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<\/a><\/p>\nProvidence City Hall in Providence, Rhode Island on May 28, 2020. (Blake Nissen for The Boston Globe via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Voters in Providence, the state capital, will vote on a referendum this November saying the city should refrain from investing in \u201cforeign countries conducting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n
The language of the actual ballot petition does not mention Israel, nor any other country, by name. But the signature campaign was led by Providence for Palestine, a local activist coalition, and both its proponents and opponents have framed the measure as a referendum on Israel and the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.<\/p>\n
With the referendum\u2019s ballot placement secured, Providence has become the largest American municipality ever to place divestment before the voting public.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in this moment when the general public at large, and particularly Democratic voters, very much understand what\u2019s going on in Gaza and Palestine as genocide, as apartheid, and want their leaders to take action on it,\u201d Zack Kliger, a lead organizer of the ballot initiative and member of the Rhode Island chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.<\/p>\n
Providence, Rhode Island Mayor Brett Smiley, a vocal Israel supporter who opposes the ballot initiative, attends a college basketball game at the Amica Mutual Pavilion, Jan. 24, 2026. (M. Anthony Nesmith\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
\nKliger described the current divestment campaign as having \u201cdefinitely been led disproportionately by Jewish organizers.\u201d<\/p>\n
To determine which countries are \u201cconducting\u201d any of its list of human rights abuses, the referendum would rely on \u201cresolutions\u201d from various bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, International Court of Justice and \u201cany\u201d U.S. court ruling or U.N. body. Some, though not all, of those bodies have reached conclusions that would implicate Israel in the ballot language\u2019s divestment campaign.<\/p>\n
Both Israel and the Trump administration have strongly rejected all genocide accusations leveled against the country. \u201cApartheid\u201d can be considered an independent crime under international law, while \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d has no formal legal definition.<\/p>\n
Divestment from Israel has seen some success on the municipal level since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks and Israel\u2019s military response in Gaza, which has sunk the country\u2019s popularity across the American electorate. Last year a non-binding divestment resolution in Somerville, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb with less than half of Providence\u2019s population, became the first such initiative to win at the ballot box. Over objections from Jewish groups, the city this summer began exploring the question of how to enact the measure into law.<\/p>\n
Critics of divestment measures argue that they force local governments to put undue focus on international issues; could prompt division and backlash against local Jewish communities, and jeopardize public pension programs. The Providence campaign\u2019s decision to avoid mentioning Israel in the ballot language sets it apart from similar initiatives, while also neutralizing claims, made against other resolutions, that such measures unfairly single out Israel.<\/p>\n
Yet local Jewish groups say the risk to the community remains.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll this will do [is] stoke more division in our community, and potentially make Jewish people here feel more unsafe,\u201d Stephanie Hague, chief strategy officer of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, told JTA.<\/p>\n
Hague noted that the ballot language, as written, prompts questions about the authority of the international bodies making judgments about what constitutes genocide, ethnic cleansing and other terms in in the initiative. She said that the Alliance would campaign against the ballot measure and, if it passes, explore legal options for putting up roadblocks to it.<\/p>\n
A 2024 proposal to the city council urged Providence, whose approximately 15,000 Jews make up around 7% of the population, not to invest in Israel bonds. The measure failed to make it out of committee. Likewise, the board of Brown University, the Ivy League school located in Providence, voted on a divestment resolution as part of the demands of the school\u2019s pro-Palestinian encampment movement in 2024. It failed.<\/p>\n
Activists are more confident this time, citing the success in Somerville \u2014 where, unlike in Providence, Israel was mentioned by name as the target of the winning ballot measure. Also unlike Somerville, whose measure was non-binding, Providence\u2019s initiative would mandate city action.<\/p>\n
Supporters also note that Providence joined a 2006 divestment initiative against Sudan to protest ethnic cleansing in Darfur, a divestment campaign that was spearheaded by American Jewish groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really proud of the legacy of the American Jewish community and standing up on social issues,\u201d Kliger, who grew up in the Conservative movement, attended a Jewish day school in Brooklyn and has family in Israel, told JTA.<\/p>\n
Unlike in Pittsburgh, where a similar 2024 initiative was undone before the election following legal challenges to the signatures, the Providence activists were able to collect and verify more than enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. The initiative\u2019s supporters said they had identified around $2.5 million in city funds that would be affected by a divestment order. They cited American companies frequently targeted by pro-Palestinian activists, such as construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar and weapons firm Axon Enterprise.<\/p>\n
The city council of Portland, Maine, also passed a divestment proposal in 2024, though that city\u2019s mayor, after initially endorsing the plan, later said he regretted having done so because of the divisiveness it spurred.<\/p>\n
Some progressive Jewish professionals in Providence say the initiative is in keeping with their values.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know there are others out there who think that this is a situation where one would need to choose between their Jewish principles and other principles. I don\u2019t perceive it that way,\u201d Lex Rofeberg, senior Jewish educator with the alternative Jewish engagement network Judaism Unbound, told JTA about his support for the ballot campaign.<\/p>\n
Rofeberg, a Providence resident, said it would be wrong for non-Jews to conclude that \u201cit is a Jewish value to support human rights violations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those who see a ballot initiative that does not name Israel at all, but simply says we should not invest our dollars in atrocities \u2014 for people who see that as somehow threatening to Judaism, why would they think that?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Hague, the Jewish Alliance staffer opposing the initiative, sees just such a threat to Jewish interests. She acknowledged that it can be hard to communicate to non-Jews, who would understandably oppose genocide and apartheid, the ways in which her group sees the BDS movement as \u201ca calling card for antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n
She outlined what she saw as her group\u2019s mission: \u201cWe have to do so much education in a short period of time, and helping people understand the Jewish community\u2019s relationship to Israel, and then understanding this initiative\u2019s relationship to the BDS movement and how those things are connected, and the real fear and isolation many Jewish Americans are already feeling, particularly after Oct. 7.\u201d<\/p>\n
A student walks on the campus of Brown University ahead of the school board\u2019s vote on divestment from Israel, in Providence, Rhode Island, Oct. 1, 2024. The measure failed. (Jonathan Wiggs\/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
\nThe political environment, though, may be unfriendly to such efforts. Following broader national trends, the city\u2019s Democratic mayoral primary, set for Sept. 9, is also pivoting to a large degree around Israel.<\/p>\n
Incumbent Mayor Brett Smiley, who converted to Judaism and held a bar mitzvah while in office, is a vocal Israel supporter who opposes the ballot initiative. His progressive challenger, state Rep. David Morales, has backed the ballot initiative.<\/p>\n
So too have some local elected officials with Jewish heritage. \u201cFor any community that we are identified with, and for the sake of our soul and our humanity, we have to be able to say, \u2018This is not OK,\u2019\u201d Rachel Miller, city council president, told JTA.<\/p>\n
Miller, who has a Jewish father and Catholic mother, said she considers herself \u201cculturally\u201d Jewish and objected to the idea that there is a single Jewish voice on the issue. She believes, she said, in \u201cdisconnecting the actions of a state against a group of people from my personal Jewish heritage, from my personal Jewish identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if passed, it\u2019s possible the ballot initiative could run afoul of a statewide ban on working with government contractors who openly boycott Israel \u2014 a so-called \u201canti-BDS law,\u201d one of many such measures enacted in a range of states.<\/p>\n
Those laws themselves have been debated for years. This fall a ballot initiative in Oak Park, Illinois, a liberal Chicago suburb, will ask voters to register a formal objection to that state\u2019s anti-boycott law. The initiative, which is opposed by local Jewish groups, survived a legal challenge on Monday.<\/p>\n
Hague acknowledged current Jewish divisions on Israel, and the difficult political climate for pro-Israel Jewish groups. Facing down a ballot initiative like this, she said, takes work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we know public opinion is not supportive of Israel right now. I think it\u2019s not an issue that people understand implicitly when they just read a ballot question,\u201d she said. \u201cSo yes, of course, there\u2019s reason for concern, and I think no matter what happens at the ballot, I still think it\u2019s an important moment.\u201d<\/p>\n