By: Chaya Abecassis

Two recent episodes within the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) have placed an unsettling spotlight on the intersection of medical care and antisemitism. In one case, Jewish patients encountered anti-Israel propaganda posters inside a London hospital. In another, a midwife resigned amid controversy surrounding her social media posts endorsing Hamas violence and denigrating Zionism, later suing her employer for alleged discrimination. These developments are not isolated, but part of an alarming global trend documented by Jewish advocacy organizations and reported on in The Algemeiner: Jewish patients and healthcare workers increasingly fear bias, hostility, or even outright danger in environments meant to offer healing and neutrality.

From London to Amsterdam, Sydney to Los Angeles, accounts are proliferating of medical professionals and healthcare institutions compromised by antisemitic rhetoric. In some instances, the rhetoric has escalated into threats of death against Israelis. For Jewish patients, who enter hospitals and clinics at their most vulnerable, such incidents compound anxieties about fairness, safety, and dignity in the very spaces entrusted with preserving life.

The first controversy erupted at facilities operated by the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH Trust). As reported to UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) and cited in The Algemeiner report, a female outpatient was shocked to find anti-Israel posters displayed prominently inside the hospital.

The posters, laden with inflammatory rhetoric, declared:

“Israel is starving and killing Palestinians in Gaza.

Children are being slaughtered beyond measure.

We are the generation that can influence the system & government.

Zionism is Poison.”

The patient later shared with UKLFI her visceral fear upon encountering the material. “I’m an outpatient but God forbid in other circumstances to feel so vulnerable already and be surrounded by hostility would be so scary,” she said. “I shouldn’t have to remove my Star of David necklace to go to a hospital visit.”

For Jewish patients, such messages can undermine confidence in receiving impartial treatment. Hospitals, unlike political spaces, are expected to maintain neutrality and safeguard patients from the intrusion of ideological campaigns. Yet the patient’s testimony illustrates how quickly that sense of sanctuary can be eroded when political messages veer into antisemitic tropes and delegitimization of Jewish identity.

In response, UCLH Trust acted swiftly. Chief Executive David Probert issued a formal apology: “Firstly, I would like to apologize on behalf of UCLH for the distress and upset caused by these posters. At UCLH, we value diversity and inclusivity, and we are committed to providing a fair and non-discriminatory service to all individuals, regardless of background.”

According to Probert, the posters were removed immediately once reported, senior staff conducted walk-arounds to verify compliance, and internal communications reminded employees of strict policies prohibiting political messaging. Security was also instructed to remain vigilant for similar incidents.

UKLFI welcomed the hospital’s decisive action. Caroline Turner, director of the group, said in a statement that UCLH’s response “will help preserve dignity, equality, neutrality, and respect within NHS spaces, particularly for Jewish patients seeking medical care.”

As The Algemeiner report on Wednesday noted, the episode drew attention to the vulnerability many Jews now feel in public institutions — even in hospitals, where impartiality should be paramount.

The second case involves Fatimah Mohamied, a midwife formerly employed at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Mohamied resigned after UKLFI highlighted her social media posts, many of which appeared to glorify Hamas or denigrate Zionism.

Examples included a celebratory post on October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel, in which she reshared the slogan: “Palestinians have a right to resist their occupation—we have a right to support them. It’s that simple,” adding “hell yeah!!!”

On October 7 itself, as Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists brutally murdered 1,200 Israelis, raped women, and kidnapped more than 250 hostages, Mohamied wrote: “Palestinian women have birthed under blockade and siege. This is apartheid and like all apartheid, no justice or dignity can be found.”

Other posts accused Jewish institutions of using “cultural safety as a smokescreen” to conceal “colonialism, occupation, apartheid, and genocide.” Mohamied castigated organizations that “platform Zionists,” declaring that “there is no neutrality in degradation.”

After her resignation, Mohamied filed a legal claim against the NHS trust, alleging harassment and violation of her rights. In statements quoted in The Algemeiner report, she characterized the disciplinary scrutiny she faced as part of a “concerted and targeted effort to intimidate, harass, and punish me into silence for my Palestinian advocacy.”

Her attorney, Liana Wood of Leigh Day, argued that referrals against Mohamied were “entirely disproportionate” and reflected undue influence from “lobby groups.” The case, she suggested, demonstrates the need for NHS employers to carefully balance freedom of expression with their duty to protect patients from prejudice.

Yet Jewish advocates contend that Mohamied’s posts crossed into the realm of antisemitism and posed an unacceptable risk to patients. As The Algemeiner report observed, the controversy highlights a fundamental tension: healthcare providers cannot credibly treat Jewish or Israeli patients with impartiality if they simultaneously endorse groups that openly seek the destruction of Israel or propagate antisemitic tropes.

These UK incidents mirror episodes abroad where antisemitism has surfaced with disturbing clarity among healthcare professionals.

In the Netherlands, police investigated Batisma Chayat Sa’id, a nurse accused of threatening to administer lethal injections to Israeli patients. Though she denied the allegations, an account under her name had posted ominous messages, including: “Your time will come — don’t spare anyone,” and celebrating the burial of Israelis in Gaza as “a dream come true.”

In Australia, the situation escalated further. Two nurses, Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, filmed themselves posing as doctors, boasting of killing Israelis, and vowing to refuse treatment to Israeli patients. Abu Lebdeh explicitly declared on video that she would kill Israelis rather than care for them, while Nadir performed a throat-slitting gesture.

As The Algemeiner reported, authorities in New South Wales responded by suspending their nursing registrations, banning them from practice nationwide, and filing federal charges for threatening violence. If convicted, the pair face sentences of up to 22 years in prison.

The chilling footage was described by Israeli expatriates in Australia as proof of how deeply antisemitism has penetrated professional spaces. “Now they actually brag online about killing Israeli patients,” said Shira Nussdorf, a Jewish woman who immigrated from the U.S. to Israel before relocating to Australia. “I don’t know how safe I would feel giving birth at that hospital.”

These disturbing anecdotes are reinforced by empirical data. A December 2024 study by the Data & Analytics Department of StandWithUs, cited in The Algemeiner report, surveyed 645 Jewish healthcare professionals in the United States. Forty percent reported experiencing antisemitism in the workplace.

A parallel Canadian study yielded even more alarming results: 80 percent of Jewish health workers surveyed reported encountering antisemitism on the job.

Such findings confirm that antisemitism in medical environments is not sporadic but systemic. From subtle remarks and stereotypes to overt hostility and threats of violence, Jewish healthcare professionals frequently navigate workplaces where their identity provokes suspicion or resentment.

The hospital incidents must be viewed against the backdrop of a global surge in antisemitism, particularly after Hamas’s October 7 massacre. According to FBI statistics, also cited in The Algemeiner report, Jews — who represent just 2 percent of the U.S. population — were the targets of 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes in 2024.

This explosion of hostility has manifested in vandalism, harassment, online abuse, and physical assaults. The intrusion into healthcare, however, is uniquely alarming, because it undermines public confidence in one of society’s most fundamental institutions. Patients enter hospitals in states of illness, weakness, or dependency. The very notion that caregivers might harbor hatred strong enough to compromise their duty of care is profoundly destabilizing.

Jewish advocacy groups have reacted with alarm. In the UK, UKLFI emphasized that hospitals must remain politically neutral and free from antisemitic hostility. In the United States, organizations like the Secure Community Network have worked to ensure that Jewish patients and healthcare facilities are protected from potential threats.

As The Algemeiner reported, Jewish leaders warn that the normalization of antisemitic rhetoric among healthcare workers is particularly dangerous. Not only does it endanger patients, but it also corrodes the ethical foundations of medicine itself — an ethos rooted in the Hippocratic oath to “do no harm.”

The unfolding episodes at UCLH and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital illustrate the fragility of trust in healthcare settings when antisemitism intrudes. From inflammatory posters to social media posts celebrating Hamas violence, Jewish patients are left questioning whether their caregivers harbor bias against them.

As The Algemeiner report emphasized, the broader pattern — spanning Europe, North America, and Australia — demonstrates that antisemitism in healthcare is not a localized problem but a global one. The stakes could not be higher: ensuring that hospitals remain sanctuaries of impartial care, rather than stages for political hatred.

For Jewish patients, the demand is simple yet urgent: that the act of seeking medical care not require concealing a Star of David necklace, fearing a nurse’s prejudice, or doubting whether lifesaving treatment will be administered without bias.

The challenge for healthcare systems worldwide is to guarantee that neutrality, safety, and dignity are non-negotiable — for Jews as for all patients. Without that assurance, the very integrity of medicine as a universal human good stands at risk.