Business and academia In 1983 Schewel founded the newspaper
North Carolina Independent, later renamed
Indy Week. Schewel personally wrote the state's first
same-sex marriage announcement in the paper. He is also a former
Durham Public Schools board of education member and former English instructor at
North Carolina Central University.
Politics From 2004 to 2008 Schewel was a member, and vice-chair, of the
Durham Public Schools Board of Education. He was elected to the Durham City Council in 2011 and served until 2017.
Durham mayor Schewel was
elected mayor of Durham on November 7, 2017. He was sworn in on December 4, succeeding the retiring
Bill Bell. Schewel spoke in favor of
gun control and environmental regulations. On May 5, 2018, Schewel presided over the Jewish Baccalaureate Service at Duke University. In 2018 he participated in
Michael Bloomberg's Harvard City Leadership Initiative. In April 2019 Schewel joined local business leaders and the city's fire chief to address the state of industry in Durham after the
2019 Durham gas explosion, which affected multiple local businesses in the
Bright Leaf Historic District. Schewel had arrived on the scene shortly after the explosion took place. Schewel proposed a $95 million housing bond in 2019. Schewel was reelected mayor of Durham with 83.4 percent of the vote in 2019. In January 2020 Schewel stated that the city intends to help fund the mitigation of carbon monoxide issues at McDougald Terrace, a public housing complex in Durham that had to evacuate its residents due to a carbon monoxide leak. In February 2020 Schewel, who is Jewish, was criticized by Jewish residents of Durham and neighboring municipalities for supporting a municipal resolution banning police training in Israel for Durham police officers. Schewel banned the program after left-wing and pro-Palestinian groups alleged that the program provided military-style training and encouraged racial violence against
African-American communities. The ban, approved in April 2018, forbids members of the
Durham Police Department from engaging in international training exchanges where officers could receive "military-like training". The ban was first in the United States to prevent a city's police department from engaging in international training. On March 13, 2020, Schewel declared a
state of emergency for the city of Durham, which was set to expire on March 28. The declaration was in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, and prohibited groups of 100 people or more to meet. On March 25, 2020, Schewel declared a
stay at home order for the city. The order was put in place March 26, 2020, at 6:00 pm and was issued to last until April 30, 2020. (left) and Durham City Councilwoman
Javiera Caballero at
National Night Out in 2021. In April 2020 Schewel, alongside Durham County Board of Commissioners chairwoman Wendy Jacobs, Durham County Commissioner Heidi Carter, Durham City Council members
Javiera Caballero,
Jillian Johnson,
Mark-Anthony Middleton, and Charlie Reece, and Raleigh City Council members Nicole Stewart and
Saige Martin, pledged to take part in the #ShareYourCheck Challenge. They pledged all or part of their
federal stimulus payments, part of an aid package to help Americans through the
COVID-19 recession onset by the
COVID-19 pandemic, to go to Siembra Solidarity Fund. In June of that month, Schewel was one of 11 U.S. mayors to form
Mayors Organized for Reparations and Equity (MORE), a coalition of municipal leaders dedicated to starting pilot
reparations programs in their cities. Schewel left office on December 6, 2021, succeeded as mayor of Durham by
Elaine O'Neal. == Personal life ==