By Jaisal Noor
This text was initially revealed by Truthout
Maryland’s public pension fund raised its Israeli bond holdings to $74 million in 2024.
On a chilly, sunny morning in October, Grace Smith, a 42-year-old Baltimore County center college trainer, arrived on the annual statewide academics union conference in Ocean Metropolis, Maryland, with two fellow educators and a folder filled with zines. Their mission: speak to as many academics as doable about Maryland’s pension investments in Israel and hand out each copy they’d introduced.
Smith estimated that they spoke to dozens of educators and distributed over 200 zines. The response, she stated, was overwhelmingly optimistic.
“Everybody I talked to was glad to listen to about it,” she stated. “They didn’t find out about it — they usually had been pissed.”
As a part of a nationwide motion to finish U.S. complicity in Israel’s ethnic cleaning of Palestine, Maryland Break the Bonds produced the zine to clarify how Israel funds its genocide in Gaza and settlement growth within the occupied West Financial institution by promoting “Israel Bonds,” and the way, based on data gleaned by FOIA requests, the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System (MSRPS) holds greater than $70 million in these bonds regardless of current credit score downgrades and a rising divestment push.
Its demand is easy: “Make investments Maryland cash in Maryland’s future, not in genocide.” Representing one-tenth of 1 % of Maryland’s $70 billion portfolio, the holdings have change into a symbolic goal in a marketing campaign targeted on the system’s 420,000 members — academics, state staff, and municipal staff.
Smith discovered in regards to the marketing campaign by a weekly vigil for Gaza held in Baltimore, Maryland, that she attends often. As an educator, she stated she was particularly shaken by studies that Israel, backed by U.S. weapons and support, has killed one Palestinian youngster each hour, and destroyed 90 % of faculties in Gaza.
The thought that her retirement is certain up in that destruction haunts her. “It’s a hellscape to have your capacity to retire rely on persevering with the U.S. conflict machine,” she stated. “I don’t know why it’s acceptable for a pension fund to develop by investing in genocide. I simply understand it doesn’t need to be that manner.”
Smith was drawn to the marketing campaign as a result of it builds on the legacy of earlier divestment actions. “Of all of the ways, divestment has been one of the efficient,” she stated.
The U.S. Investing Towards the World Tide
Over the previous two years, the U.S. has provided Israel with greater than $21 billion in navy support, however public opinion is altering. Polls present half of U.S. voters and three in 4 Democrats now consider Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Even nonetheless, the marketing campaign acknowledges divestment gained’t come simply however sees it as a concrete manner for constituents to place stress on public officers and maintain Israel accountable.
“Federal coverage isn’t going to vary,” stated Lauren Leffler, 31, an organizer with the marketing campaign. “However we are able to make it politically inconvenient for state officers to proceed these investments.”
Previously two years, Israel has turned to worldwide bonds to finance its conflict machine, together with promoting $5 billion price to U.S. buyers, principally state and native governments.
Utilizing Public Info Act requests, the marketing campaign uncovered that Maryland’s state pension system quietly bought about $10 million in Israel Bonds between July and December 2024, elevating its whole holdings to $74 million — whilst main worldwide funds divest over genocide issues and credit standing businesses downgrade the investments.
“Individuals can really feel actually helpless seeing a genocide funded by your tax {dollars},” stated Leffler. “Till you notice it’s not simply on the federal stage — it additionally occurs on the state and municipal stage. And that’s perhaps one thing I can change.”
The marketing campaign has about 40 core members and is led by the Baltimore and D.C. chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the biggest anti-Zionist Jewish group within the U.S. After months of unsuccessful personal conferences with state officers, they’re going public.
Maryland has deep financial ties to Israel and in 2017 barred firms that boycott Israel from receiving state contracts. Professional-Israel teams have referred to as divestment antisemitic — a declare the marketing campaign rejects.
Raised Jewish in Maryland, Leffler stated her religion compels her to oppose violence performed “within the title of Jewish security.”
“There is no such thing as a freedom or security for Jews in forcing individuals off their land and now killing individuals en masse in Gaza,” she stated. Her stance has drawn assist from some relations and triggered painful rifts with others, however solely strengthened her conviction that “motion is the one salve for ethical failure.”
Spearheaded by younger Jewish activists like Leffler, the marketing campaign displays a broader shift: A current ballot discovered 4 in 10 U.S. Jews consider Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and 61 % say it’s committing conflict crimes.
Maryland Strikes One Method, the World One other
Earlier this 12 months, funds in Norway and Denmark each divested from Israeli companies, citing the scenario in Gaza and accelerating Israeli settlement growth within the West Financial institution. On November 4, voters in Somerville, Massachusetts, grew to become the primary metropolis to approve a poll measure calling for divestment from Israel, becoming a member of Portland, Maine; Hamtramck, Michigan; and the California cities of Hayward and Richmond, which have handed related measures by their metropolis councils.
Maryland is transferring in the wrong way. Over the previous 18 months, Moody’s, Fitch, and S&P have all downgraded Israeli bonds and maintained destructive outlooks. In consequence, the debt now presents unusually excessive returns — greater than 5 % in comparison with about 2.5 for related sovereign bonds.
“The excessive rate of interest reveals how dangerous these investments actually are,” Leffler stated. “Even when they regarded good on paper, they’re nonetheless investments in genocide.”
For Rebecca Riley, a 29-year-old College of Maryland worker who has been deeply concerned within the marketing campaign since August, the trouble supplied a path past protest.
“Earlier than becoming a member of Break the Bonds, my activism was principally avenue protests,” she stated. “What I discovered right here is direct, efficient motion.”
Responses range, Riley stated. “Some individuals change into very open as soon as they be taught the historical past of occupation,” she stated. “Others, due to misconceptions about Israel and Judaism, don’t wish to interact with the information.”
She believes that resistance usually stems from confusion about Israel, Judaism, and Jewish security. “Some individuals assume divestment is antisemitic,” she stated. “When actually it’s about understanding the distinction between Judaism as a non secular id and the Israeli authorities enacting navy violence.”
For her, divestment is about ethical accountability. “It permits me to say, ‘That is our cash, our fund, and you’ve got an moral duty to cease funding human-rights violations,’” she stated.
Officers Say This Isn’t Their Accountability
Over many months, activists stated they met with MSRPS Appearing Chief Funding Officer Robert Burd, Deputy CIO Thomas Kim and Comptroller Brooke Lierman, who serves as vice chair of the board. Every, Leffler stated, gave the identical reply: Ethical and human rights issues are past their purview and any change in funding coverage would require legislative motion.
In an announcement to Truthout, SRPS Appearing Chief Funding Officer Robert Burd stated the fund’s investments are managed “for the unique advantage of our members and retirees” and in step with state legislation. He added that the system’s divestment coverage is ready by laws and should adjust to its obligation to prioritize monetary returns for retirees.
A spokesperson for Comptroller Brooke Lierman stated the pension system is following state legislation and that funding selections are made by its Chief Funding Officer, not the Board. Any change in coverage, the spokesperson added, must come from the Maryland Normal Meeting.
Individuals within the divestment marketing campaign like Leffler say they’re engaged on drafting laws, however they argue that genocide requires urgency. “These officers principally stated, ‘This isn’t my duty. It’s solely our job to contemplate the funds,’” Leffler stated. “I might argue all of us have a human duty to do the whole lot in our energy to finish a genocide.”
Activists level out that Maryland has acknowledged ethical imperatives elsewhere. In 2018, it grew to become the primary state to require its pension fund to routinely analyze climate-related monetary dangers. Final 12 months, the board created a Local weather Advisory Panel “to handle and mitigate local weather threat” within the system’s investments. To campaigners, that precedent reveals the fund can weigh systemic harms when it chooses.
In addition they notice that MSRPS has signed the United Nations Ideas for Accountable Funding, which name for human rights concerns in funding selections. In September 2025, a UN panel discovered Israel chargeable for acts of genocide in Gaza.
When activists requested officers to use that very same logic to Israel, they are saying they had been advised additional purchases are on the discretion of fund managers. “We had been advised they merely couldn’t or wouldn’t change as a result of it might entice consideration,” Leffler stated. “They stated it wouldn’t be politically expedient — however persevering with to purchase the bonds is itself a political determination.”
Echoes of the South Africa Struggle
In 1984, Maryland grew to become one of many first states to divest from apartheid South Africa, withdrawing $1 billion {dollars} and enjoying a job in isolating the regime, which fell a decade later underneath mounting worldwide stress.
South Africans have lengthy drawn parallels between their battle for liberation and that of Palestinians underneath Israeli occupation. In 2024, when the nation introduced a genocide case towards Israel earlier than the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice, South African officers referred to as the transfer a continuation of their anti-apartheid legacy.
For Leffler, the hyperlink is deeply private and rooted in experiences a decade in the past. In Cape City, the place she studied for a semester, she walked by the seen remnants of apartheid every day. “I used to be confronted day by day with the very apparent vestiges of apartheid,” she stated. When protests flared throughout Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, she started to attach the struggles. “It made me see the parallels to Israel’s remedy of Palestinians — one thing I’d by no means discovered rising up.”
Israel’s genocide in Gaza prompted her to hitch JVP’s Baltimore chapter, the place she serves on steering committee of Maryland Break the Bonds — her first marketing campaign. “The one factor that actually felt like a salve for that sense of ethical failure was motion,” she stated.
Break the Bonds is a part of a broader reckoning over how public cash fuels violence and planetary hurt. All over the world, pension and college funds that after poured billions into fossil fuels and apartheid regimes are dealing with questions on their complicity in loss of life and destruction.
“Simply as establishments as soon as realized they couldn’t revenue from South African apartheid or from local weather destruction, the identical is true right here,” Leffler stated. “We’ve an ethical and monetary obligation to cease funding genocide.”
From Maryland retirement funds to world funding boards, the query driving the motion is easy: What ought to — and shouldn’t — be profited from?
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