DC Dyke March bans Jewish Pride flags

The DC Dyke March is returning after a 12-year hiatus, with a new request: no “nationalist symbols” including flags and banners that represent “nations that have specific oppressive tendencies.”

This includes the Jewish Pride flag of rainbow colors with a white Star of David in the middle, which organizers say too closely resembles the flag of Israel.

Palestinian flags will be welcome, however.

The march will take place on Friday, a day before the annual Capital Pride Parade. Its theme is “displacement.”

Yael Horowitz, a Jewish organizer of the DC march, tells the Washington Post that “pro-Israel and pro-Jewish are very different things.”

She says in a Facebook message “Jewish stars and other identifications and celebrations of Jewishness (yarmulkes, talit, other expressions of Judaism or Jewishness) are welcome and encouraged. We do ask that participants not bring pro-Israel paraphernalia in solidarity with our queer Palestinian friends.”

The decision to ban Jewish Pride flags comes two years after three women were asked to leave the 21st annual Chicago Dyke March after being told that their rainbow flags with a white Star of David in the center would be a “trigger,” or traumatic stimulus, for people who found them offensive. The women reportedly were asked to leave after they started defending Israel and Zionism.

— JTA