The Somerville, Mass., City Council is set to consider an “Ethical Procurement Ordinance” on June 30 that would bar the city from contracting with or investing in companies deemed complicit in what the measure describes as “the violence and destruction taking place in Gaza and Palestine by Israel’s actions, which are supported by the United States.”
If approved, Somerville would become the third Massachusetts municipality to adopt such a measure, following similar actions in Medford and Northampton.
The proposal follows a nonbinding ballot question approved by Somerville voters in November 2025. The measure passed with 55.7% of the vote and called on city officials to end business relationships with companies that “engage in business that sustains Israel’s apartheid, genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine.”
On Nov. 25, 2025, the council adopted a resolution supporting divestment and pledged to “work toward passing an ordinance within a year.”
On Wednesday, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League sent a letter to Somerville Mayor Jake Wilson and other city officials urging them to reject the proposal, calling it “flagrantly unconstitutional” and warning that its adoption could prompt legal challenges.
Richard Rosen, senior vice president for legal advocacy at the Brandeis Center, told JNS that the proposal comes amid rising Jew-hatred in the city.
“Israelis and Jews are being vilified in this community. There is a hostility toward Jews in the community. Jewish families are leaving,” Rosen said. “The idea that a Jewish family would feel obligated to leave their home in the United States in 2026 because of antisemitism—it’s easy to say it’s shocking, it’s mind-blowing, but it is.”
Rosen told JNS that the pending ordinance is “written so broadly that it would prohibit the city from doing business with Microsoft.”
“They are not focusing on Israeli companies,” he added. “An American company that is contracting with Israel is covered.”
“Somerville is not supposed to be conducting U.S. foreign policy,” Rosen said. “They don’t like the foreign policy of the United States, so they’re freelancing to set their own foreign policy with respect to contractual relations with companies that do business with Israel. They’re not allowed to do that. It’s that simple.”
Somerville, a city of roughly 80,000 residents just northwest of Boston, drew national attention in January 2024 when it passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, prompting widespread online mockery that a small Massachusetts city had brokered peace in the Middle East.
Northampton‘s resolution, unanimously passed in September 2025, and Medford‘s ordinance, enacted in late 2025, are both being challenged in court by opponents who argue that municipalities cannot use contracting and investment policies to conduct their own foreign policy toward Israel.
