September 29, 2026
STAY INFORMED – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS – VOICES – STORIES MAKING NEWS
Healthcare is bound by a basic vow: do no harm. Across America, some doctors, nurses and therapists are breaking their oath and the law when the patient is Jewish or Israeli. Several of the profession’s own associations have begun labeling Zionism as a sickness to be treated rather than an identity to be respected. Anti-Jewish hatred in America has entered the examination room – and the federal government now has said emphatically that this breaks the law.
A patient on an operating table is about as vulnerable as a person can be. In Britain, a man having skin cancer removed from his forehead was forced to listen to his dermatologist – holding a knife mid-incision – declare that ‘Jews shoot children in the head for fun.’ The patient had already tucked his Star of David necklace out of sight.
Deciding Which Patients Deserve Care
In America, intentional medical negligence led to a Jewish child’s loss of life. Parents brought their 21-month-old son to an emergency room with a common, treatable respiratory virus. Doctors admitted him for breathing treatments and fluids. The father had a large Star of David tattoo and the child’s religion was on the admission form.
As the child’s breathing worsened, the resident assigned to the boy refused the parents’ repeated requests that their son be reassessed and answered the father with remarks about Jews. The boy died overnight.
His parents found public social media posts by the resident, including calls for God to curse the Jews and praise for Hamas. The family took the evidence to StandWithUs to fight for protections for future families. An SWU attorney and former civil rights investigator at the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services recounted this heartbreaking account at a recent American Jewish Medical Association webinar.
Driving Jewish Doctors Out
Mercy Health in Youngstown, Ohio, subjected one of its orthopedic surgeons to years of antisemitic harassment. The Jewish doctor had exceeded every productivity goal and Mercy featured his accomplishments on its website.
After the Oct. 7 Hamas massacres, the slurs grew into a barrage, blaming “the Jews” for the attack. The surgeon was excluded from scheduled meetings and his surgery time was cut. Weeks later, Mercy fired him for “no reason.” His patients were transferred to non-Jewish physicians.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently filed suit against Mercy for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the basis of the physician’s religion and race. The EEOC chair stated: “Antisemitism has no place in the American workplace.”
Unions Turn on Their Own Members
Hospitals are not the only ones pushing Jewish physicians out. The Committee of Interns and Residents, an SEIU union affiliate representing thousands of residents and fellows, endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that only targets Israel. Its resolution declared Israel guilty of ‘genocide’ and called for divestment, including “human capital” – Israeli doctors – while backing a physician who supported Iran-backed Hezbollah.
A Philadelphia cardiology fellow told Congress in May that the union urged hospitals to stop employing his Israeli colleagues, even as it kept withdrawing dues from their paychecks. He asked: “Should patients and families have to be worried about speaking Hebrew in the hospital?”
An attorney with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law testified at the same hearing: “The union that is supposed to represent them is also helping to create the hostile work environment they must endure.”
Punishing Jews Who Report Discrimination
At George Washington Univ., two Jewish students in a doctoral psychology program complained about an allegedly antisemitic classroom session in 2022 – more than a year before Oct. 7. The univ. placed them on remediation plans for complaining. A federal civil rights settlement later forced the school to clear their disciplinary records.
At Boston Medical Center, an Israeli mental health intern faced discriminatory retaliation after she reported anti-Israel and antisemitic displays that violated hospital policies in a shared clinical space. The intern was ostracized by colleagues, denied mentorship and professional development opportunities and penalized with a negative final evaluation.
Punishing the people who report antisemitism, denying or delaying care, or otherwise discriminating against Jewish or Israeli patients and providers is a federal civil rights violation. The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services recently issued guidance on combatting antisemitic discrimination to every hospital and medical school that receives federal funding. It listed “adverse evaluations” and “removal from rotations or clinical teams” as examples of unlawful retaliation. The letter emphasized that Jewish and Israeli patients, students and clinicians are entitled to equal access, dignity and individualized treatment.
This guidance is the first of its kind to explicitly incorporate the Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism, signaling HHS’ commitment to using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism.
Turning Zionism into a Diagnosis
The American Psychological Association has promoted a treatment model that classifies a patient’s Jewish identity as the illness. In “decolonial therapy,” Zionism is identified as a mental illness and Jewish patients are encouraged to reject it. HHS opened a federal civil rights investigation of the APA following a complaint filed by the Brandeis Center alleging pervasive anti-Semitic discrimination and a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli members. A U.S. Dept. of Education federal advisory panel recently recommended stripping federal recognition of the APA’s accrediting arm for a year.
A bipartisan group of 16 U.S. House members previously warned appropriators that the decolonizing therapy movement “distorts Jewish identity and fuels hostility toward Jewish clinicians and patients.” They concluded that “antisemitic hate and bigotry undermine the ethical foundations of medicine.”
Israeli Healthcare Disproves the ‘Apartheid’ Lie
The increasingly pervasive bias against Jews and Israelis in healthcare settings around the world operates in stark contrast to the practice of coexistence in the Israeli medical system.
The emergency room at Hadassah’s Mount Scopus campus in Jerusalem has been run since 2019 by Dr. Shaden Salameh – the first Arab woman to lead an Israeli hospital ER. This year she co-authored a study in the Journal of Emergency Medicine on how Israeli emergency departments handled the mass casualties of Oct. 7.
About a quarter of Israel’s doctors, nurses and dentists – and nearly 50% of its pharmacists – are Arab, in a country where Arabs represent roughly 20% of the population. An apartheid state does not staff its hospitals this way. Neither would it assist Palestinians. Former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and his brothers recently donated $550,000 to train 47 Palestinian pediatricians and nurses at a Tel Aviv medical center to support a planned children’s hospital in the Palestinian Authority.
For Dr. Salameh, the principle of medicine is simple: “It’s an oath between me and God, that I’m going to help anyone, with no bias, not race, gender or religion, just as a human.”
This Is Our Fight Too
Excerpts from actor Jerry O’Connell, speaking at the No More Excuses Rally Against Antisemitism, outside the United Nations.
“I’m here today as an ally and as a friend. Jewish people have shown up for me and my family throughout my entire life. When your friends are being targeted, threatened or isolated, you cannot look away. You have to show up.
“When I was a kid, my godfather told my mother and myself about being a prisoner of war in Germany. He was a Jewish man, and his greatest fear was being discovered as a Jew. I made myself a promise then that if I ever saw antisemitism like that again, I would do something about it.
“Antisemitism is real. Antisemitism is rising. And Jewish people should never have to wonder whether their neighbors stand with them.
“To every parent worried about whether their child can wear a Star of David or a kippah without fear, you are not alone. To everyone who is not Jewish – this is our fight too.
“I am just someone who believes that friendship means something. We will not abandon our Jewish friends.
“Am Yisrael Chai.”
Stories of Resilience
Stories Impacting American Jews
Stories Impacting the U.S. and Israel
Stories from Around the World
Stay Informed | Speak Up | Take Action
Want to Read More of Our Talking Points? Did you miss a recent edition of The Focus Project? No need to search your inbox. Our most recently published editions are available on our website.
This content is developed by The Focus Project in partnership with MERCAZ USA. The Focus Project distributes weekly news and talking points on timely issues concerning Israel and the Jewish people, including antisemitism, anti-Zionism and the delegitimization of Israel. It represents a consensus view across a spectrum of major American Jewish organizations. MERCAZ USA recognizes and respects the diversity of views on these issues among its readers and the community at large.
