Chicago Dyke March Organizers Change Their Story In Defending Charges of Antisemitism

In the wake of the infamous ejection of Jews carrying Star of David flags at the Chicago Dyke March, the organizers have gone into overdrive to deny their antisemitism, offering up their explanations of why they did what they did – beginning with this:

https://www.facebook.com/DykeMarchChicago/posts/1590040221040033

Yesterday, June 24, Chicago Dyke March was held in the La Villita neighborhood to express support for undocumented, refugee, and immigrant communities under threat of deportation. Sadly, our celebration of dyke, queer, and trans solidarity was partially overshadowed by our decision to ask three individuals carrying Israeli flags superimposed on rainbow flags to leave the rally. This decision was made after they repeatedly expressed support for Zionism during conversations with Chicago Dyke March Collective members. We have since learned that at least one of these individuals is a regional director for A Wider Bridge, an organization with connections to the Israeli state and right-wing pro-Israel interest groups. A Wider Bridge has been protested for provocative actions at other LGBTQ events and has been condemned by numerous organizations (http://tarabnyc.org/cancelpinkwashing/) for using Israel’s supposed “LGBTQ tolerance” to pinkwash the violent occupation of Palestine.

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

From Palestine to Mexico, border walls have got to go!!

[Edited to add: We want to make clear that anti-Zionist Jewish volunteers and supporters are welcome at Dyke March and were involved in conversations with the individuals who were asked to leave. We are planning to make a longer statement in the future.]

Note how the characterize a Star of David flag as an Israeli flag. As I mentioned in my previous post on the subject, the Star of David is the symbol of Judaism, so they really were banning Jews expressing their Judaism. So what if these Jews also happen to support Israel? (which makes sense, considering Zionism is an integral part of Judaism). This is not only antisemitism, but censorship.

Chicago Dyke March followed up the above explanation with this official statement:

On June 24th, 2017, a small group of individuals were asked to leave Chicago Dyke March for expressing Zionist views that go directly against the march’s anti-racist core values. In the days following, articles have appeared in a number of major news outlets that put forward false reports based on testimony that is purposefully misleading. We wish to clarify the circumstances under which organizers and community members alike asked the group to leave.

The group in question was heard disrupting chants, replacing the word “Palestine” with “everywhere,” saying: “From everywhere to Mexico, border walls have got to go.” One of the individuals, Laurel Grauer, is the Regional Director of A Wider Bridge, an organization with ties to the Israeli government that was protested for pinkwashing at the Creating Change Conference in Chicago in 2016. It was later revealed that Laurel was aware of Dyke March’s anti-Zionist position from pro-Palestine memes and art that were posted on the Dyke March page, and was also aware of the fact that her flag could be interpreted as being at odds with that position. The night before, she contacted an organizer to ask if her flag would “be protested.” The organizer told her the flag was welcome, but reminded her that the space is one that supports Palestinian rights.

Upon arrival at the rally location in Piotrowski Park, Palestinian marchers approached those carrying the flags to learn more about their intentions, due to its similarity to the Israeli flag and the flag’s long history of use in Pinkwashing efforts. During the conversation, the individuals asserted their Zionist stance and support for Israel. At this point, Jewish allies and Dyke March organizers stepped in to help explain why Zionism was unacceptable at the march. There was an earnest attempt at engagement with these marchers, and the decision to ask them to leave was not made abruptly nor arbitrarily. Throughout a two-hour conversation, the individuals were told that the march was explicitly anti-Zionist, and that if they were not okay with that, they should leave.

Zionism is an inherently white-supremacist ideology. It is based on the premise that Jewish people have a God-given entitlement to the lands of historic Palestine and the surrounding areas. This ideology has been used to justify dozens of laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel, segregated road systems in the West Bank, and forced removal of Palestinian families from their homes in order to make way for Jewish-only housing, among other violent and discriminatory practices. We recognize that Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism, but instead represents an ideology that uses legacies of Jewish struggle to justify violence.

Chicago Dyke March Collective is a grassroots mobilization and celebration of dyke, queer, bisexual, and transgender resilience. Our priority is to ensure a safer space for those who are most marginalized. We welcome and include people of all identities, but not all ideologies. We believe in creating a space free from oppression, and that involves rejecting racist ideologies that support state violence. We welcome the support we have received from Jewish allies and marchers who are as invested in liberation as we are.

The threats that have been made to Chicago Dyke March and its organizers by Zionists worldwide does not even compare to the violence that Palestinians endure on a daily basis while living under Israeli military rule in the name of Zionism. Palestine is being occupied by Israeli military forces, and at the time of writing, Gaza is currently being bombed. This is what we as a collective are most concerned with. Palestinians deserve to live free from violence, and Dyke March will continue to fight for Palestinians alongside all other oppressed communities around the world.

Here, they reaffirm their stance that they asked the marchers to leave because they are Zionists, but subtly change their previous statement that the Star of David flags were Israeli flags – no doubt after being made to realize that it sounds really bad and is antisemitic. Not only that, but they now added a new claim – that the marchers were disrupting chants, replacing “Palestine” with “everywhere”. No proof of this is given – just a link to a YouTube video of some guy making the claim. The chants are not heard in the footage from the march, and one has to wonder why they never made this claim in their first statement if this was truly a reason for ejecting the marchers in question.

And even if the marchers did replace the word “Palestine” with “everywhere”, how is that justification for removing them? Again, censorship.

Despite this, the organizers have the temerity to characterize confronting these Jews over their pro-Israel views as “an earnest attempt at engagement” – followed by the claim that they “believe in creating a space free from oppression.” Sounds more like intimidation to me.

Their statement that “Zionism is an inherently white-supremacist ideology” is not only incorrect, but also a manifestation of antisemitic sentiment. Jews are not racially European (white), but rather indigenous to the Middle East. This reeks of “Jews descend from the Khazars” – a favorite claim of the Jew haters – and is designed to paint us as the strong colonizing type, suppressing the “poor, brown people” (palestinians), whose failures are to be blamed on this “oppression” (as opposed to, say, their preoccupation with trying to wipe us off the map).

So yes, despite getting their kosher stamp of approval from the detestable Jewish Voice for Peace, Chicago Dyke March organizers were surely motivated by Jew hatred, and cannot even stick to one story.

Update: This is an account by one of the ejected marchers.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=187012131831478&id=100015680762441

Yesterday I was removed from the Chicago Dyke March. I am so upset that I’m no longer upset, so here is a faithful narrative of every event.

I wanted to be in public as a gay Jew of Persian and German heritage. Nothing more, nothing less. So I made a shirt that said “Proud Jewish Dyke” and hoisted a big Jewish Pride flag — a rainbow flag with a Star of David in the center, the centuries-old symbol of the Jewish people. I snapped a picture before the March, and in retrospect my happy, proud smile breaks my heart.

I knew the March was a politically fraught atmosphere, so I went in very carefully. I ignored people side-eyeing me. I stayed away from Palestinian flags and Palestinian chants. I actively walked away from people who directly tried to instigate conflict. I thought maybe if I played by their rules, I could just be Jewish in public.

No such luck. During the picnic in the park, organizers in their official t-shirts began whispering and pointing at me and soon, a delegation came over, announcing they’d been sent by the organizers. They told me my choices were to roll up my Jewish Pride flag or leave. The Star of David makes it look too much like the Israeli flag, they said, and it triggers people and makes them feel unsafe. This was their complaint.

I tried to explain — no, no! It’s the ubiquitous symbol of Judaism. I just want to be Jewish in public. No luck. So I tried using their language. This is an intersectional march, I said. This is my intersection. I’m supposed to be able to celebrate it here. No, they said. People feel unsafe. I tried again to explain about the Star of David. I tried again to use their language, to tell them that not being able to be visibly, flagrantly, proudly Jewish on my terms makes *me* feel unsafe. This was what I said.

But it didn’t work. After some fruitless back-and-forth, during which more people joined the organizers’ delegation and used their deeper voices, larger physical size, and greater numbers to insistently talk over my attempts at explanation, at conversation, I recognized a losing battle and left sobbing.

I was thrown out of Dyke March for being Jewish. And yes, there were other Jews there, visible ones even, who weren’t accosted, who had fun, even! And yes, Israel exists in a complicated way. But in this case, it doesn’t matter what Israel does or doesn’t do. This was about being Jewish in public, and I was thrown out for being Jewish, for being the “wrong” kind of Jew, the kind of Jew who shows up with a big Jewish star on a flag. No matter how much I tried to avoid conflict, to explain. Oh, maybe there was a way I could have stayed, but rolling up my beautiful proud flag for them would have been an even bigger loss.

This was my community, where for four years I have shown up, stood up, and helped out, and I am broken-hearted.

(I do not want this to turn into a debate about Israel and Palestine in the comments. That is not what this is about. This is about being Jewish in public. Also, I have made this post public and do not mind sharing done respectfully.)

So apparently the Israeli flags made others feel “unsafe” – the same others who used intimidation and bullying to have them ejected.

11 thoughts on “Chicago Dyke March Organizers Change Their Story In Defending Charges of Antisemitism”

  1. The good news is that Dyke March Chicago has gotten a lot of blowback for this; so much so that they’ve gutted their Facebook (deleting comments & blocking posters), making their Twitter private an deleted their Instagram. And NOT all from Jews – plenty of non-Jews, and even people who say they are anti-Israel say DMC was being antisemitic (Yeah, we all know anti-Zionism is antisemitism, but I still think it’s an important indicator of how much they have offended EVERYONE)

  2. An interesting wrinkle to be observed is these clowns’ proud REJECTION of the freedom that Israel offers to them. Their response goes like this, according to the above: “We are not free until EVERYONE is free! If Muslims are suffering, we LGBTQ will suffer with them for as long as it takes. Their cause is more important even than ours. Your offer of freedom is a bribe; we are too moral to take bribes.” This explains the charge of “pinkwashing”; these noble sodomites are walking away from Omelas, so to speak. Which delights the ugliest ventricle of my heart, because that means they will never be free! Arab and Palestinian “freedom” explicitly includes the right to impose Islamic ways of life wherever they live. Let everything and everyone turning Left at these “intersections” crash and burn. I’ll bring marshmallows.

  3. what would be an alternative jewish symbol on a flag? I can’t think of one. The Magen David has been a symbol of the Jewish people for centuries.

  4. Reading that account broke my heart. That a Jew could get kicked out for being a Jew in the U.S., the “land of the free”, is horrifying. That they qualified it by explaining that she was “the wrong kind of Jew”, makes it worse. In the scenario the DMC invented, the Palestinians are the boy in the well, and Israeli Jews, or Jews who support their indigenous and cultural homeland, are well, the Jews. In 1930s Germany, you could also start out by changing yourself to be the “right sort of Jew”….until you couldn’t. I’m not glad that this girl had to learn this lesson. I’m heartbroken that she had to learn that sometimes people hate you for what you are, not what you do, and you have no control over this. And then your options are to not be included or to pretend to change what you are. Hopefully she will learn to have self respect and not want to be with a bunch of ignorant bigots. Those who forget the mistakes of the past, are doomed to repeat them.

    1. This is what identity politics brings. When people judge their fellow humans by arbitrarily ranked categories, rather than the content of one’s individual character, the only consistent result will be injustice.
      The powers that be in the Left have decided that Israel-AggressorBad, Arabs-InnocentGood, and as far as those two groups go, nothing else matters. And of course Jews are Israeli-fied by extension just because. An excuse of “they [probably] support Israel” is trotted out, but it’s obvious that this is an afterthought to justify the unthinking prejudice against Jews that was already there.

  5. The solution here is obvious. Gay Zionists need to stop taking a passive role in marching for others. In other words, they set up their own marches for “oppressed minorities” and then anyone else is a guest on THEIR march. Then, they can casually ban anti-Zionist protests from their march because of their “association with white supremacy, homophobia, and transphobia.”

    We live in a world of identity politics, and Zionists are doing very little to play the game.

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