Northampton, Massachusetts — On Sept. 18, 2025, the Northampton City Council voted unanimously to approve a resolution urging the city treasurer and the Northampton Retirement Board to divest from and refrain from future investments in companies the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has identified as substantially and intentionally complicit in human rights violations in Israel and Palestine, and to complete divestment within two years.

The measure, introduced by Councilors Dobbs, Moulton and Maiori, asks municipal officials to notify investment advisers and fund managers of the city’s desire to avoid those companies and requests that the clerk send the resolution to state and federal officials. The resolution cited reports and findings from human rights organizations that it says justify the action; council sponsors emphasized the vote as a local, legal, nonviolent step aligned with prior Northampton positions on national policy.

Councilors and the mayor told the chamber the local financial exposure is small in dollar terms but meaningful in principle. Councilor Moulton said the city’s current direct holdings in companies that appeared on AFSC’s January list amounted to about $71,000 — roughly 0.62% of the city’s total investments — and argued that any amount is at odds with the city’s stated humanitarian values. Mayor Shera (spoke during the meeting) told councilors that the AFSC list has changed since January and that municipal retirement accounts contain no holdings from the AFSC list; she said the city’s outside investment manager reported the current exposure in the city’s pooled accounts was down to two companies, naming General Electric and the First International Bank of Israel as the remaining direct exposures from the earlier list.

Public comment before the vote featured more than an hour of testimony with dozens of speakers for and against the resolution. Supporters described the measure as a moral and practical step to avoid municipal complicity in rights violations. Rivka Niesensweig, who identified herself as an Israeli American and the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, said passing the resolution “would be honoring my ancestors, honoring my people.” Several speakers who said they are Jewish or have family ties to Israel urged the council to act; others said divestment could inspire other towns to follow. Opponents argued the municipal action would be symbolic, risk unfairly targeting Israeli citizens and businesses, or do more harm than good. Veronica Darman, of Northampton, told the council that because the city is thousands of miles from the conflict “boycotting or divesting … is actually not helping anyone affected by the war.”

Council procedure: Councilor Rothenberg moved to suspend the rules and permit a vote that night; that motion passed. The final motion to adopt the resolution was made by Councilor Maiori and seconded by Councilor Moulton. The council conducted a roll‑call vote: Council President Alex Jarrett, Councilor Rachel Maiori, Councilor Clemmer, Councilor LaBarge, Councilor Moulton, Councilor Dobbs and Councilor Rothenberg all voted yes; the resolution passed 7–0.

The resolution asks the treasurer and the retirement board to: (1) divest from companies identified as substantially and intentionally complicit in human‑rights violations in Israel and Palestine and refrain from future purchases of Israel bonds; (2) complete divestment within two years where feasible; and (3) direct investment advisers and fund managers to remove those companies from the city’s investment products. The resolution also directs the clerk to send copies to the mayor, the city treasurer, the retirement board chair and state and federal elected officials.

Officials said the AFSC list is not static and that companies could be removed from the list if they change behavior; the resolution relies on AFSC’s investigatory work. The council also noted local precedent for value‑based divestment: the body adopted a fossil‑fuel divestment position in 2013 and the mayor issued executive policy limiting contracts with nuclear weapons manufacturers in 2018.

What happens next: The resolution is an instruction to the treasurer and the retirement board rather than an immediate forced sale; city staff and the retirement board and their advisers will work through the technical and legal steps needed to implement divestment over the two‑year window, and the clerk will circulate the resolution to the public officials named in the text.

Ending — context and limits: Supporters called the vote a local, nonviolent tool to press for human rights accountability; opponents called it symbolic and potentially divisive. The council framed the measure as a narrow financial policy change tied to outside research (AFSC) and as consistent with past Northampton actions on values‑based investment policy.