How a Small New England Town Won Divestment from Israel

If you care about supporting solutions journalism so we can realize a better world together, please consider upgrading your subscription TODAY

Subscribe for as little as $4 a month (5-day free trial)

FEATURING TAMAR SARAI - On November 4, 2025, the small New England town of Somerville, Massachusetts became the first in the nation to pass a ballot measure instructing local authorities to divest from Israel. The vote, labeled “Question 3” passed with 56% support. Weeks later, the Somerville City Council followed through with the voter demand and passed a resolution to follow through on the process of divestment. 

How did Somerville do it and how can other cities follow suit?

Tamar Sarai is a Philadelphia based journalist. She is currently a contributing writer at Prism as well as a History PhD student at Temple University and wrote about Somerville's Question 3 fight. She spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about the story.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: So let's talk about Somerville's, small little town, but very liberal. And although it sounds like something that might be seen as not terribly surprising, as you point out in your story on Prism, the issue of Question 3 was not without challenges. How did it start? I understand it was just two short years ago that a single individual was able to begin mobilizing and helped form a broad-based coalition to make this question and ballot measure possible?

Tamar Sarai: Yes, yes. So, the organization behind the ballot question is called Somerville for Palestine. And it's a group of local organizers, community members that came together at the end of 2023, and they were really committed to having their city council pass a ceasefire resolution. And so they successfully advocated for that ceasefire resolution, and it passed in January of 2024, making Somerville actually the first city in Massachusetts to put to pass their own ceasefire resolution. 

So, that was a big win for Somerville for Palestine especially given the fact that the coalition was so new. And from there, they really wanted to make sure that Somerville was a part of the BDS movement. So, “boycott, divest, sanction,” and that started with organizers just following the money and doing a lot of in-depth research.