“A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought,” wrote Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. On Dec. 10, I took a leap of action that I knew would be controversial — by divesting Alameda County from Caterpillar, which has long been the target of a campaign by the boycott, divest and sanctions movement, or BDS.
I am a financial professional, as well as an elected official. As Alameda County treasurer, I am trusted to make decisions about the money in our county government’s large investment portfolio, in accordance with our investment policy.
After I became aware that Alameda County held $32 million in Caterpillar bonds, I decided it was time to sell them. For years Caterpillar, an American manufacturer of construction equipment, has produced militarized bulldozers for the Israel Defense Forces, which uses them to destroy private homes in the West Bank and Gaza.
My values were formed when I was quite young. Through my Jewish heritage and education, I have absorbed lessons about the Ten Commandments, welcoming the stranger and Rabbi Hillel’s maxim “What is hateful to you, do not do to another.” Growing up as a Jew in New York City, this was my worldview, and I felt it was shared by my community.
I am 76 years old, born in 1948. When I was young, anyone who asked me what year I was born received my stock answer: “1948, the year that Babe Ruth died and Israel was born.” I went to Hebrew school, had a bar mitzvah and gave money for trees in Israel. As a young person, I was deeply affected by reading the novel “Exodus” by Leon Uris. I identified with the leading character, and the 1960 movie of the same name was seared into my subconscious. (It didn’t hurt that, like Paul Newman, I had dirty blond hair and blue eyes.) I was so proud of Israel.
My first trip to Israel was in 2018. When I returned, I began reading more about the history of Israel and Palestine and took a class from members of Jewish Voice for Peace. In 2022 I joined the Bay Area Network of Jewish Officials, which was formed by the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area. For me, this was a period of considering the relationship of antisemitism to anti-Zionism.
When I was young, anyone who asked me what year I was born received my stock answer: ‘1948, the year that Babe Ruth died and Israel was born.’
I went to Israel again in March 2023 on a trip subsidized by the JCRC. The JCRC encouraged us to read as broadly as we could in advance of our trip and gave us recommendations for a wide range of opinions.
While we were there, the entire delegation participated in demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. We heard a lecture from an Arab citizen of Israel about the 75 years of discrimination against Palestinians. We took a day-long tour of the West Bank, and we visited a kibbutz near Gaza that would be decimated by Hamas six months later.
After the delegation left, I stayed for an extra two days to meet with the director of Breaking the Silence, an organization that gives Israeli soldiers and veterans a means to confidentially discuss their experiences in the West Bank and Gaza. I also met with an Arab owner of a small business in East Jerusalem and a Jewish lawyer who defends Palestinians from discrimination. It was clear to me that relationships between Jewish Israelis and Muslim Palestinians would not withstand much more strain and would soon break.
The Oct. 7, 2023, attack was a shocking event, but the continued escalation of the conflict was not a surprise to me.
As a fiduciary, I must be extremely careful to stay within public policies. I also need to be careful not to impose my own values. So when a member of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors suggested the creation of a more substantial ethical investment policy, I was an enthusiastic supporter.
Unfortunately, one of our holdings, Caterpillar, which had already been the subject of more than two decades of protest by human rights groups, was simply an impediment to moving forward. The bulldozing of Palestinian homes appeared to be against our county’s official goals for our own residents that include “eliminate homelessness,” “eliminate poverty and hunger” and “accessible infrastructure.”
In the end, it was not a difficult decision for me to sell Caterpillar.
The current BDS movement against Israel began in 2005, but the use of boycotts and divestments was not unfamiliar to me. This is the way I learned to protest the actions of governments and big businesses in the 1960s. I participated in the United Farm Workers grape boycott that started in 1967, the campaign to divest from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa and other similar efforts over the years.
At the board of supervisors meeting on Dec. 10, I announced that I had indeed initiated the sale of our three bond positions in Caterpillar; two had already been sold and the third would be sold soon. I never wanted to be a treasurer who divested, but now that it’s done, I am proud of my leap of action.
On Thursday, Alameda County purchased a bond through a World Bank member organization that is lending money to the Bank of Palestine. The money will primarily support the economic development of women-owned businesses. We chose to invest a symbolic figure: $32 million, the amount we once held in Caterpillar bonds.
I remain dubious of the ability of divestment to bring about substantive change, but I think this is a fair way to fight and to protest injustice. It is nonviolent. It is creative. It is transparent.
And it is my way of following my Jewish values.