Jewish activists carrying rainbow flags emblazoned with the Star of David at a gay pride march in Chicago over weekend were told by organizers to leave the parade as their flags “made people feel unsafe.”
The Chicago Dyke March Collective’s decision to exclude the marchers from Saturday’s event was met with anger from Jewish groups across the United States, including from the Anti-Defamation League, which called the entire matter “outrageous” and “anti-Semitic.” 
Laurel Grauer, a representative of the pro-Israel LGBT group A Wider Bridge, wrote in an op-ed for Haaretz that organizers told her to leave because her flag was “seen as Israeli Pride Flag and offensive to others,” and that the “march is pro-Palestine and explicitly anti-Zionist.”
A Wider Bridge released a statement calling for an apology from the Chicago Dyke March collective, saying:
“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.
The Chicago Dyke March Collective countered that it was not anti-Semitic but rather anti-Zionist, and said it had expelled the Jewish marchers after they had “repeatedly expressed support for Zionism during conversations with Chicago Dyke March Collective members.”
The collective also accused the Jewish group of “using Israel’s supposed ‘LGBTQ tolerance’ to pinkwash the violent occupation of Palestine.”
