An order for Somerville to keep its money out of companies that “directly, knowingly and consistently” contribute to violations of international law – specifically in Israel and Palestine – was passed 10-1 on Thursday by the City Council.
It followed a similar vote in Cambridge on Oct. 28, but while that neighboring city narrowly passed a “divestment” policy 5-4, it just as narrowly rejected a second “boycott” policy. Somerville’s one order incorporated both kinds of limits on the spending of taxpayer dollars on companies that are seen to participate in “apartheid, genocide or unlawful military occupation.”
Also like Cambridge, the legal language leans on the American Friends Service Committee as a resource to identify which companies are on the divestment and boycott list. And both cities have wrestled with their orders for several months or years, drawing raucous crowds to a series of City Hall meetings and bitter, impassioned and divided debate.
The Somerville order moves to the office of mayor Jake Wilson, who can sign it into law, do nothing – in which case it will become law automatically in 10 days – or veto it. A veto would return it to the council, which can overcome a veto with approval of eight of the 11 members. Wilson was unreachable for comment Thursday after the vote.
Wilson’s office released a statement the next day:
The City Council has approved this measure with a veto-proof majority, and therefore it will become ordinance. We’ll be conferring with staff on implementation. My job in this moment as mayor is also to hold together our divided community. Here in Somerville, no matter how different residents feel about this ordinance, we all share the fundamental values that all people, all over the world, deserve safety, dignity and respect. I’m focused right now on the work of rebuilding and strengthening the bonds of community that we share as neighbors.
Wilson did not support a precursor divestment question on the Nov. 4, 2025, ballot, saying he couldn’t support it “as written.” He called it incompatible with a state public procurement law that he read as limiting a city’s ability to choose vendors solely by the standards of quality and cost.
Fifty-five percent of Somerville voters supported passage of the nonbonding ballot question. Sara Halawa, a founder and one of the leaders of Somerville for Palestine, felt that kind of support made a difference Thursday.
“They realize this is what the voters of Somerville want, and there’s really no reason not to support it. And I think they realize that this is something that’s meeting the moment right now,” Halawa said of councilors.
“Wave of complete happiness”
The vote was the culmination of three years of organizing, Halawa said, and Somerville for Palestine was optimistic about next steps. “The mayor has affirmed to us on multiple occasions that he’s not going to go against the council, and he will figure out how to enforce this important ordinance,” Halawa said. “We’re confident that we’ll have a seat at the table in that discussion and work very closely with him on putting this into practice.”
With Halawa on the way to a celebration of the vote was Mia Haddad, another organizer with S4P. She said she’d been in the front row of seats in council chambers with other Palestinian community members as the vote was taken.
“All of us felt this wave of complete happiness and relief that our families, our people, are finally being heard here … My family was expelled from Palestine 78 years ago. And since then, we’re continuing to see this ethnic cleansing, this occupation, apartheid, genocide,” Haddad said. “To have this moment where we actually take our Somerville tax dollars and say we don’t want to spend money on that anymore, it means the entire world to me.”
The local votes are part of a wave, the organization believes. Haddad noted that a divestment ballot question in Providence passed this Election Day with more than 76 percent support.
Opponents of the order
Sam Gechter, co-founder and president of the organization Shalom Somerville, saw the order’s passage and future in a different light. “We know from talking to councilors in private that they voted tonight not out of the sense of justice that they all spoke about, but out of a sense of fear – from the intimidation and bullying of Somerville for Palestine,” Gechter said. “They are afraid for their jobs, and that was a big motivator for a lot of them. It’s really disappointing to see people who we’ve elected to represent us be acting out of cowardice.”
The mayor said “several times” that he would veto an ordinance that named a country – as Thursday’s order does – “so we would hope that he would keep his word,” Gechter said.
Shalom Somerville also sees laws such as Somerville’s as part of a wave – but not one to celebrate. “This looks like one little thing happening in Somerville, but this is part of a much, much larger thing that is happening in the world, where Jews are being made to feel unwelcome in civic life,” Gechter said. “This should be seen in the larger context of rising antisemitism, the anti-Zionist hate movements around the world.”
Fear of growing antisemitism was a theme also in speeches against the order by councilor Kristen Strezo – the sole vote in opposition – and her sponsored speaker at the meeting, former Ward 6 councilor Rebekah Gewirtz. An attempted bicycle “boycott ride” in Philadelphia on Sunday was cited by each as example of rising nationwide antisemitism; it fell on the same weekend as the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi attack known as the “Night of Broken Glass.”
“The Nazis worked to deter the public from shopping at Jewish businesses. Their efforts started in moments like tonight. Colleagues, are you sure you want to go forward with this ordinance,” Strezo said, calling the order illegal and against Somerville’s ethos as a welcoming, nondiscriminatory city. Strezo, who is Jewish, pointed also at more local incidents, including at Michael’s Deli in Brookline, and at a kosher grocery store there that had a brick thrown into the window on which was written “free Palestine.”
Councilors in support
The lead sponsors of the order, though, are Jewish, and spoke of the methodical care taken to move through the legislative process with an order filed in response to the 2025 ballot question.
“We worry that if we talk about it, we will be misunderstood or mischaracterized or called an antisemite. And the pressure to be quiet about this issue, in my personal experience, has been extraordinary,” councilor Ben Ewen-Campen said. “I think that the effect of silence on this issue is not neutral. I think that it serves a strategic purpose. Silence on this issue contributes to a status quo that is not tolerable.”
Councillor Ben Wheeler spoke of the moral issues of drafting the legislation but looked beyond to its practical effect, knowing passing it would mean staff and the administration having “to deal with new and difficult questions.” For that reason, work went into assuring it was “legal, practical, durable and just,” he said. “This ordinance names Israel and Palestine because the ballot question that brought us here did – but its standard does not require anyone’s political beliefs to match others, and it’s not about these named places alone.”
Other councilors offered words of support simple and sweeping. Will Mbah called it “a modest ordinance” that sought to align city procurement and investment practices with values Somerville has long stood for – human rights, accountability, fairness and the responsible use of public dollars. “It is not about targeting a people, a religion or a community,” he said.
Councilor Naima Sait called the ordinance a way of “taking moral and fiscal actions to ensure that we are not complicit in a genocide of mostly children and women.”
This post was updated Nov. 13, 2026, with a statement from the mayor’s office, to clarify that councilor Kristen Stezo is Jewish and to add examples of local concerns around antisemitism.
