Protestors braved freezing temperatures on Jan. 13 to gather in Ziegler Park as part of the Solidarity Rally for Palestine demonstration, which was held as a sister protest for the pro-Palestine march happening in D.C. that same day.
The rally was organized by the Cincinnati Socialists group, who have continually advocated for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
At the rally, the group shared demands they made to Cincinnati City Council on Nov. 29 and Dec. 13, which include replacing the definition of antisemitism that was adopted by city council in March of 2023 — specifically, a portion that defines antisemitism as “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
“Our organization demands that Cincinnati City Council repeal its adoption of the so-called [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, and replace it with the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism of 2020,” said Dr. Franklin Ridgeway, an adjunct professor at both the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University, and a member of the Cincinnati Socialists.
Ridgeway said that portions of the IHRA definition are historically inaccurate and rejected by many experts, including Jewish and Israeli experts in the history of the Jewish diaspora, the second World War, and European social and religious history.
“Zionists have promoted the IHRA definition worldwide, from college campuses to municipal governments, providing a pretext for subsequently accusing supporters of Palestinian liberation of antisemitism,” Ridgeway added.
The Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center at the Cincinnati Museum Center offered free admission to the museum throughout the month of January to combat rising antisemitism seen both locally and across the U.S. At a Jan. 3 press conference announcing the initiative, Congressman Greg Landsman said he’s seen antisemitic themes at protests in support of Palestine — specifically those protests that have labeled Israel’s attacks on Gaza as acts of genocide.
“That is the kind of rhetoric that you see on social media, that you hear during protests,” Landsman said at the Jan. 3 press conference. “The war is awful, though in order to call it genocide or ethnic cleansing, requires a belief in a conspiracy that Jews represent the worst of humanity, of society.”
Paul Vine, an organizer with Cincinnati Socialists, told CityBeat that the criticism is focused squarely on the state of Israel, not Judaism.
“We are not attacking Jewish people because of their faith or their identity, we are attacking the state project of Israel and Zionist project that is building these settlements in the lands against what was previously agreed,” he said. “You can look at the agreements going back to 1948 and 1967 of what is agreed upon, and you can see Israel has consistently stepped over the line and continued to build settlements where they said they would not, and then led the attacks against any sort of backlash or resistance from the Palestinian people.”
The Gaza Ministry of Health has reported the death toll in Gaza is approaching 24,000, or about 1 in every 100 Gazans. The attacks on Gaza from Israel following the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas militants have driven around 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million residents from their homes and pushed civilians, many women and children, into starvation. On Jan. 14, the White House said it is “the right time” for Israel to scale back its attacks in the Gaza Strip.
With more than 6,000 miles separating Cincinnati from Gaza, Vine told CityBeat it can be hard for people to understand how the war relates to them, but he sees a connection.
“We want to come out and draw the connection between what is happening there with people having their homes seized from them and how that connects to what we’ve seen here in the city of Cincinnati,” he said. “The West End being redeveloped, the expansion of the ongoing gentrification in Avondale — trying to make people understand that these things are connected. If we don’t stand up for the people in Palestine, how can we stand up when these issues impact us?”
Keep scrolling to see photos from the rally.
Photos by Aidan Mahoney
