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COLOR: ONE; AD FEES NUMBER:
Activist Announces
2020 State Senate
Campaign Run
L O CAL
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
IN THE MIDDLE of explain-
ing how she came to be a part
of Sara Atkins’ campaign team,
Abby Jones, a part-time com-
munications professor at Temple
University, mentioned that
Atkins has been arrested 10 times
during her years of activism.

Atkins corrected her. “Eleven
times,” she said, laughing.

Atkins, 39, is betting that
her record of civil disobedi-
ence will propel her to the
17th District’s state Senate
seat held by embattled incum-
bent Democrat Daylin Leach.

Th ough the seat won’t be up
until 2020, Atkins believes that
her message is going to start
resonating with voters once
they get to know her. She is
running as a Democrat.

“I want to bring ethics back
to Pennsylvania,” she said.

Born in Chicago, Atkins was
raised in a home that was “some-
where between Conservative and
Reform.” Her father, incensed
over the voting issues of the 2000
presidential election, became an
elections judge, and her grand-
father, Jack Rotman, remains a
legendary fi gure in the world of
Chicago labor activism for his
work on behalf of cabdrivers. She
majored in Judaic studies at the
University of Arizona, where she
and her now-husband, Daniel,
both became ba’alei teshuvah.

If her name sounds familiar,
you may have read it in the
Forward, CNN.com or perhaps
even the Jewish Exponent. Her
protest at the committee hear-
ings for judicial nominee Brett
Kavanaugh was caught on cam-
era, and there are photos of her
being dragged from the hearing
room as she chanted, “Shame!”
Th ere’s also her health care
activism. Atkins is a mother
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Sara Atkins with her mother in
Washington, D.C.

T.W. Collins
of fi ve, and all of them suff er
from various medical maladies
requiring care that is highly
specifi c, achingly necessary
and, most pertinently, of a
high cost. One daughter has
an unknown autoimmune dis-
order, and has been diagnosed
with idiopathic anaphylaxis
and eosinophilic esophagitis.

Her immune system is fail-
ing, and one of the methods
by which she’s kept alive are
biweekly trips to Th e Johns
Hopkins Hospital for shots
that can run $10,000 without
insurance, Atkins said.

Atkins serves as the director
of activism for Torah Trumps
Hate, a coalition of Orthodox
and “Orthodox-aligned” peo-
ple who seek to marry progres-
sive politics with their religious
values. For Atkins, that’s a
simple shidduch.

“The Lubavitcher Rebbe
always said, we shouldn’t focus
on lashon hora, we should focus
on love of thy neighbor,” she
said. “How can you love your
neighbor if you don’t believe
that it’s a human right to have
health care? A livable wage?”
Presently a committeeperson
for Lower Merion 14-3, she was
part of PA Dems Coordinated
Campaign ahead of the 2018
primaries, leading canvassing
eff orts to such success that she
was eventually tapped by her
superiors to train canvassers.

Some of her policy positions
— such as a $15 minimum wage
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ExploreRydalWaters.org and universal health care — may
be national issues, but Atkins
believes that it’s up to state legis-
lators to promote them.

On her campaign website,
she ticks off progressive boxes
related to gun control, repro-
ductive rights and criminal
justice reform.

Th ere’s another issue: pro-
tections for survivors of sexual
JEWISH EXPONENT
assault, which may prove perti-
nent to her race against Leach. In
June, at a protest related to allega-
tions that Leach had inappropri-
ately touched female colleagues
and made sexually demeaning
comments in their presence,
Atkins said that he was “a sex-
ual predator” and “no diff erent
than Donald Trump.” When
asked if she still stood by those
comments, Atkins defl ected.

“I don’t really know Sara
Atkins,” Leach said in response.

“I’m not even sure I’ve ever met
her personally.” Regardless, he
said, “to put me in the same
category as people like Donald
Trump is preposterous.” ●
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JANUARY 17, 2019
9