People participate in the 30th Annual New York City Dyke March on June 25, 2022. Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Jodi Kreines
June 17, 2025
Three weeks after Jodi Kreines, an organizer for the New York City Dyke March, expressed concerns about how the activist group has handled discussions about Zionism in a feature for the Forward, she was ousted from her role.
In an email informing her of her removal, her former peers on the march’s organizing committee told her that her statements had created an “inconsistency” that had made “BIPOC community members in particular” within the group “feel unwelcome and unsafe.”
Kreines, who has been an LGBTQ+ organizer for two decades, was the only Jewish member of the New York City Dyke March’s 2025 organizing committee to resist the march’s formal commitment to anti-Zionist principles earlier this year. She believed that the march should remain inclusive to all who identify as dykes, regardless of their political affiliation.
Kreines spoke with the Forward the day after she was notified of her removal. The following, in her voice, has been edited for length and clarity.
On June 6, a fellow committee member posted in one of our channels that a BIPOC TikTok creator from New York City had made a video accusing us of being Zionist, and urged their followers not to join the Dyke March. It created a panic within the NYCDM organizing committee. People started posting my quotes on internal committee channels from the original Forward article, but with my name blacked out.
This all took place on a Friday night, when I’m not necessarily using my phone during Shabbat. I’ve since understood from conversations with friends that an emergency Zoom meeting was called that same evening for any committee members who were available to discuss what to do about me.
The next day, I received an email from the personal account of another Jewish dyke, “reaching out with care and clarity” to ask me to step down from the committee. I was told that my public comments “expressing support for Zionist inclusion and collaboration are in direct conflict with our mission.” At the same time, I was assured that the NYCDM organizing committee “will continue to listen to Jewish committee members and the Jewish Caucus on matters of safety and security.”
I was urged to “take this as an opportunity for reflection and growth.”
When I saw this email, I thought it was ridiculous. Everyone is panicking over a micro-influencer sharing her TikTok? I thought it was ludicrous for me to respond to a random request to step down, and before I went to bed that Saturday night, I decided to log in to see if there were any notes from the meeting that they had had about me. Maybe I was missing something.
Then I realized the passwords to everything had been changed. I was already locked out.
By Sunday, a 24-hour-vote to remove me had been submitted to the rest of the committee, and I was formally removed on Monday, with 88.2% of people who voted in favor. I found out later that Judith Kasen Windsor, the wife of gay rights activist Edie Windsor, who does identify as a proud Zionist, was also kicked off of the committee.
There’s so much emphasis on external repair to some random TikToker. Meanwhile, no one has engaged with me directly to speak about this.
They deliberately chose a Jewish committee member to send the first email on Saturday, and then I received a second email from the actual Dyke March, which essentially said “Leave voluntarily or else.” There’s also a level of cowardice, because they never named me during this entire process. I was referred to only as “a Jewish committee member,” or “the Zionist committee member,” when I’ve never spoken about my feelings on Zionism.
This organizing season with the NYCDM has been very challenging for me. It felt very important for me to stay in this space and make my voice heard. I felt the policies in place of being explicitly anti-Zionist were not inclusive.
There isn’t some litmus purity test of who could be welcome at this march, other than you’re a dyke. For me, banning something that is associated so deeply with someone’s religion is not a good reason to dismiss them, or make them feel unwelcome from marching in the Dyke March. I don’t want a 17 or 18-year-old person, like I was 20 years ago, feeling that this isn’t a safe place for them. I always felt the safest in the city during Pride weekend. I came out just before my 17th birthday, when George W. Bush was president and The L Word had just started airing. It still felt really defiant to exist openly as a gay person.
In 2007, I attended the Dyke March for the first time. It felt so singular and unique, to have a space like that, out in the open in New York City. I didn’t realize what it would feel like to march with my community, without a bunch of men around. At the Dyke March, I could really be myself, and feel good about it.
We can’t go backwards to having people feel unwelcome in queer spaces. The goal of queer spaces is to be a place where everyone can feel that level of community. For the Dyke March to take such a turn, and become a place where so many people do not find it to be a source of comfort and community, is heartbreaking for me.
I’ve been organizing for gay rights since I was in college. I’ve never thought that I would have to be choosing parts of my identity I have to prioritize to be allowed in queer spaces. This is not what we do. We don’t take each other apart. We have a community, we have common ground, and we have been able to work through our disagreements in service of a bigger picture.
Now, we have to subscribe to this sort of omni-cause. You have to be for everything, or you’re not cool with us. There is only one right way to be a dyke, and you have to subscribe to this list of ideals.
For me, that’s what it comes back to with the Dyke March. You don’t get to decide what type of dyke someone is. You don’t get to say that you are only a dyke that’s welcome here if you do X, Y, Z, if you believe X, Y, Z.
That is not building community. And it has never been the vision for the Dyke March.
I understand that movements can change, and that there is a need to have consideration and make concessions. But those concessions should never be at the expense of an already vulnerable group.
The same idea applies to Judaism as well. There’s a lot of different ways to be Jewish, and the NYCDM is creating this dichotomy where there is a good or a bad Jew, because of what your interpretation of Zionism is, and what it means to you as you express your Judaism and practice your religion.
There is no right way to be a Jew and there is no right way to be a dyke. And we don’t get to decide that for people, especially not as a volunteer group of 20 dykes that organize a visibility march during Pride weekend.
I’m heartbroken, but I don’t have any regrets. I’m proud that my legacy will be as someone who stood up for actual inclusion for all dykes.
I have a degree in American studies, which is basically a history degree. And one of the most interesting aspects of history for me is historiography, which is the history of histories — the study of who gets to write it.
I didn’t want the narrative of Jews and the Dyke March to be controlled by people who had specific intentions with that narrative. It’s really important to me that a truthful history exists of the past 20 months in the NYCDM committee. I know that my experience will be weaponized by pro-Israel voices. It already has, but it’s not something I can control. And I can reconcile that, because I stand by my words and I know what my intention is.
