Jew-hatred spreading in health care since Oct. 7, medical professionals say

Michelle Stravitz, inaugural CEO of the American Jewish Medical Association, which launched earlier this year, said that Jew-hatred and anti-Israel bias pervade medical schools, professional associations and patient interactions.

“We are seeing antisemitism manifest in all relationships in the healthcare community,” Stravitz said at the briefing. “We’ve seen the calling for the removal of all Zionists from health care. We see marginalization, ostracizing of colleagues and demonization of colleagues.”

The Jewish Federations of North America organized the event, which was held in the Capitol Hill Visitor’s Center. Three of the speakers asked to remain anonymous, citing potential threats to their careers for speaking out against antisemitism.

A doctor at a major U.S. medical school described the reactions of Jewish patients who were treated by medical staff who insisted on wearing anti-Israel paraphernalia, despite the practice’s dress code banning such attire.

“In the infertility clinic, there were six out of seven nurse practitioners, none of whom were Palestinian or of Middle East descent, who insisted on wearing pins and even keffiyehs and refused to take them off when patients specifically asked,” the doctor said at the event.

“One Jewish patient was diagnosed with a miscarriage via a transvaginal ultrasound by a nurse practitioner and had a breakdown and started sobbing in the clinic in response to the ‘free Palestine’ pin,” the doctor added. “The nurse practitioner left her alone and half naked in the room without further care.”

“One patient complained to local media that the pins made her so uncomfortable that she hid her Jewish identity, including plans for her son’s circumcision,” the doctor added.

The nature of obstetric care also left patients feeling particularly vulnerable that they could face retaliation or have their treatments sabotaged, according to the doctor.

“People were worried that if they came forward and complained about their care that the staff members would damage their embryos,” the doctor said. “It was creating a complete chilling effect on patients.”

Wearing the items is not necessarily antisemitic but the response to patient complaints from colleagues demonstrated bigotry against Jews, the doctor said.

“Faculty and staff actually wrote a letter stating that patients’ feelings should not matter when it comes to patient advocacy in the clinical space,” the doctor said.

Referring to the major, West Coast public academic medical center where the doctor is employed, the doctor said that the institution’s faculty and staff would have responded differently “if any other group were raising these concerns.”

A psychologist at another highly-ranked medical school described how antisemitism is now being encouraged in patient treatment in some corners of the mental health specialties in the form of “decolonizing therapy” and “liberation psychology.”

“The idea is that when a patient walks into the room, you see them in a binary: oppressor or oppressed,” the psychologist said. “Once they’re categorized in that binary, it would guide the work that you do with that patient.”

“Jews, who are considered oppressors, would be seen as a problem in society. Zionism is viewed as a mental illness,” the psychologist said. “As a therapist, it would be a responsibility of someone who’s practicing a decolonizing therapy framework to have them reject that ideology in order to heal. It’s a complete inversion of the way therapy should work.”

Kenneth L. Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, said at the briefing that these practices likely violate civil rights law.

“That should not be funded by even a penny of federal money or state money and to the extent that Congress is appropriating any money that is going to this treatment, that has to stop,” he said. “This notion that core components of Jewish identity should be treated as a mental illness that can be item number one—we cannot let this continue.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is Jewish, said at the event that he was “utterly shocked and astonished” to hear that Jew-hatred is so widespread in medicine.

“I really did not think that this infected the medical profession and scientists and people who purport to take an objective and rationalist approach to knowledge,” he said. “Antisemitism is the pathway to the destruction of liberal democracy, and so it’s not just of concern to the Jewish community. It’s a concern of everybody.”