Journalist writes about Jews ejected from Pride march — then gets moved to newspaper’s sales desk
An award-winning newspaper reporter who wrote about three Jewish women getting ejected from a Chicago LGBT march last month has been permanently moved to her paper’s sales department, the Times of Israel reported.
The piece by Gretchen Rachel Hammond of the Windy City Times — the “voice of Chicago’s gay, lesbian, bi, trans and queer community” — said the women were kicked out of the Chicago Dyke March for carrying rainbow flags with Jewish stars in the middle.
Hammond confirmed to the Times of Israel she’s no longer reporting for the Windy City Times and is looking for another editorial job — but wouldn’t confirm that her Dyke March coverage sparked her transfer.
“Right now I’m in the sales department,” she told the Times of Israel on Monday. “I’m still a part of the company, and it’s my only source of income. 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.”
Tracy Baim, publisher of the Windy City Times, confirmed to the Times of Israel that Hammond was transferred but wouldn’t say why. But Baim did say the Windy City Times’ editors “stand by our reporting by Gretchen and our other reporters on that story.”
One individual with the June 24 march told the Windy City Times the three women were told to leave because their flags “made people feel unsafe” and that the march was “anti-Zionist” and “pro-Palestinian.”
“They were telling me to leave because my flag was a trigger to people that they found offensive,” Laurel Grauer, one of the ejected women, told the Windy City Times. “Prior to this [march] I had never been harassed or asked to leave and I had always carried the flag with me.”
Another woman who said she was kicked out of the march told her story on Facebook.
“During the picnic in the park, organizers in their official T-shirts began whispering and pointing at me and soon, a delegation came over, announcing they’d been sent by the organizers,” Ellie Otra wrote. “They told me my choices were to roll up my Jewish Pride flag or leave. The Star of David makes it look too much like the Israeli flag, they said, and it triggers people and makes them feel unsafe. This was their complaint.”
Otra added:
I was thrown out of Dyke March for being Jewish. And yes, there were other Jews there, visible ones even, who weren’t accosted, who had fun, even! And yes, Israel exists in a complicated way. But in this case, it doesn’t matter what Israel does or doesn’t do. This was about being Jewish in public, and I was thrown out for being Jewish, for being the “wrong” of Jew, the kind of Jew who shows up with a big Jewish star on a flag. No matter how much I tried to avoid conflict, to explain. Oh, maybe there was a way I could have stayed, but rolling up my beautiful proud flag for them would have been an even bigger loss.
A marcher who saw the Jewish women’s removal told the Windy City Times that it was “horrific.”
“This is not what this is community is supposed to be about,” the woman told the Windy City Times. “With all the people that so hate the LGBTQ community, for it to tear itself apart in self-hatred makes no sense at all.”
(H/T: Hot Air)
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