Vera Katz, Jewish Mayor Of Portland Who Made It A Hipster Heaven, Dies At 84
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Ari Feldman December 14, 2017
Vera Katz, the dynamic, three-term mayor of Portland, Oregon who helped give the city its reputation as a haven for hipsters, died this week at 84, the Oregonian reported. The cause was leukemia, her third cancer diagnosis since 2000.
Katz was remembered in Portland as a warm yet outspoken political force who often advocated for women. Her parents escaped from Europe in 1940 with Katz and her older sister Zena. Her son, Jesse Katz, said that his mother’s political career was motivated by “an obligation to pay back her adopted home.”
“America … rescued her when she was a little girl,” Katz said.
Vera Katz escaped the Nazis as a child, came to America on a Greek steamship speaking only French and Russian, then grew up to become Oregon’s first woman speaker of the house and Portland’s longest-serving woman mayor. She also showered me with unconditional love. She was 84. pic.twitter.com/gB16ny5Ucg
— Jesse Katz (@byjessekatz) December 11, 2017
Katz began her political climb in Oregon in the 1980s, and took inspiration from Robert F. Kennedy and Cesar Chavez. She was the first female Speaker of Oregon’s House of Representatives.
Elected mayor of Portland in 1992 and serving until 2005, Katz led the city through its reinvention as a hub of progressivism, bike lanes and craft beer.
All through her career, Katz tried her best to rule by consensus, a practice she called the “feminization of power.”
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
