Can Pride exist without inclusivity? It can if you’re a Zionist. Pride parades – ostensibly safe spaces for the marginalized – have seen an increase in assaults against Jewish Queers. Jewish stars and Israeli flags have been banned from Pride parades for years. Just ask your queer Jewish friend about the last time they had to hide their identity at a Queer space, and they’ll have a story for you. 

On top of this, with Pride Month just starting, the NYC Dyke March proudly announced on their social media that not only are Israeli flags banned but so are their supporters – “Zionists are NOT ALLOWED.” 

As a lesbian Jew, it has been tough. Scrolling through dating apps, I’ve often come across profiles with responses such as, “Something that’s a non-negotiable for me is… anti-Zionists only, please & thank u <3” or texts like this: “Haha smooth, as long as the opinions aren’t that you’re a racist or a Zionist, I’m in.” 

Heck, I’ve even been told that I’m a fake gay Zionist propaganda machine for mentioning I have family in Israel. The message to queer Jews is becoming clearer and crueler: you’re only welcome if you keep your Jewish identity in the closet. 

So how did a movement built on radical inclusivity become a breeding ground for proud Jewish hate? 

Thousands participate in the annual Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv, on June 8, 2023. (credit: MIRIAM ALSTER/FLASH90)
Thousands participate in the annual Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv, on June 8, 2023. (credit: MIRIAM ALSTER/FLASH90)

Inclusion over shunning, compassion over purity, and complexity over dogma

The truth is, it’s not surprising. Social justice spaces have been infiltrated with antisemitism for years, under the sanitized term of “anti-Zionism.” Anti-Zionism became cool despite the fact that the majority of Jews self-identify as Zionist. Thus, anti-Jew is cool. 

Social justice spaces once moved our society forward, bringing rights to women and minorities. They coined useful terms like intersectionality, to help us understand how different forms of discrimination overlap. Yet these movements have become more radical. Intersectionality today is used to affirm a hierarchy of victimhood – one where Jews are conveniently recast as White oppressors, regardless of history, ethnicity, Diaspora, or genocide. 

Queer spaces have long aligned with progressive movements, with about 70% of queer individuals identifying as liberal. Yet the far Left’s obsession with liberation movements view Israel through a hyper-simplified, black-and-white lens: oppressed vs oppressor, good vs evil. Through this dogmatic, extreme narrative, the Jews across the world are getting burned… again.

But here’s what’s often forgotten: Zionism is the belief in Jewish self-determination – a belief rooted in millennia of prayers, traditions, and survival. And guess what? It has already happened. Israel already exists. So if Zionism stands with Israel’s existence, then anti-Zionism and anti-Zionists stand for its demise. 

Wouldn’t it be better for the queer community to focus its activism on combating the corrective raping movement in Nigeria? Lesbians there are being catfished by men and then raped in an attempt to “turn” them straight. Another alarming case is the capture of two gay Afghan women by the Taliban during their attempt to escape. 

Why does the queer community insist and gain pride in promoting the erasure of an entire country and its 10 million civilians instead of channeling its activism towards actual queer justice? Queer people, of all communities, should know better. We know what it means to be excluded. We know what it feels like to be told our existence is a political inconvenience. 

And yet today, in spaces supposedly built for all of us, queer Jews are told to get out. This is not pride. It’s hypocrisy. Imagine if a Pride organizer told a Black marcher they couldn’t attend if they supported Nigeria. Or told a Christian marcher they were unwelcome unless they denounced the existence of Lebanon.

It would be called what it is: bigotry. But when it’s Jewish queers who carry a visible or emotional connection to Israel – suddenly, exclusion is framed as progress. 

So where do we go from here? We return to the roots: inclusion over shunning, compassion over purity, and complexity over dogma. We recognize that standing with peace in the Middle East does not require standing against Jews, but rather standing against extremism. 

It’s time for the queer community to wake up and remember that Pride without Jews is no Pride – it’s just another parade of prejudice. The NYC Dyke March and its organizers should update their “No Zionists” policy immediately.

The writer is a tech founder, Stanford lecturer, and Middle Eastern activist best known for starring in Netflix’s My Unorthodox Life with over 400K followers and recent features in Time Out and other media.