Antisemitic Lesbians

According to Newsweek:

Jewish people celebrating LGBT Pride in Chicago were told not to display Star of David flags because other people found them ‘offensive.’ The Jewish Star of David flag was banned from the city’s annual Dyke March celebrations, and several people carrying the flag were removed form the march because their presence “made people feel unsafe,” LGBT paper Windy City Times reported. 

The Dyke March is described by organizers as being a "more inclusive, more social justice-oriented" march than the city's main Pride parade. One marcher, Laurel Grauer, said she was harassed by other Dyke March attendees before being told she needed to leave with her flag. “It was a flag from my congregation which celebrates my queer, Jewish identity which I have done for over a decade marching in the Dyke March with the same flag," she told Windy City Times. “They were telling me to leave because my flag was a trigger to people that they found offensive,” she added. “Prior to this [march] I had never been harassed or asked to leave and I had always carried the flag with me.” 

The organizers of the march told the Times the event was a pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist one and that the flags made people feel unsafe. The Star of David also features on the Israeli flag, with many believing support for Israel is tantamount to supporting the oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel’s own backing of LGBT rights has been described as ‘pinkwashing,’ with the authorities there accused of using gay rights to detract from the ongoing conflict with Palestine. 

However, the decision to prevent people from displaying their Jewish Pride flags did not go down well with some marchers. "This is not what this is community is supposed to be about," marcher Ruthie Steiner told the Times after seeing people thrown out because of their Jewish Pride flags. "I'm German-born. Am I pinkwashing by being here and supporting my community? Is every nation which does not have a clean civil-rights record and also hosts a Pride parade guilty of pinkwashing? With all the people that so hate the LGBTQ community, for it to tear itself apart in self-hatred makes no sense at all,” she added