Providence Voters Approve Binding Divestment Ordinance, Largest US City to Do So

Providence, Rhode Island, voters passed a binding divestment ordinance on Tuesday by a margin of 74.99 percent, directing the city to pull its money from companies tied to genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and prolonged military occupation.

The measure, Question 7 on the municipal ballot, does not name Israel. But it was built by a coalition that spent the past year organizing specifically around the city's financial ties to the Israeli government, and it is being read by organizers and advocacy groups as a direct win for the boycott movement.

What sets Providence apart from the roughly half dozen other US cities that have passed divestment measures since 2024, including Hayward and Richmond in California, Portland and Belfast in Maine, Hamtramck and Dearborn in Michigan, and Medford and Cambridge in Massachusetts, is how it got done. Those ordinances moved through city councils. Providence's came from a petition drive that bypassed a city council and a mayor who had already stalled it once.

Jewish Voice for Peace-Rhode Island, one of five groups in the Providence for Palestine Coalition, said in a press release that the city has a two-decade history of investing in Israel Bonds.

"Providence has a 20-year history of investing millions in Israel Bonds, which function as direct, no-strings-attached loans to the Israeli government and military."

That history is what the coalition set out to end. According to organizer and city councilor-elect Jackie Goldman, allied council members first introduced a divestment ordinance through normal legislative channels, where it stalled under opposition from outgoing Democratic Mayor Brett Smiley, described by Goldman as a staunch supporter of Israel.

Rather than keep lobbying, the coalition turned to the city charter's ballot initiative process. Providence requires 1,000 signatures to bring an ordinance before the council, and if the council declines to act, roughly 5,000 more signatures to put it directly before voters. Organizers say they gathered more than 10,000, more than double what was needed, after consulting with activists in Pittsburgh who had run a similar referendum and drawing on the example of Somerville, Massachusetts, which became the first US city to vote to divest from Israel in 2025.

Goldman, who was elected to the Providence City Council the same night and is the first openly transgender person to hold a seat on it, called the approach "a first constituent-led ballot initiative, which is both unique and replicable," telling Truthout that organizers decided not to wait on elected officials and instead "do that work ourselves to make it happen."

The vote makes Providence the largest US city to approve divestment from Israel through any method, and the first to do it by direct popular vote rather than council action, adding a new template to a movement that has so far relied on persuading sitting officials.