On the eve of D.C.’s first Dyke March in more than a decade, organizers have found themselves responding to allegations of anti-Semitism after they announced that Israeli and other nationalist symbols would not be allowed at the march on Friday. That includes what’s often referred to as the “Jewish pride flag,” a Star of David on a rainbow flag.

“I felt like I was being pushed out of spaces that I considered safe, spaces that were my refuge when I was coming out,” AJ Campbell, a Jewish woman planning to attend the march, wrote in Tablet Magazine. “Sure, I was welcome to stay if I did what they wanted me to do, but I was deeply hurt to realize that, once again, I wasn’t allowed to simply be who I am.”

Dyke March organizers dispute the contention that their policy is anti-Semitic. “When we collapse anti-Semitism and anti-zionism into the same thing, it’s actually really harmful to the Jewish community,” says Yael Horowitz, a Jewish organizer of the D.C. Dyke March.

The first Dyke March ever was held in D.C. in 1993, but there hasn’t been a march here since 2007. Keeping with tradition, the march is unpermitted, and the exact route won’t be released until the day it’s being held, organizers have said. The march begins at 5:30 p.m. on Friday at McPherson Square and will end with a rally at Dupont Circle. Organizers told the Washington Blade that they estimate a little over 1,000 people will attend the march, but they don’t have any concrete numbers. The theme of the march is “Dykes Against Displacement,” and organizers are raising money for local organizations fighting displacement in the District.

The controversy surrounding the march began when Campbell contacted organizers via Facebook Messenger to ask if they had a plan in place to protect marchers from harassment if they were carrying the Jewish pride flag or other Jewish pride items. In the back of her mind, she says, was an incident in which three marchers carrying Jewish pride flags were asked to leave the Chicago Dyke March in 2017.

Organizers told Campbell in response that, while Jewish symbols would be allowed, Israeli symbols would not.

“Jewish stars and other identifications and celebrations of Jewishness (yarmulkes, talit, other expressions of Judaism or Jewishness) are welcome and encouraged,” the message, which was shared with DCist, reads. “We do ask that participants not bring pro-Israel paraphernalia in solidarity with our queer Palestinian friends. This includes Israeli flags, as well as flags that resemble Israeli flags, such as a pride flag with a Star of David in the middle.”

Campbell says this policy does not sit well with her. “I can be a Jew there, just the kind of Jew they want. Why should I be pushed out of my own community?” she asks.

But organizers say the policy isn’t meant to push anybody out of the march, but rather the opposite. They say that allowing Israeli imagery at the march would be alienating to Palestinian marchers. What’s more, organizers aren’t just banning Israeli flags and symbols, they’re banning all nationalist symbols.

Horowitz tells DCist that any flag meant to mimic or represent the flag of a nation state is not allowed at the march. But individual expressions of religious or ethnic identity are allowed, she says.

“The Jewish star by itself is not a nationalist symbol, I wear one around my neck every day. It’s when it’s put in blue over a rainbow to be reminiscent of a flag that it’s a nationalist symbol, just like an American flag in rainbow colors would be a nationalist symbol and would not be allowed,” Horowitz says. “It’s not about the Jewish star itself, it’s about the flag that it’s replicating.”

However, marchers will be allowed to carry symbols at the march expressing Palestinian pride, according to Horowitz. Palestine is unique in this respect—because it’s not recognized as a nation state by many sovereign powers, it “doesn’t have the same oppressive powers, it doesn’t have a military,” she says.

In an op-ed on Thursday, Horowitz and another organizer, Rae Gaines, described Campbell as “a Zionist [who] contacted the DC Dyke March with the deliberate goal of making it sound as though Jews are unwelcome at the DC Dyke March—a claim that erases us Jews who have been organizing so heavily.”

Campbell says that she is flabbergasted that Palestinian symbols would be allowed while Israeli symbols are not, and she doesn’t believe march organizers should be dictating what she can bring to the march. Despite what organizers have told her, she said she still plans to march with a Jewish Pride Flag on Friday.