Providence Is Poised to Become the Largest U.S. City to Divest From Israel. What Happens Next? -
Supporters and critics of a ballot initiative to force Providence, Rhode Island, to divest from Israel agree on one major point: It's almost certainly going to pass.
If voters approve Question 7 on November 3, Providence will become the largest city in the United States with legislation meant to divest from Israel, and officials will immediately be required to shift the city's investments.
Opponents, including Rhode Island's mainstream Jewish leaders and rabbis, argue that Question 7 is too broadly written, unlikely to substantively change Providence's investments, and already contributing to a hostile climate against local Jews.
The measure's supporters, including Providence's significant anti-Zionist Jewish activist corps, see a chance to show that local votes can translate growing opposition to Israel nationwide into public policy.
The item does not name Israel. Instead, voters are asked to answer yes or no to the question "Shall an Ordinance divesting from foreign countries conducting severe violations of human rights such as ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide be approved?"
The ordinance also covers companies that knowingly enable such violations, potentially extending its reach beyond Israeli companies and government bonds. The complete language of the measure says that official rulings from the International Court of Justice, certain bodies of the United Nations and federal U.S. courts would trigger divestment. Organizers cite several rulings they say already meet the standard, such as a 2025 reportcommissioned by the UN Human Rights Council concluding that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Israel has rejected the allegation.
With most of the municipal races already decided during the Democratic primaries in September, both sides are trying to persuade voters to turn out. They are also preparing for what follows: Supporters hope to replicate the initiative nationwide, and opponents are gearing up for legal challenges.
"We're excited to work with fellow activists around the country interested in learning from our work and replicating it in their own communities," said Zach Kligler, a Jewish day school graduate who is a lead organizer with Providence for Palestine.
Stephanie Hague, chief strategy officer at the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, which opposes Question 7, anticipates a thornier future. "There are a whole host of potential legal challenges that we would probably be engaging with national Jewish organizations that specialize in this" to explore, she said. "But I think we're kind of taking it one step at a time."
Bypassing the council
Providence's vote represents the latest and most forceful effort to put Israel on the ballot at a time when sympathy for Israel is in freefall. Some efforts have been stymied before reaching the ballot, while a resolution endorsed by voters last year in Somerville, Massachusetts, 50 miles to the north, was non-binding and remains mired in litigation.
Question 7, on the other hand, would be binding for Providence, home to just under 200,000 people who are on average younger and more left-leaning than in most American cities. A steady supply of Brown University students and graduates has long powered progressive politics. The City Council voted in 2006 to divest from Sudan over the government's genocide in Darfur, and in 2013, it voted to divest from fossil fuels.
In 2024, a year into the current war in Gaza, the City Council's Jewish president, Rachel Miller, introduced an ordinance that would have barred Providence from investing in Israel bonds. But the current mayor, Brett Smiley, who is Jewish, vowed to veto the ordinance, calling it antisemitic, and it did not advance.
This year, pro-Palestinian organizers turned to a clause in the city's charter allowing them to bypass the council and put the measure before the electorate if they collect signatures from five percent of registered voters. In July, the organizers – from Jewish Voice for Peace, the state's Democratic Socialists of America chapter, and other progressive groups – announced that they had enough signatures to put Question 7 onto the November ballot.
"It's important to us that our city is not invested in these kinds of crimes and atrocities anywhere in the world, not just in Israel and Palestine," Kliger said. "Currently, Israel's genocide in Gaza and apartheid system in the occupied West Bank are the most glaring examples of this phenomenon. ... But we also know that may change over time, and we want future organizers to have this ordinance as a tool for future struggles."
Benjamin Case, a sociologist who heads the Ballot Initiatives Project at Arizona State University, said the Providence legislation was "very well crafted." He noted that the complete text outlines mechanisms for enforcement, addresses the complexity of contemporary investment funds and contains a clause guaranteeing that it cannot require officials to abandon their "fiduciary responsibilities" and make decisions that harm the city's coffers.
"They certainly took the workings of city government very seriously. It's a fairly precise instrument," Case said.
His own support for Question 7, he said, comes in part from his Jewish values and in part because of his belief in the power of ballot initiatives. "The question of U.S. foreign policy concerning unconditional support for the Israeli government is a really heated issue," said Case, who backed a similar initiative in Pittsburgh that failed to reach a vote. "If we can't resolve questions like that democratically in this country, then we're in trouble."
After verifying that organizers collected enough valid signatures, the Jewish Alliance refocused its efforts on campaigning to convince voters that divestment would be financially irresponsible, divide the local community and do little to promote peace.
"The moral seriousness of an action depends on its likely consequences as well as its intentions. We must ask of this action: Whom will it help, what can it accomplish, and who will bear its costs?" three Providence rabbis wrote in an op-ed this week urging votes against Question 7.
One of them, Rabbi Sara Mack, told Haaretz that her Reform congregation on Providence's East Side, the heart of its Jewish community, largely opposes Question 7 but includes members who plan to vote for it. Providence is home to an estimated 15,000 Jews.
"There's not one monolithic feeling about it, and I think that's probably the hard part. It's incredibly divisive and hurtful, and in a small community … that is definitely taking a toll," she said.
"It feels antisemitic to many people, and I do think it is targeting the Jewish community," Mack added. "There is a sense of feeling discriminated against for being Jewish, and that is a new feeling for many people, and it hurts."
Rabbi Michael Fel of Temple Emanu-El, the city's Conservative synagogue, said he had departed from a longstanding policy of avoiding partisan politics to come out against Question 7. He said he recently spent an hour explaining arguments against the initiative to a congregant.
"I don't know how she's going to vote, but she said to me very clearly, 'I hadn't thought about all of the things that you're bringing. I hadn't thought about them that way before,'" Fel said. "It took an hour with two people talking in a room. How you do that over an entire city is really hard."
A long road ahead
The Jewish Alliance has pressed its case through a social media campaign and media coverage, eschewing more expensive strategies such as a large-scale ground campaign. Supporters of Question 7, meanwhile, have knocked on doors, manned phone banks and held community events to rally voters. Kligler said 100 volunteers are canvassing the city in the week ahead of the election.
How much money is on the line depends on which investments are counted. The ordinance covers both countries that are implicated in severe human rights violations and companies that "directly and knowingly enable and contribute" to those violations. Providence officials say the city's pension funds do not directly invest in Israeli companies or bonds, though a small amount – up to $119,000, according to a Boston Globe report – may be indirectly invested through mutual funds. But Providence for Palestine estimates that the city has at least $2.5 million invested in companies it considers "complicit" with Israel, including American companies. The Jewish Alliance says divestment would place an undue burden on pension administrators, with little practical impact.
Lex Rofeberg, a rabbi living in Providence who is active in efforts to pass Question 7, said he didn't think the scale of the city's investments in Israel should matter.
"Jewish tradition has all sorts of injunctions and delineations around how each of us might allocate our money: how we might support Jewish community, how we might support education, how we might set aside corners of our field for those who are impoverished," he said. "The idea that how we allocate our money is somehow not a moral question, not an ethical question that we should be considering, I don't really understand it."
What's clear is that Question 7, if approved, will find city leaders who are inclined to follow its directives. David Morales, a 27-year-old democratic socialist who believes Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, defeated Smiley in September's Democratic primary. The City Council, too, is expected to have a pro-Palestinian majority.
The city's divestment record shows that it is possible to extricate funds even from complex investments, said AnnaJane Yolken, who is running unopposed to replace Miller in Ward 13. Instead of trying to divest immediately from every entity with ties to fossil fuels, she said, the city started with the easiest options and got more granular over time. "I really see there being a similar path here," she said.
Legal and practical obstacles remain. In addition to potential legal challenges from Jewish groups, the initiative faces scrutiny from city officials, who announced last week that they had hired a retired federal judge to evaluate Question 7's legality. Although a decade-old state law designed to counter boycotts of Israel does not prohibit municipal divestment, some argue that it could still affect the measure.
Meanwhile, Providence's current treasurer, Shomari Husband, has warned that complying with the law would be challenging. "It will definitely be a daunting task for me," he said in July.