Minneapolis City Council members want to see Zencity, an Israeli survey company, removed from the city budget and an end to a $500,000 contract between the company and the Minneapolis Police Department.
Zencity is a global tech company that helps clients with public safety and community engagement, and is drawing criticism from advocacy groups and city council members during city budget discussions.
A Minneapolis Police Department and Zencity contract was first introduced in 2023, after findings from the federal consent decree found misconduct in the Minneapolis Police Department, which the City Council approved in a three-year contract.
MPD sent Zencity’s first five-minute survey to Minneapolis residents in December. Minneapolis spokesperson Brian Feintech said in an email statement to the Minnesota Daily that the survey was a way for police to understand the community better and reduce crime.
Zencity was originally developed in Tel-Aviv, Israel and its U.S. headquarters are in New York. The company works with local municipalities in Israel and around the world.
The connection to Israel led to pushback from groups like Jewish Voices for Peace.
Jewish Voices for Peace member Josina Maltzman said Zencity’s ongoing connections to the Israeli government and its involvement in the Israel-Hamas war are enough to ask it to be removed.
“So we see cutting the contract with Twin Cities as a part of that boycott call of disengaging with companies that have ties to the Israeli military or government in order to support the Palestinian struggle,” Maltzman said.
While Zencity is not directly tied to Israeli intelligence, the company’s co-founder, Eyal Feder-Levy, served as an officer in the 8200 unit of the Israeli Defense Forces. Israel has a mandatory military service requirement for citizens over the age of 18 who meet certain requirements, MPR reported.
Israeli company divestment has been a rallying cry in the U.S. since 2005, but it became a larger discussion in the U.S. after the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
City Council Members Elliott Payne (Ward 1), Jeremiah Ellison (Ward 5), Jason Chavez (Ward 9) and Aisha Chughtai (Ward 10) put forth a resolution to support a permanent ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in January, calling for the end of U.S. military funding and the release of all Israel and Palestine hostages.
Companies sponsored by Israel have been investigated by the public after controversy from the war, which currently has a 3-stage ceasefire in the works, reported AP News.
Bob Goonin, a Jewish Voices for Peace member, said the survey lacks accountability from residents.
“The way in which the police department is conducting this survey, they designed it, they manage it, they completely own it,” Goonin said. “And we think that’s the direct opposite of accountability, especially when you think about the Black and Indigenous communities that they’ve harmed, that there’s no accountability in this process to those communities.”
This is not the first time Zencity has been scrutinized by the community. Brooklyn Park and Woodbury privacy advocates criticized the company in 2021 for using artificial intelligence to aggregate social media posts, reported WCCO.
In a statement, Feintech, the Minneapolis city spokesman, said the survey helped MPD learn more about Minneapolis’ community issues like crime, safety and whether the police are treating them fairly.
“Engaging with the community is a crucial aspect of public safety — one around which our reform efforts are centered. This pilot program allows us to hear directly from the community, and residents don’t need to wait until the next community meeting to have their voice heard,” Feintech said.
Council member Katie Cashman (Ward 7) said the first results of the survey felt disappointing compared to how much the city council budget is paying for it.
“It was really underwhelming, to say the least,” Cashman said. “It was very clear that it wasn’t producing much in terms of community outcomes or contributing to public safety in any way”.
After the survey results and talks with constituents, Council Member Payne sent a letter to the mayor asking for Mayor Jacob Frey to end the contract in early November.
“It is difficult to defend the need for the Community Perception Survey to our constituents, given questions regarding its purpose, ethics, and concerns over surveillance. This survey work can certainly be done in-house,” Payne said in a statement to the Daily.
While the City Council can amend the budget to remove the contract, Mayor Jacob Frey has the power to veto the amendments.
Cashman believes the $500,000 can go to community safety programs in Minneapolis, such as new civilian investigator positions — people who work for the police department, but are not sworn in as police.
MPD said in a press conference that it only contracted for the survey portion.
Both Cashman and Goonin believe community engagement should be more collaborative.
The City Council has about 40 amendments to Frey’s proposed budget — including ending the contract — but Cashman said the council is willing to fight on this issue.
Zencity has both Palestinian and Israeli developers, but Maltzman said that does not help her concern.
“We see that as putting lipstick on a pig,” Maltzman said.
KG
Dec 14, 2025 at 6:09 am
JD, I am not conflating antisemitism and antizionism; they are two sides of the same coin of Jew hatred. While classic antisemitism defined Jews as a “race,” Jews have always been an amalgamation of ethnicity, religion, and national identity. Antizionism treats the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel not as the proven historical fact that it is, but as a crime. It rejects the idea that Israel is the Jewish people’s homeland, framing the Jewish presence there as an unpardonable stain—that of daring to exist as a sovereign nation in its ancestral home. This functions much like the concept of Original Sin: nothing the state does can ever be right, because its very existence is deemed wrong.
This is evident in the Zencity debate. As the article notes, Zencity employs Palestinians, yet JVP demands its cancellation solely due to the company’s Israeli origin. In this worldview, no level of coexistence or diversity can redeem an Israeli entity, just as no two-state solution could ever be acceptable. Apparently, even Palestinians must suffer for their connection to Israel.
Campus antizionism functions as a closed echo chamber repeating easily disproven slogans. Antizionists shout “settler-colonialism,” erasing 3,000 years of continuous Jewish presence; modern Zionists were simply returning to their indigenous brethren. Antizionists mention genocide, but if Israel were committing genocide, how did the Gaza population explode from roughly 400,000 in 1967 to over 2 million in 2023, with a life expectancy surpassing that of neighboring Egypt prior to the war? Antizionists mention apartheid, yet Arab citizens study at Israeli universities and work in the healthcare system in proportion to their population. Finally, regarding “resistance”: Hamas has governed Gaza since 2007 with billions in international aid and no Israelis in its midst. Hamas had the opportunity to build a thriving civil society; instead, it chose to build a militarized terror state that invited the very conflict that necessitated Israeli self-defense.
@TA
Dec 12, 2025 at 9:03 pm
You’re great at asking questions, TA, so you have that going for you!
TA
Dec 12, 2025 at 10:14 am
lol “nothing to do with ethnicity”.
I genuinely don’t understand how you people sleep at night. Are you dumb, or just a bad person? Or both?
@TA
Dec 11, 2025 at 4:23 pm
TA, you know it has nothing to do with ethnicity. You need to be smarter if you want to play dumb.
KG
Dec 11, 2025 at 4:23 am
JD, the distinction you attempt to draw between antizionism and antisemitism collapses under scrutiny. Antizionism falsely applies a settler-colonialist paradigm to Israel-Palestine. Historically, Zionists were returning to their ancestral homeland where their brethren had lived continuously for 3,000 years, legally purchasing land to settle there. Furthermore, simply labeling Israel’s defense against Hamas as “genocide” is a reversal of reality. Hamas initiated a genocidal attack on Israel on October 7, and the tragic civilian casualties in Gaza are the direct result of Hamas systematically using its own people as human shields.
JVP promotes these lies and rejects anything associated with the Jewish state—as seen in their push to cancel the Zencity contract solely due to its Israeli roots. This isn’t criticism of policy; it is a rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Zionism is integral to Jewish belief and history. While I do not determine who is a Jew, JVP has determined their own path: they have chosen to sever themselves from the vast majority of Jewish tradition to serve as tokens for a terrorist movement that seeks to wipe out Israel from the river to the sea. A group that turns so viciously against its own community is not just “political”—it is a deep and profound betrayal of its own beliefs and heritage.
JD
Dec 10, 2025 at 12:09 pm
KG, calm down on the hasbara intake. You can’t decide who is Jewish based on their defense or criticism of the modern state of Israel. Your words are extremely offensive to other Jews, the very people you claim you are fighting for/protecting while you heavily conflate anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
TA
Dec 10, 2025 at 11:48 am
Oh so because of their ethnicity the university shouldn’t do business with them?
It’s astounding how unintelligent these people are.
Also, “community advocates” is code for overweight, annoying losers who only care about shaking the city/state down for money.
nah
Dec 9, 2025 at 3:09 pm
For those who are serious about true public safety, nothing will ever replace authentic community engagement; there is zero need for Mpls to pay non-community members for a survey.
MPD and IDF approved? That’s some alphabet soup we should all have the luxury of avoiding.
SGEagan
Dec 9, 2025 at 12:22 pm
“Brooklyn Park and Woodbury privacy advocates criticized the company in 2021 for using artificial intelligence to aggregate social media posts, reported WCCO.”
In other words, Zencity was using a more efficient way of aggregating posts that people willingly put in the public domain? That’s a privacy concern?
Here’s a tip: If you’re worried about people reading your posts, don’t post. AI can’t read your mind, and neither can Zencity.
KG
Dec 9, 2025 at 6:37 am
Canceling the Minneapolis Police Department’s contract with Zencity would be a case study of prioritizing antisemitic ideology over public safety. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is pressuring the City Council to reject a tool that helps ensure safety simply because the company has Israeli roots. JVP represents a fringe minority that weaponizes its identity to shield antisemitic-antizionist movements from criticism. Functioning as willing ‘tokens,’ they act as a ‘kosher stamp’ for those who wish to demonize the Jewish state—eagerly separating themselves from the Jewish majority to appease those who despise Israel. Let’s be clear: Israel has been integral to Jewish belief, culture and ethnicity for thousands of years and “Next year in Jerusalem” is a well-known passage from Jewish prayer. If you reject this, you are, by choice, not Jewish. Furthermore, their claim of “genocide” is a blatant reversal of reality. The Gaza war was started by Hamas on October 7, and Gaza civilian casualties are a result of Hamas’ systematic use of its own people as human shields.
The critics’ attempt to frame service in the IDF’s Unit 8200 as “sinister” is absurd. Unit 8200 is the Israeli equivalent of the NSA or Cyber Command; it is an elite technology incubator that requires the highest level of analytical skill. Having leadership with this background is a credential of quality, not a cause for concern.
Decisions about police tools should be purely business-driven, based on cost and effectiveness. If the City Council bows to the discriminatory BDS demands, they are admitting they care more about posturing against the Jewish state than they do about the safety of Minneapolis residents.