Jewish Federation, City controller challenge anti-Israel referendum
Referendum would ban city from doing business with Israel
A petition filed in Allegheny County Court on Aug. 6 seeks to bar the City of Pittsburgh from doing business with any entity that does business with or in the state of Israel.
The proposed referendum, promoted on the website “No War Crimes on Our Dime” and various anti-Israel social media sites, is fiscally sponsored by the Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America.
Two challenges to the referendum were filed, one by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, joined by its President and CEO Jeff Finkelstein, Rabbi Seth Adelson, Cantor Laura Berman, Rabbi Daniel Fellman and Rabbi Yitzi Genack, and one by City Controller Rachael Heisler.
The city solicitor did not file a challenge nor did anyone from Pittsburgh City Council.
In a statement to the Chronicle, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s press secretary Olga George said the office was aware of the legislation “and it was sent to our law department for preliminary review.”
The petition filed by the controller challenges the legality of the referendum while Federation’s petition challenges both the referendum’s legality and the signatures collected to get the referendum on the ballot in November.
According to the Allegheny County Elections Division, 12,495 signatures of registered voters living in Pittsburgh were required to get the referendum on the ballot. That number is 10% of those voting for governor in the last general election.
Federation’s petition states that 15,253 signatures were collected but 10,387 of those are invalid for various reasons, including some signatories are not residents of Pittsburgh. It also challenges the validity of several of the circulators who collected signatures for the petition.
For both Federation and Heisler, the language of the proposed referendum is problematic. It reads:
“Shall the Pittsburgh Home Rule Charter be amended and supplemented by a new article prohibiting investment or allocation of public funds, including tax exemptions, to entities that conduct business operations with or in the state of Israel unless and until Israel ends its military action in Gaza, fully allows humanitarian assistance to reach the people of Gaza, and grants equal rights to every person living in the territories under Israeli control?”
In an interview with the Chronicle, Heisler noted that the city does business with many global industries connected to Israel in one way or another, including pharmaceutical, public safety, automotive, financial and energy enterprises.
“It could prevent us from carrying out basic city functions, like providing electricity, purchasing life-saving medications, buying protective equipment for first responders, and even fueling police vehicles, to name a few,” she said. “It would severely disrupt the city’s entire contracting process, causing tremendous inefficiency and creating a massive risk of financial waste.”
As an example, Heisler said that the city uses the financial software of JD Edwards, which is owned by Oracle.
“You will not be shocked to learn that Oracle does business with the state of Israel,” she said. “I made a joke last Friday that we’ll only be able to use Excel spreadsheets, and someone said, ‘Microsoft does business with Israel.’”
Heisler said verifying whether an entity does business with Israel would become a function of her office, something that couldn’t be done at its current capacity.
StandWithUs’ Julie Paris said that the referendum would “affect every Jewish institution, our universities, our synagogues and even individuals and families. Israel technology and connections between Pittsburgh and the State of Israel are strong. This is completely impractical and immoral.”
The referendum, Heisler noted, also violates state law.
That issue was also raised in Federation’s petition, which references 2016’s Prohibited Contracts Act, in essence, an anti-BDS Pennsylvania law that makes it illegal for companies contracted by the state to boycott or discriminate against Israel or companies doing business there.
The petition filed by the Federation also pointed out that the ballot referendum petition did not contain the name or address of the person filing it, something required by the city’s home rule charter.
Another issue raised by both Heisler and Federation is the referendum’s language about tax exemption.
“That is exclusively the responsibility of state and federal law,” Heisler said. “The city has nothing to do with that and is one of the violations of state law we cite.”
At a downtown news conference in front of the City County Building shortly after filing the petition to challenge the proposed referendum, Finkelstein noted that only two weeks had passed since antisemitic graffiti was painted at both Chabad of Squirrel Hill and the Federation.
“This referendum is the latest action against our community,” he said.
Finkelstein said that the proposed referendum violates the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, adopted by 43 countries around the world and more than 30 states because it requires a behavior from Israel not expected or demanded by any other democratic nation.
Federation would be negatively impacted by the referendum, he said, before noting that its work in Israel includes coexistence programs with Jews and Arabs, health and human services, support to Oct. 7 survivors and hostages’ families, as well as the support of agencies like the Israel Trauma Coalition.
“The circulators of the referendum claim that it’s not targeting a specific group; we believe it is actually their goal,” he said. “Just like when people say, ‘I’m not a racist’ and what comes out of their mouth is racist, when people say, ‘I’m not homophobic’ and then what comes out of their mouth is homophobic. It’s the same here.”
Speaking to reporters, Adelson, rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom, explained that the news conference was occurring on Tisha B’Av, a fast day when the Jewish community remembers disasters and cataclysms in Jewish history, including the destruction of both Temples.
The proposed referendum, Adelson said, would make the Pittsburgh Jewish community less safe, noting that it would call into question whether the city could provide security for High Holiday services.
“We need the police to protect us,” he said.
Jeremey Kazzaz of the Beacon Coalition said the organization helped recruit volunteers to review the signatures on the petition and received offers of assistance from hundreds of people.
“We were met with an overwhelming response,” he said.
If he was encouraged by the response of the Jewish community, Kazzaz was equally bothered by the number of people from the mayor’s office and Democratic Party who signed and circulated the petition.
“Attaching their name to a petition that targets the Jewish community in the way this did and would crush their own city government just seems wild to me,” he noted.
A partial list of those signing the petition includes Allegheny County Councilperson Bethany Hallam and her boyfriend Muhammad Ali Nassir, who uses the name Man-E, both of whom are members of the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board; Summer Lee’s former field representative in Pittsburgh Kacy McGill; Morgan Overton, vice chair of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee; Mike Healey, ACDC Solicitor; and, Clara Weibel, Laura Byko and Dan Brown, who all serve on City Councilperson Barbara Warwick’s staff.
In a text to the Chronicle, Warwick said her staff members are free to engage in political activities during their off hours. She wrote that she found it “disconcerting” to be asked about them signing the petition, even though it would affect with whom and how City Council could do business.
“It is entirely understandable and human to want this war to end, to see the remaining hostages returned to their families and the unspeakable horrors being inflicted on the people of Gaza (and now increasingly the people of the West Bank) to stop,” Warwick said. “We do not all have to agree on how to get there.”
In contrast, state Rep. Dan Frankel, whose district includes Squirrel Hill, said that the proposed boycott would harm local synagogues, schools and small businesses and would further isolate Jews in the midst of already rampant antisemitism.
“It is not acceptable for our Jewish community members here in Pittsburgh to be targeted or retaliated against because of a foreign conflict they cannot control,” he said.
A hearing on the legal challenges to the referendum will be held on Monday, Aug. 19, before Judge John T. McVay. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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