At the end of May, two Jewish women were denied entrance to an LGBTQ spa in Spain because they were wearing Star of David necklaces. I was not surprised. Antisemitism has become a core component of “progressive” thinking over the past two decades, and the LGBTQ movement has long since bought into the lies and hate.
Growing up in the 1970s in Skokie, Ill., I first heard the word “homosexual” when I was 6 years old. Skokie was home to more than 40,000 Jews, including some 5,000 Holocaust survivors. The National Socialist Party of America (the American Nazi Party) made national headlines when it took the town to court for denying it a permit to hold a rally in front of Skokie Village Hall. The idea that the swastika could be raised by armed men dressed in traditional Nazi uniforms, in America, was reliving a nightmare.
Nearly 50 years later, I still remember the fear and anger that engulfed my family. The Jew-hatred was the same evil I heard about from my grandparents, who fled the pogroms and death camps of Europe. What was different was that “the homosexuals” were often mentioned in the Nazi message of hate. My dad used family and friends who were gay as examples to help me understand.
That was the moment an ally was born.
My activism on behalf of the LGBTQ community goes back to the days when “LGB” was the preferred abbreviation. In the mid 1990s, I began my career as a political consultant. My clients included Republican candidates for federal office who needed to meet certain standards before I would work for them. Gay rights were part of my criteria.
My candidates marched in the Chicago Pride Parade. Our campaigns always had a large presence, joined by dozens of volunteers. I implemented internship programs that opened the minds of young people, like college Republicans who never conceived of advocating for gay equality.
When a close friend was getting married, he and his now-husband asked me to sign their ketubah before their wedding ceremony; two Jewish witnesses are needed. I was honored to be asked and overwhelmed with pride to be such a witness.
To the LGBTQ movement, I must now say that, because of my Judaism, I was given an opportunity to show my love in the most personal way. But ironically, for the same reason, I can no longer stand with you.
When “intersectionality” entered the mainstream in the 2010s, historically disenfranchised and oppressed groups banded together to embrace inclusion, diversity and social justice. Yet the most persecuted group in human history, people who endure the systemic racism built into humanity itself, are not only excluded but also recategorized to fit this new narrative. Jews are now classified as privileged colonizers and oppressors.
The progressive movement, in which the LGBTQ community plays an integral role, has become a regressive campaign that embraces exclusion and antisemitism.
Before you jump on the intellectually dishonest bandwagon, claiming that “It’s not antisemitism, it’s anti-Zionism” or “We aren’t anti-Jewish, we are anti-Israel,” spare me your progressive talking points. One cannot attend a progressive rally and not be inundated with signs equating the Star of David with a swastika or comparing the Jewish state to Nazi Germany.
Zionism is the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. That’s it. Nothing more. Yet, progressives and their new allies on the “horseshoe right” have hijacked the word and falsely claim it represents a “genocidal” ideology. The fact that former Fox News host and current conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson and LGBTQ activists are on the same page is all that any honest-thinking person needs to know.
The progressive movement has embraced exclusion and antisemitism.
More than 10 years ago, the Gay Liberation Network in Chicago organized not a rally but a hostile takeover of an event at the Chicago Hilton hosted by A Wider Bridge, an organization that advocates for the relationship between North American LGBTQ communities and Israel.
This was not a pro-Israel event. It was not about the Israeli government. But that didn’t matter. More than 200 protesters blockaded the Jews in the conference room, while an angry mob pounded on the door, shouting obscenities. The police had to literally liberate the Jews from the room, escorting them out through a back entrance for their personal safety.
The 2017 Chicago Dyke March had a “no Zionist” policy, but that was a facade to remove Jews from the event. Gay-pride flags featuring a Star of David were banned. That’s the same Star of David that the Nazis forced Jews to display during the Holocaust. To this day, Dyke Marches across the country engage in antisemitism under the facade of “anti-Zionism.”
After the Hamas-led terrorist massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the most horrific attack on Jews since the Holocaust, progressive voices didn’t mourn the victims or express outrage at the blatant evil. They doubled down on their “blame the Jews” agenda, and a sect of the LGBTQ community joined in.
Disagreeing with Israel’s response to the attack is legitimate criticism. Concern for the innocents of Gaza is something that all decent human beings share. But ignoring or denying that Hamas, which started this war, is using civilians, including children and the infirm, as human shields to protect its weaponry and “fighters” is unfathomable.
“Queers for Palestine” could be an “SNL” skit or a scene from a Mel Brooks comedy. Still, there is nothing funny about despising any group of human beings to the extent that you openly and proudly advocate for an ideology that preaches the murder of every LGBTQ person on the planet.
Last week, California state senator Scott Wiener, the Democratic Party’s nominee to replace longtime Rep. Nancy Pelosi in Congress, was “harassed, threatened and physically intimidated” while attending a rally for transgender rights in San Francisco. The Jewish candidate, whose campaign website falsely brands Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide” and declares his disdain for the Netanyahu government, was literally chased out of the event by a hostile mob. According to The Hill: “Wiener, who is Jewish and openly gay, also claimed that the group of people made comments about his ‘Israeli handlers,’ among other statements he described as ‘inaccurate, extreme and vile.”
Do I believe the majority of LGBTQ folks are antisemitic? No. But most of your vocal leaders and activists are. And your silence in the face of the hate festering inside your community makes you complicit.
After a lifetime of standing with you, of putting myself out there for you, I am sad to say: never again. I am not abandoning you. You abandoned me. And you did so at a time when the Jewish people needed you the most.
