Portland Mayor Mark Dion on Monday offered an apology to the city’s Jewish community for his vote last month in support of a resolution that called for a divestment of the city’s funds from a long list of entities allegedly “complicit in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

Mayor Dion called his vote a “serious mistake in judgment,” saying foreign policy falls outside of his responsibility as mayor, and that passage of the resolution only served to marginalize the city’s Jewish community.

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“Upon personal reflection, and following many private conversations I have had with our Jewish neighbors, I have come to conclusion that my vote on the divestment was wrong,” Mayor Dion said.

“In voting to support that resolution, I was pretentious in believing I had an opinion on geopolitics and corporate finance that had relevance,” Dion continued. “I had not only failed to stay in my lane, but I went totally off the road.”

“Municipal government has no standing in foreign policy matters, nor should it. No one vetted me during my election for mayor on my views regarding international affairs, or transnational banking, or corporate finance,” he added. “None of my constituents has ever reached out to me asking that I enter into the national political arena to discuss these policy issues — not a one.”

Dion said that at the time of his vote he was unaware of the “complexity of questions and competing information” behind the resolution.

“I should have recognized that blind spot in my thinking, but I didn’t — I own that,” he said.

Dion further said that passage of the resolution only served to “marginalize Portland’s Jewish community,” and his vote in support of the resolution damaged his own personal relationships.

“My vote was a betrayal to the trust that Jewish people should expect from the mayor’s office — they should not have to wonder whether city government will act to respect and protect their best interests,” Dion said.

“As an individual, I’ve also hurt, damaged and broken personal relationships, emotional ties which may never be repaired, he said. “While I’ve said it privately, I want to publicly express my personal regret and sincere apology for having voted to pass the divestment resolution.”

“My vote was not consistent with how I view my role as mayor, and it’s not consistent with my view of and respect for Portland’s Jewish community. In casting that vote, I made a serious mistake in judgment that I promise I will not repeat,” he said.

The divestment resolution, passed unanimously by the City Council at their Sept. 4 meeting, listed over 80 companies, including weapons manufacturers Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics, that the resolution states are “complicit in Israel’s violation of international law.”

Other prominent corporations on the divestment list were Chevron, Intel, General Electric, Motorola and Volvo.

It was alleged in the resolution that the listed entities are providing Israel with weapons, financing the expansion of Israeli settlements, or profiting from Israel’s “occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.”

The city’s finance director, Brendan O’Connell, said at the September meeting that “no divestment is expected to occur,” even after the resolution’s passage, as the city does not hold any investments from their general fund in the listed entities.

Explaining his support for the resolution at the September meeting, Mayor Dion, a former police officer and Cumberland County Sheriff, said “I see this as a police officer.”

“I see a government that had every right to defend, and I can appreciate the desire for retribution — that’s a human thing, and it gets translated into a government, it becomes a dangerous thing,” Dion said.

“But as I would as a police officer, I think our role collectively is to grab their shoulder and say ‘it’s enough, it’s simply enough,’ and pull them away,” Dion added. “And that’s sometimes the greatest act of friendship that you can do to someone you hold dear, as I hold my friends in the Jewish community.”

The Portland-based Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine (JCA) came out strongly against the divestment resolution, calling it “egregious” and claiming that it presented a “one-sided narrative” that failed to acknowledge the complexities of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“[The resolution] overlooks the fact that Israel, like any sovereign nation, has the right to defend itself against terrorist organizations like Hamas, whose actions on October 7, 2023, led to the current crisis,” the JCA leaders wrote in statement regarding the divestment resolution.

“This omission not only skews the discussion but also risks fueling antisemitic sentiments by singling out Israel for condemnation without acknowledging the broader context of regional instability and terrorism,” they wrote.

Several Jewish Portland residents voiced their support for the divestment resolution during public comment at the September meeting.

Jamila Levasseur, a former Portland resident, told the City Council that she was Jewish and was the descendant of Holocaust survivors, called Israel’s campaign in Gaza “another Holocaust.”

“Divestment is a powerful tool to bring peace and justice to all of Palestine,” Levasseur said.

Also read during the Portland City Council’s Monday meeting was a proclamation condemning both antisemitism and islamophobia in the city, sponsored by Councilor At-Large Pious Ali.