Somerville residents found mailers on their doorstep just over a week ago telling them to vote against a ballot measure on Nov. 4. Which ballot measure? The mailers, distributed by a group called Focus on Somerville, don’t say, indicate just that “you may have heard” of it.
The mailers were paid for by Somerville United Against Discrimination, a group funded by the Anti-Defamation League and wealthy Greater Boston residents, according to a required disclaimer on the mailers. Though the mailers don’t go beyond saying the measure “does not actually help Palestinians,” it’s clear they refer to a measure that would act as a nonbinding call for Somerville leaders to end business with companies that engage in “business that sustains Israel’s apartheid, genocide, and illegal occupation of Palestine.”
The measure is popular – Somerville Boycott Question for Palestine Committee, the group that officially submitted and supports it, collected 8,013 certified signatures to get the measure on the ballot, according to the city’s Board of Election Commissioners, a number equivalent to 10 percent of the city’s population and 15 percent of registered voters. More than a third of the candidates running for Somerville City Council seats in the upcoming election have pledged to vote yes on the measure, as did mayoral hopeful Willie Burnley Jr. Only one council candidate said explicitly they wouldn’t.
At a Monday hearing, the Somerville Elections Commission overturned an Oct. 2 attempt by Somerville United Against Discrimination to invalidate more than 8,000 of the signatures, which would remove the measure from the ballot. Testimony in support of the measure came from state senator Patricia Jehlen, state representative Mike Connolly and councilors Burnley, Will Mbah, Ben Ewen-Campen and Naima Sait.
During the hearing, protesters organized by the community group Somerville for Palestine filled the chambers after a protest outside City Hall. “The presence of the community underscored the popular support for the question and the desire to vote on it,” Somerville for Palestine member Leila Skinner said.
Somerville United Against Discrimination has support from Judy Pineda Neufeld, a former Somerville city councilor. She resigned June 30 and two days later donated $1,000 to the group. Neufeld has sent mass texts to Somerville residents in which she says she leads the group, urging people to vote against the measure. Her exact involvement is “a little unclear,” said Lucy Tumavicus, treasurer of the Somerville Boycott Question for Palestine Committee. Neufeld did not respond to a request for comment.
In those texts, Neufeld says opposition to the measure has received more than $150,000 from 130 donors, meaning an average donation of more than $1,000. The standout name among those donors is the Anti-Defamation League, which has redirected its work “to target pro-Palestine activism rather than focusing on antisemitism in American life,” in recent years, according to former staffers. The ADL has also ramped up pro-Israel lobbying since 2023.
By comparison, “we have wealth in people, in people’s heart and moral clarity on this issue,” Skinner said. “I honestly think no amount of money can compete with that.” Somerville for Palestine, which formed in response to the 2023 start of the genocide in Gaza, is run by volunteers.
Since the measure is nonbinding, it wouldn’t immediately end all business with complicit companies. “A logical next step, if and when the ballot question passes,” Skinner said, “is for the council to take the mandate of their constituents and pass an ordinance that would be binding.” That implementation would require collaboration within the city’s finance department.
It wouldn’t be the first divestment ordinance in Somerville. In 2020, after Black Lives Matter protests, the Somerville City Council passed an ordinance to prohibit the use of prison labor. Somerville for Palestine also successfully advocated for a January 2024 resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. “[It] was in no way an easy get,” Tumavicus said. “That required a lot of advocacy and deep, emotional conversations with councilors.”
If the measure gets the votes and a binding ordinance passes, the city would become the third in Massachusetts to divest after Medford in August and Northampton in September, Skinner noted.
“We do believe this has the potential to have a watershed effect,” said Tumavicus.
Opposition to the measure seems to agree: “If we lose,” a mid-September text from former councilor Neufeld reads, “similar campaigns will spread across Massachusetts and around the country.”
A version of this story appeared originally on HorizonMass. This post was updated Oct. 11, 2025, to cite Board of Election Commissioners figures on the number of signatures collected.
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