From Toledo, Ohio to Rome, Italy: BDS and Grassroots Solidarity Defy the IHRA Smear and Israel’s Genocide

Photograph by Michael Leonardi

Two cities on opposite sides of the Atlantic—Toledo, Ohio, my hometown, and Rome, the ancient capital of Italy—are rising together in defiance of the same machinery of repression. In both places, local movements are demanding an end to all ties with apartheid Israel, while their respective governments—Ohio’s state legislature and Italy’s national government under Giorgia Meloni—are rushing to codify the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism into law.