The journalist at an LGBT newspaper who first broke the story of three Jewish women being excluded from a pride march because of their support for Israel has been removed from her position.
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Gretchen Rachel Hammond of Chicago’s Windy City Times was reassigned to the paper’s sales department. She told the wire service that “to keep what job I have, I can’t comment on it. As an employee of Windy City Times who has loved the company and loved her role in the company for the past four years, I have to respect my publisher’s decision.”
The newspaper’s publisher declined to comment on the reasons for Hammond’s reassignment.
Three members of the Jewish LGBT group A Wider Bridge were prevented from participating in last month’s Chicago Dyke March its organizers, who claimed that their rainbow flags, emblazoned with the Star of David, “made people feel unsafe.”
The decision 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.”
Claiming that it is not anti-Semitic but rather anti-Zionist, the Chicago Dyke March Collective countered that 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.”
