Other members of the synagogue will be handing out water bottles to marchers and cheering them on. Some members of Sha’ar Zahav will participate in the march, Copeland said. “We aren’t anticipating that what is happening elsewhere will be replicated here.” “We don’t know of any issue here in S.F.,” she said. Organizers of the San Francisco Dyke March did not respond to requests for comment.īut Rabbi Mychal Copeland of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, San Francisco’s historically LGBTQ synagogue, said she doesn’t anticipate a problem. New York organizers are “not interested in creating a binary of Palestinian or Zionist,” added Alex Tereshonkova, another Jewish organizer of the New York march.ĭespite the ban in D.C., marchers there carrying Jewish Pride flags were able to join the rally in the end, though a video from the march showed that a marshal initially demanded they remove the flag. “Seeing what happened in D.C., that folks are not feeling welcome, it’s just not how we want our march to feel,” said Nate Shalev, a Jewish organizer of the New York City march, which is scheduled for June 29. In 2017, three women carrying Jewish Pride flags were asked to leave a Dyke March in Chicago and told the event was “anti-Zionist” and “pro-Palestinian.”ĭespite the two high-profile incidents, organizers of five Dyke Marches - in New York, Boston, Seattle, Portland and Buffalo - say that they do not have bans on Jewish Pride flags.
It was the second Dyke March organization to issue such a ban. Organizers of the DC Dyke March said the rainbow flags featuring a Star of David in the middle too closely resemble the Israeli flag and thus were not allowed, along with other flags representing “nations that have specific oppressive tendencies.” A lesbian advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., drew wide criticism last week for banning Pride flags with Jewish stars from its signature march.