facebook post when I initially wrote it and had been saving it.

I assume it’s probably someone I went to college with. When I was at Berkeley, there was a group of more right-wing pro-Israel students who sort of told us they were keeping files on us. So it’s not a total surprise. It wasn’t inconceivable to me that somebody I know could have been holding on to that to use against me one day. The headline became, Sanders Staffer Says Fuck You, Netanyahu On Her Facebook Page.

At the time, she was the subject of blistering attacks, including one in the Jerusalem Post by a fellow UC Berkeley grad who claims to have figured out how a “Pro-Israel enthusiast turned anti-Israel radical”:

At Berkeley, Zimmerman frequented Hillel, which presents itself as “home away from home.” There, she encountered Kesher Enoshi, a Hillel group presenting programs demonizing Israel and the IDF. Kesher Enoshi had been collaborating with Students for Justice in Palestine, a leading BDS campus group – on the Anti-Defamation League’s top 10 list of anti-Israel groups in America. The Hillel director, Rabbi Naftalin-Kelman, supported and promoted Kesher Enoshi. [...]

Many students from pro-Israel homes, even those with Israeli parents, were coopted and alienated from Israel at Hillel. Many, like Eyal Mazor, became BDS leaders. After graduating, Mazor joined two BDS groups: Code Pink, which disrupted Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, and Jewish Voice for Peace, with Mazor as a key organizer, which disrupted Netanyahu’s speech before the General Assembly of Jewish Federations in New Orleans. [...]

Simone Zimmerman and many other students have been brainwashed and coopted.

At the same time, she was defended in strong terms by many including Dove Kent:

The vicious offensive against Zimmerman by the Jewish Right combined with the lack of support from the Jewish mainstream – leading to her suspension from her job on Thursday – is not isolated, new, or even surprising. Jews, Palestinians, and others who speak out against the Israeli occupation and for the humanity of Palestinians have reported being fired, intimidated, monitored, threatened, censored and attacked for many years.

and Jacob Myerson who wrote in Jacobin:

If not Bernie Sanders and Simone Zimmerman, who will represent the Jews who regard Netanyahu as an asshole?

New York magazine described the events leading up to Simone’s suspension:

On Wednesday, the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet, dug up a Facebook post of Zimmerman’s from last March in which she wrote: “Bibi Netanyahu is an arrogant, deceptive, cynical, manipulative asshole … Fuck you, Bibi, for daring to insist that you legitimately represent even a fraction of Jews in this world.”

Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, called on the campaign to fire her on Thursday morning, according to the Times. Zimmerman has not been fired, but Sanders spokesperson Michael Briggs told the Times that she had been suspended while the campaign investigates the matter.

The JTA also did a comprehensive, widely distributed, if slightly critical round-up of her experience. And here’s the NY Times on her suspension:

But the suspension was also an important moment in the small but deeply felt universe of Democratic Jewish politics, which has been torn apart on generational and ideological lines over the acceptable level of criticism of Israel’s right-wing government.

With Ms. Zimmerman’s history of opposition to Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza, her hiring drew concerted and ultimately overwhelming pressure from American Jewish leaders. Her suspension showed that when it came to the high stakes and intense scrutiny of presidential politics, the establishment’s view of Ms. Zimmerman and her brethren as dangerous radicals still held sway even with Mr. Sanders, a candidate promising a revolution. [...]

“This is the American Jewish community eating its own,” said Peter Beinart, a mentor to Ms. Zimmerman and a leading voice in liberal Zionism. “Simone is the best of the best. Most of the other kids have given up on the community. She cares deeply and wants to make it live up to its own stated ideals.