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name: Rebekah Gewirtz

age: 28

resides: Somerville

dislikes: being photographed without a suit on

In the past few months, I have seen Rebekah Gewirtz’s face more often than my own.

A 28-year-old progressive candidate for Somerville’s Ward Six alderman (alderwoman?), Gewirtz inundated the neighborhood’s residents (i.e., me) with campaign literature. Again and again, her visage was slipped under my door. Left in the foyer. Delivered to my mailbox. She stared at me so often I started to wonder if I owed her money.

Gewirtz ran against 22-year incumbent Jack Connolly, a Davis Square insurance man who helped transform his milieu from a hardscrabble ’hood to a playground for young professionals like Gewirtz. Her campaign mantra was "inclusion," an ideal that rebuffed the old-time Somervillian notion that a tenderfoot like herself couldn’t help lead the city.

And she won. New Somerville, the Somerville of Sauce and Orleans, instead of Dolly’s and Steve’s Ice Cream, has arrived.

So now Gewirtz is getting ready for her close-up. But she’s not all the way there yet: this past Monday evening at the Diesel Café, the alderwoman-elect doesn’t want to be photographed. Outfitted in a thick-necked pink sweater and dress pants, she can’t recall my saying I’d bring a photographer, so she hasn’t dressed accordingly. A director of government affairs and public policy for the National Association of Social Workers by day, she wants to wear a suit. Could we do this tomorrow instead?

After Gewirtz sends the photographer away, a constituent with close-cropped hair approaches. "I voted for you," he says. "I admired your persistence. Congratulations."

"Congratulations," bids another Somervillian from a nearby table. He’s Alan from Ward Three. "I did go to your victory party." She nods. He inquires about another local race. Gewirtz offers to speak with him later, after we’ve finished our conversation. He persists. He asks about her relationship with defeated alderman-at-large candidate Marty Martinez.

"How about this: why doesn’t Camille interview me, and we’ll have a conversation later?"

Alan pauses. "Best of luck in your future —"

"Thank you very much," Gewirtz whispers.

"My only advice to you," adds Alan, fastening his gaze on Gewirtz, "before you brush somebody away from a conversation happening at a public café, you should know who they are. My family’s been here for five generations and this brushing off confirms everything about you I suspected."

Gewirtz is floored. "She invited me here for an interview. That’s a brush-off?"

Unpacking his laptop, he pretends to ignore her. "Continue with your brush-off," he says, holding up one hand Ricki Lake–style. "Continue with your brush-off —"

"Why’re you so angry? I don’t understand this."

Gewirtz asks if we can go somewhere else. Outside on Highland Avenue, she gets teary. She wipes her eyes, apologizes. "I’m usually much more tough," she sniffs. "Any other day, I’d be fine. But my mom died a year ago today."

Gewirtz’s mother Nancy, a renowned social worker, passed away last November from pancreatic cancer.

We settle down on a bench in the Square. Gewirtz doesn’t want to converse about Somerville, the "old-versus-new" clash, which we’ve just witnessed in action. She’d rather talk about how she’s going to create inexpensive housing (she’s already set up a roundtable discussion with the Somerville Community Corporation and the Affordable Housing Organizing Committee), how she moved here after a year in Brighton because she "felt a connection," and how she’ll fight for a Green Line MBTA extension to Ball Square. She admits that the win surprised her. "I feel humbled," she says. "I really worked hard because I really wanted this job."

Officially, Gewirtz won’t assume her new position until next January, but her community work has already begun. Like when she deals with newspaper photographers. Or strangers at the Diesel Café. Or a tired writer who unthinkingly leaves an empty coffee cup underneath a city bench. "Wait," harks Gewirtz, who runs back to retrieve my litter, tossing it in a barrel. Yes, her work has already begun.

Visit www.rebekahgewirtz.org.