Never let it be said that anti-Semitism plagues only one political group, as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio so stupidly tried to claim this week.
Anti-Jewish bigotry, whether casual or vicious, knows no party loyalty.
Take, for example, the D.C. Dyke March. It has banned Jewish and Israeli symbols from its festivities this week in the nation’s capital, according to the Forward.
“The D.C. Dyke March is designed to include people of diverse races, religions and gender identities who feel excluded from the more mainstream Pride parade,” the Forward reports. “The march will also ban ‘nationalist symbols,’ including flags that represent what event organizer Yael Horowitz called ‘nations that have specific oppressive tendencies’ — such as a rainbow version of the Israeli flag, which contains a Star of David, the most recognizable symbol of Judaism.”
In contrast, Palestinian flags will be permitted at the event.
Horowitz reportedly told the founder of the Jewish lesbian group Nice Jewish Girls that “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.”
This is not a first for a so-called Dyke March.
In 2017, the Chicago Dyke March booted participants for waving LGBT-themed flags bearing the Star of David. Event organizers at the time said the flags were too similar to Israel’s, which made other attendees “feel unsafe.”
As I noted at the time, If the Star of David makes you feel unsafe, there’s a word for that.
Shockingly enough, instead of looking to what happened in Chicago and recognizing it for what it was (i.e. anti-Semitic), the D.C. Dyke March organizers actually say they took their cues from that event, according to the Washington Post.
“I just thought, the Chicago Dyke March is happening all over again — here,” Nice Jewish Girls founder A.J. Campbell told the Post. “I’ve been a Jewish lesbian for a long time, and it’s never been a problem. . . . They seem to have very specific ideas about what kind of Jew I’m supposed to be, and I don’t feel like they get to say that.”
A few lesbian and Jewish advocacy groups have since banded together to protest the D.C. Dyke March’s decision.
“The DC Dyke March should know better than to stoke the flames of division and pain by driving a wedge between Queer Arabs and Jews at a time we must stand united against homo- and transphobia, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia,” Campbell, a Wider Bridge, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, and the feminist group Zioness said in a joint statement. “We hope that they will do better – for the sake and advancement of all of our communities.”
The point here is not so much to attack the Left for clearly having an anti-Semitism problem. The Right struggles with this illness as well.
The point here is to demonstrate just how insipid and stupid people like de Blasio have to be in order to make this ancient bigotry about politics. Anti-Semitism is much more pernicious and deadly than any mere political issue.
