A volunteer-led campaign is collecting signatures ahead of the May primary election.
The signatures are being collected in an effort to trigger a ballot referendum asking Pittsburgh residents if the Home Rule Charter should be amended to align the city’s finances with “moral standards,” which would include divesting from Israel.
The volunteer-led campaign spearheading the effort is “made up of a coalition of Pittsburghers who are fed up with our public money going to support war crimes and apartheid,” according to its website.
The group is asking city residents to sign onto a petition that, if enough signatures are gathered, would add the question about Pittsburgh’s Home Rule Charter to their ballots in May.
The proposed ballot question would create a financial policy to divert funds from government “engaged in genocide and apartheid — such as the state of Israel – and corporations doing business with them.”
Ben Case, one of the organizers, said on a recent podcast episode that the group “wanted to put something on the ballot that wasn’t purely symbolic.” He added, “We wanted it to have some kind of material impact on our city’s policy.”
Last summer’s ballot question called on the city to divest from Israel. After receiving criticism for the vagueness of the last attempt, the group has said it has consulted lawyers and local partners to write legislation to support its effort.
The group said, “We’re basically saying as far as its legally possible, the city cannot do business with companies that are doing business with governments enacting genocide or apartheid or ethnic cleansing.”
The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh is exploring “all avenues” in response to the petition. Laura Cherner, the federation’s director of community relations, said that the referendum’s “inflammatory language” would be a “significant burden on the city”. “I think that it’s absolutely a priority for the Jewish community to challenge this referendum,” she said.
