Antisemitism in health care has been documented by scholars since before the Holocaust, during which doctors and nurses participated in atrocities against Jewish victims. Discrimination against Jews and episodes of anti-Jewish hate in health care settings have been documented through the decades.
Some antisemitic conspiracies inmedieval andearly modern Europe took the form of fearing Jewish (or suspected Jewish) doctors. This fear seemed to be especially strong in 17th and 18th centuryIberia, withconversos (Jews who had converted to Catholicism) often being targeted.[1][2] For example, the Portuguese author Vicente da Costa de Mattos, in his 1622 workBreve discurso contra a heretica perfidia do judaismo, suggests that Jewish people who had pretended to convert to Christianity were entering medicine so that they could kill Catholics.[3] This idea was also present in other parts of early modern Europe, such as in Germany.[1]
Jews were viewed in medieval Europe as vectors for the transmission of disease.[4] Early modern works linked Jews to a variety of illnesses, arguing that the supposed prevalence in Jewish communities were due to the practices and conditions of the communities.[5] Many of these ideas persisted into the 19th century.[6][7] The myth of Jewish male menstruation from bleeding hemorrhoids was connected to violent beatings in their hindquarters as punishment for having crucified Jesus Christ.[8]
With the development of the fields of psychology and psychiatry, Jews were accused of an inherent predisposition to a wade array of mental illnesses.[9] In England, Jewish men were ridiculed for penile and sexual disorders and infections, which were blamed on their sexual pathology, lechery, and circumcision.[10]
Beginning in 1854,[11] Jewish hospitals were founded to counter discriminatory practices in medical education and physician hiring, and to address the unmet needs of poor and religiously observant Jewish patients.[12] Quotas limiting admissions of Jews into medical schools reportedly existed in the United States from the 1920s until around 1970.[13] Two episodes of antisemitic violence, one in 1916 and one in 1927, were connected to American medical schools during this time, both taking place in New York.[14][page needed] In a 2025 article, Walteret al., argue there is evidence that past leaders of theAmerican Psychological Association (APA) published antisemitic publications that promoted "scientific racism and eugenics", and that the APA have been silent on this history.[15]
In Canada, antisemitic social and economic boycotts, along with educational quotas, have been described from the 19th through the mid-20th century.[citation needed] In June 1934, interns atNotre Dame Hospital inMontreal began astrike after Jewish doctor Samuel Rabinovitch was hired at the hospital; the strike ended when Rabinovitch resigned four days later.[16][page needed][17]
The fear of Jewish physicians continued to be stoked in 20th-century Germany;[1] medical educatorHedy Wald noted that the lead-up to theHolocaust featured the persecution and ostracizing of Jewish doctors.[19][20] Under theVichy government, theLaw on the status of Jews was signed byPhilippe Pétain.[21] These laws provided for a list of occupations from which Jews were barred, including medicine and related fields.[22][23][24] The French medical journalConcours Médical detailed these measures and regularly published the names of Jewish physicians to prevent them from practicing.[25][page needed] TheOrdre des Médecins [fr] was in charge of administering these antisemitic policies in the medical field.[26] In Italy, Mussolini evicted Jewish physiologists from their academic chairs while his Racial Laws banished Jews from public, social, and academic life.[27][page needed]
Several medical eponyms connected to Nazi-affiliated doctors were coined and later considered for removal.[28][29] Of the roughly 90,000 physicians who worked in Germany during Nazi rule, some 46,000 were members of the Nazi party.[30] Alongside this, according to Michael Kater, in 1937, physicians were seven times as likely as other employed males to join the SS.[31] After the end of World War II,United States authorities initiated theDoctors' Trial, where 20physicians and 3SS officials were charged for their involvement in theAktion T4 programme andNazi human experimentation.[citation needed] The trial was held before USmilitary courts.[18] Seven of the accused were sentenced todeath by hanging, five were sentenced tolife imprisonment, four were given prison sentences from 10 to 20 years, and seven wereacquitted.[citation needed] Reis et al. argued in a 2019 article that learning about how doctors in the Nazi regime became accomplices to genocide can help medical professionals deal with ethical challenges, prejudices, and implicit bias.[32]
In the 1950s aSoviet-sponsored anti-intellectual and antisemitic campaign was conducted under the fabricatedDoctors' Plot, many prominent Soviet physicians, many of whom were Jewish, were accused of plotting to assassinate high-ranking Soviet leaders through medical malpractice.[33] Initially sparked by a 1948 letter from a medical worker alleging suspicious diagnoses and treatments, the case gained momentum in 1951 whenMinistry of State Security investigatorMikhail Ryumin accused physicians of intentionally killing top officials.[34] These charges were part of a broader antisemitic campaign linked to Stalin's earlier purges and power struggles within theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union.[35] Arrests intensified in 1952, and a major media campaign in 1953 publicly accused the doctors of espionage and medical sabotage on behalf of Western intelligence agencies and Zionist organizations.[33] Under torture, prisoners seized in the investigation of the alleged plot were compelled to produce evidence against themselves and their associates.[36]
Several reports documented conspiracy theories blaming Jews for "engineering and profiting from theCOVID-19 pandemic".[37] Hate groups falsely labeled Jews as "being a main vector of the virus".[37] The USFederal Bureau of Investigation put out alerts regarding the possible threat of far-right extremists who were intentionally spreadingCOVID-19 misinformation which assigned blame to Jews and Jewish leaders.[38] Flyers were spread in Germany blaming Jews for the pandemic.[39] According to a study carried out by theUniversity of Oxford in early 2020, nearly one-fifth of respondents in England believed to some extent that Jews were responsible for creating or spreading the virus with the motive of financial gain.[40][41]Peter Hotez detailed in a 2023 journal article the convergence of antivaccine sentiment and antisemitism, where he reported on being targeted,[42] this convergence was also detailed in a British cross-sectional study published in December 2023.[43]
In March 2024, an Israeli trauma specialist was prevented from appearing as keynote speaker at a mental health conference due to a boycott campaign.[44][45][46][undue weight? –discuss] Pro-Palestinian groups called for cancellation of the speech as part of an academic boycott of Israel to not "normalize oppression" and "to end complicity in Israel’s violations of International law".[46][undue weight? –discuss] The Zionist Federation of Australia called the boycott antisemitic.[44][undue weight? –discuss]
On 12 February 2025, avideo chat between Israeli influencer Max Veifer and two nurses led to widespread criticism and a police investigation, after the nurses said they would kill Israeli patients and refuse to treat them.[47][48] After learning Veifer was Israeli, the male nurse said he would go toHell. The female nurse said he would face a "horrible death" for being in theIsrael Defense Force, and later said she would refuse to treat Israeli patients and would kill them. The male nurse said he had already killed several Israeli patients.[49][50][51]
The nurses had their licenses suspended across Australia.[56][57][58] The male nurse said the incident had been "just a joke" and was "a misunderstanding".[59] His solicitor said the nurse had sent an apology to Veifer and the Jewish community "as a whole", and was "trying to make amends".[60] After an internal investigation, the hospital said there was no evidence of "adverse outcomes" for patients.[52][51]
NSW Police officers have conducted investigations into the incident and are working with Veifer to present awitness statement admissible in theAustralian court, since the video was made in Israel.[61][49][62] On 26 February, the female nurse was charged with three federal offenses: threatening violence, using a carriage service to threaten to kill, and using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend.[63] She was also banned from social media and from leaving Australia.[64][65][better source needed] On 5 March, the male nurse was charged with two offenses: using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offense, and possession of a prohibited drug.[66]
In response to the incident, theNew South Wales Nurses and Midwives' Association held a demonstration outside NSW parliament to condemn "all forms of racism, bigotry and hatred, including acts of antisemitism and Islamophobia".[67] In the aftermath of the incident, another nurse atBankstown Hospital said she had previously raised concerns about antisemitism at the hospital after the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.[60][better source needed]
A coalition of Islamic organizations, includingHizb Ut-Tahrir andThe Muslim Vote, released a joint statement that said media outlets and political leaders had provided "active diplomatic and journalistic cover for ongoing crimes by theZionists" and described the public response as "selective outrage" and a "weaponisation of antisemitism".[68] Western Australian SenatorFatima Payman described the nurses' remarks as "terrible" and said they were being treated as though they had "committed the absolute worst crime imaginable".[69][relevant?]
After theOctober 7 attacks, most US medical associations did not make public comments, that has been contrasted to supportive communications they issued after Russian attacks on Ukraine.[70] Numerous doctors publicly celebrated the attacks.[70] Subsequently, Hedy Wald, Steven Roth, and others decried medical articles which they perceived as "political indictment cloaked in academic language."[71][72][19] They connected surging anti-Israel rhetoric with an increasingly hostile environment for Jewish students and faculty at medical schools,[73][20] Wald characterized a letter to US PresidentJoe Biden from a group of doctors who worked in Gaza during theGaza war as antisemitic, and included the wearing ofkeffiyehs as an antisemitic act in her studies.[19] She cited examples of medical students and faculty tearing downhostage posters, accusing Jewish students of complicity with genocide, engaging inHolocaust distortion andinversion,[74][75][page needed][76] and disrupting commencement ceremonies.[77]
House Republicans sentUCSF's Chancellor a letter to investigate "hundreds of complaints of antisemitism and/or a hostile work environment", stemming from an encampment in front of UCSF'smedical center against Israel's mass killing of Gazans during the Gaza War, antisemitic graffiti, behavior by medical staff and patients including alleged "calls for violence".[79][80]
In Chicago, Jewish therapists who said they would treat a Zionist patient were added to ablacklist.[81][better source needed] Trauma therapists Miri Bar-Halpern and Jaclyn Wolfman noted that some of their colleagues ignored or shunned them after the October 7 attacks, invalidated their pain after antisemitic comments, or otherwise committed "traumatic invalidation".[82][83][page needed]
In a 2025 survey, a majority of Jewish-identifying medical students and professionals (75.4%) reported workplace exposure to antisemitism.[84][page needed]
After the October 7 attacks on Israel, reports of antisemitism to theGeneral Medical Council increased 15-fold.[85] A majority of Jewish health care providers reported having experienced antisemitic behavior at some point in their career.[86] In the 12 months following October 7, the Jewish Medical Association submitted 28 complaints of antisemitism to theGeneral Medical Council, JMA member and chair if the Royal Society for Public Health, Fiona Sim said she was aware of over 100 incidents, with the organization deciding to only submit 28 serious incidents. In the year before October 7, the group submitted only one complaint.[87]
In September 2024, theCentral and North West London NHS Foundation Trust withdrew a training course on antisemitism due to concerns about its content. The withdrawal was reversed by the trust's chief executive, who said that the message about the withdrawal had not gone through the "usual sign-off processes."[88]
Quebec medical school applicants and students posted antisemitic tropes, racial slurs, praises for Nazism and Islamic State on a public social media server, with no apparent objections by other posters.[89][90][when?]
Norway's Jewish community sent a letter to health authorities expressing fears Jewish patients shared, including wearing a Star of David during medical examinations, or having their Jewish-sounding names called in waiting rooms.[91][better source needed] They noted that Norwegian medical organizations had supported boycotts against Israel and that Norway's government had refused to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization, in contrast to other Western countries.[91][better source needed]
The internationalLancet commission on Medicine and the Holocaust has outlined objectives for medical educators to include in curricula.[92][page needed][93]
Hedy Wald advocates for 4 E's to combatantisemitism, which can be incorporated intoDEI programs: education, engagement, empathy and enforcement. These include disseminating information about the historic roles ofNazi and Nazi-supporting doctors[94][95] and nurses;[96][page needed] fostering respectful dialogue and personal connections in medical communities; and establishing policies to opposehate speech and promotenondiscrimination.[19][97] Wald developed a Holocaust and medicine course at several medical campuses.[98]
A survey of workplace environment identified an unmet need for training programs on how to recognize antisemitism for both faculty and administrators at academic medical centers.[99][page needed] The University of Toronto medical faculty created a position of Senior Advisor on Antisemitism in 2021.[100][page needed]
The American Jewish Medical Association (AJMA) was founded after the October 7 Hamas-led attacks in order to support Jewish and non-Jewish Zionists in healthcare settings as well as Zionism in these settings.[101]
Peter Hotez has proposed "sciencetikkun", a bioscience policy, diplomacy, and advocacy framework focused on climate activism, pandemic prevention, vaccine development, and countering anti-science activities.[102]
In December 2024, the UK Health SecretaryWes Streeting urged regulators to crack down on medical staff who express "racist or extremist views" about the Israel-Hamas war.[87]
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