Dee Simon, a 70-year-old Holocaust educator with roots in Israel, has been appointed by Washington state Governor Bob Ferguson to the state's Human Rights Commission, filling a vacancy that arose after a former member departed following public backlash over antisemitic remarks.
Born in Haifa and brought to the United States at the age of five, Simon later served as director of Seattle's Holocaust Center for Humanity. In an interview with a broadcast outlet, she described how her upbringing — shaped by her Jewish heritage and her family's experience as immigrants in California — would inform her approach to protecting Washington state residents from discrimination. She added that she feels a strong connection to immigrant communities, and that other children once ridiculed her mother over her accent.
In an interview with a television news outlet, Simon recounted that a friend's mother had referred to her by her religious identity rather than her name when speaking with the friend. She also described how the presence of Israeli residents in Seattle had drawn her attention to the barriers they faced in daily life — attending school, raising children who encountered discrimination — with those pressures intensifying after October 7.
Her appointment to the commission carries an end date of June 2030.
Roughly 88,000 Jewish residents are estimated to live across Washington state. Tracking how many of those residents arrived from Israel falls outside any official statistical record, though a Seattle-based online community for people with Israeli roots has drawn more than 5,000 participants.
Luc fils Jasmin vacated his seat on July 1, his departure linked to a published account of remarks he made at a commission meeting, including a statement that Jewish people raise complaints about antisemitism too readily. Simon subsequently joined the panel. In conversation with a news outlet, she reflected that connecting with her predecessor before he took up his state commission post would have held value, observing that everyone carries unexamined assumptions and that deepening one's awareness of other people's experiences is a continuous process.
Simon's tenure at the Holocaust Center for Humanity stretched from 2006 through 2024. She noted that the organisation delivered training to 11,000 Washington state law enforcement officers during that period. She described education as the thread running through her human rights work, while pointing to enforcement of laws as an equally indispensable element — a gap between the two that her commission appointment is positioned to help close.
The commission's April 2025 resolution addressing antisemitism drew notice in part for language aimed at protecting people who hold critical views of Israeli policy from being characterised as antisemitic. In an interview with a broadcast outlet, Simon stated that the resolution would not have passed had she been among the panel members at the time.
In remarks to a news outlet, she described her approach to conflict resolution as one that leaves all parties better informed on the subject at hand and confident that the outcome reached was the right one for everyone involved.
Simon noted that the commission is carrying a considerable backlog of unresolved claims, and she told a prominent news channel that addressing it remains a priority for her. She added that her approach to handling difficult situations tends to favour careful judgment, which she described as an area where her abilities are well suited.
