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Marchers With Jewish Flags Removed From Chicago Pride Rally

"It was a flag from my congregation which celebrates my queer, Jewish identity," said Laurel Grauer, who was asked to leave the Chicago Dyke March.

More than 1,500 people gathered in Chicago's Piotrowski Park for the annual Dyke March, a kickoff event for Pride weekend in the Windy City. But organizers ejected participants for carrying rainbow flags emblazoned with the Star of David, a symbol of both Judaism and the state of Israel.

One Dyke March collective member told Windy City Times the women were asked to leave because the flags "made people feel unsafe," and that the event was "anti-Zionist" and "pro-Palestinian."

A Wider Bridge

"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," Laurel Grauer told the WCT.

Grauer works for A Wider Bridge, a nonprofit that aims to build connections between LGBT people in North America and Israel's queer community. The group receives funding from the Israeli government, and critics claim it's guilty of "pinkwashing"—promoting Israeli's LGBT rights record to draw attention away from the Palestinian occupation. A Wider Bridge had contingents at D.C. and New York Pride with no incidents reported.

In a statement, A Wider Bridge said it was "deeply disturbed" by Grauer and her friends' removal and called on organizers to issue an apology.

"The Dyke March has failed to live up to their goal of 'bridging together communities' That the organizers would choose to dismiss long-time community members for choosing to express their Jewish identity or spirituality runs counter to the very values the Dyke March claims to uphold, and veers down a dangerous path toward anti-semitism."

But on Facebook, march organizers insisted their decision "was made after [Grauer and her friends] repeatedly expressed support for Zionism during conversations with Dyke March Collective members."

"The Chicago Dyke March Collective is explicitly not anti-Semitic, we are anti-Zionist," they added. "The Chicago Dyke March Collective supports the liberation of Palestine and all oppressed people everywhere."

One demonstrator who witnessed the group's ousting said she found it "horrific."

"This is not what this is community is supposed to be about," Ruthie Steiner told the Times. "I'm German-born. Am I pink washing 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 pink washing? With all the people that so hate the LGBTQ community, for it to tear itself apart in self-hatred makes no sense at all."

While Pride events have increasingly begun to explore intersectionality, that effort has sometimes caused conflict: In Philadelphia, the adding of black and brown stripes to the rainbow flag—in recognition of queer people of color—has sparked controversy.

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