In 2024, I was disinvited from presenting a lecture on the health and human rights consequences of the Israeli assault on Gaza, by unnamed administrators at Harvard University, who (I was told) accused me of being an antisemite. At Geisel, the medical school affiliated with Dartmouth, I was also invited and then met with an “indefinite postponement” for a similar presentation. It is clear these have not been isolated events.
Two recent pieces provide an illustration of the current ideological battle taking place with in the U.S. healthcare community. First, a recent report on the suppression of speech at UCLA’s medical school shows the real-world harm antisemitism witch hunts are creating on medical campuses across the country. And then an error-riddled article from the Journal of Religion and Health provides a perfect illustration of how false charges of antisemitism are constructed and gives us a perfect case study in how to debunk the smears.
The view from UCLA
A January 2025 report prepared by the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Muslim Racism offers a sobering picture of the growing suppression of speech and actions in medical schools and hospitals where there is support for Palestinian human rights and criticism of the genocidal assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The report reviews data from UCLA where over 24 medical students, residents, and faculty in the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) experienced intense targeting, gaslighting, harassment, doxxing, death threats, and job loss from both inside and outside the medical school in well-organized campaigns to suppress freedom of speech and to uphold the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition, which is highly contested in academic and progressive circles, defines antisemitism with the usual anti-Jewish tropes but then lists examples that are various forms of criticism of Israel and Israeli policies. These social media attacks quickly rose to the attention of high-level administrators, the media, and ultimately the U.S. Congress, threatening the targets’ mental and physical safety.
UCLA courses on Structural Racism and Health Equity (SRHE) and Global Health, as well as classes on race and health inequities, were all vulnerable to attacks, particularly if they focused on Palestinian human rights. This repression and retaliation extended to other academic inquiries on racial justice, health inequities, and DEI initiatives and often targeted women of color. People were confronted in response to social media posts as well as for curricula, protests, statements, and buttons, and lectures were illegally recorded and weaponized.
The administration from DGSOM and UCLA initially responded to the October 7 attack with a full-throated statement in support of Israel and subsequently refused to support academic freedom for students and faculty critical of Israeli policies. They also refused to condemn those who were making the attacks, reducing the ability of students to learn and understand health inequities and the social determinants of health, the impacts of race and class, etc. The repression often took the form of increased levels of surveillance and weaponized accusations of antisemitism, particularly when students described the assault on Gaza as a genocide.
This pattern of behavior pre-dated the events of October 7. In 2021, a vigilante group titled the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFRG) targeted instructors working in the Structural Racism and Health Equity course (SRHE) with accusations of antisemitism. They were joined by a group called Do No Harm, a group self-described as “a national association of medical professionals combating the attack on our healthcare system from woke activists” and “protecting healthcare from the disastrous consequences of identity politics.” Much of this occurred under the pretense of preventing students from feeling “uncomfortable.”
The DGSOM administration repeatedly responded sympathetically to the antisemitism accusations while ignoring credible evidence of racism against Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and people supportive of Palestinian rights, as well as the well-documented violations of international law, statements from the UN, International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice. The Task Force noted that this behavior violates the faculty codes of conduct for both institutions.
This is all particularly consequential because the repression and retaliation are not only designed to threaten and punish the targets immediately but also to impact their training and professional employment options in the future. This also creates a hostile learning environment that includes anti-Palestinian racism and hostility towards other races and social justice activities. As the Task Force stated: “UCLA DGSOM continues to maintain a toxic, discriminatory and psychologically unsafe work environment,” which creates an “inability for students to discuss their positionality when exploring racial justice…[and] leads to harassment and self censorship and loss of critical discussion.”
Debunking accusations of antisemitism
It was thus with particular curiosity that I read an opinion piece titled “Social Media, Survey, and Medical Literature Data Reveal Escalating Antisemitism Within the United States Healthcare Community,” in a somewhat obscure publication, Journal of Religion and Health. What I found was profoundly disturbing, but not unexpected. And provides a perfect illustration of the framing and definitions, of both antisemitism and Jewishness, that provide fodder for ideological battles and weaponization of the charge of antisemitism.
The authors in the Journal of Religion and Health reported that antisemitism has been rising for decades in the U.S. and has dramatically increased in the medical community as well.
Most surveyed U.S. medical students [19 responses] and healthcare professionals [138 plus 6 residents or fellows] experienced Jew-hatred and reported a marked increase following October 7, 2023… nearly 90% of Jewish healthcare professionals and students reported exposure to antisemitism within their work or school environment after October 7, 2023. Similar results were seen in independent surveys of Jewish high school students, 71% of whom reported experiencing antisemitism.
The investigators reviewed quantitated publications about antisemitism, social media posts, and disseminated a survey to members of Jewish medical organizations to which they received 170 responses. They found a two to more than five-fold increase in antisemitic postings and tropes. 75.4 % of Jewish-identifying students and professionals reported exposure to antisemitism, up from 49.3% pre-October 7, 2023. Jewish students and faculty reported feeling frightened, threatened, and silenced at work
Antisemitism is a serious form of bigotry that has repeatedly been found to be rising in this country, mostly in the context of the explosion of rightwing fascism and hatred of Jews, women, LGBTQI folks, and people of color. Nonetheless, there are several serious flaws in this paper.
Who did they survey? The authors surveyed Jewish-identified health care providers, and in particular, named three groups: JPN, (Jewish Physicians Network), JOWMA, (Jewish Orthodox Women’s Medical Association), and Orthodocs, (Orthodox/Shomer Shabbos Jewish physicians and medical students). Half of these people reported experiencing antisemitic incidents in their lives pre-October 2023, which seems unusually high for the general Jewish population, in my personal experience working in a variety of health care environments. While these folks represent a segment of Jews in the U.S., (approximately 10% of the Jewish population are Orthodox), it cannot be assumed that they represent all Jews. It seems the authors deliberately omitted Reconstructionist, Reform, and Conservative Jews, cultural Jews, unaffiliated Jews, and politically progressive, left-of-center Jews, such as members of Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now. By failing to include less religiously inclined Jews who are still strongly identified with their Jewish heritage and prophetic traditions, Israeli Jews studying in the U.S., and anti-Zionist Jews, the authors have not reflected the diverse, complex, and sometimes contradictory Jewish community in the U.S. and their perceptions of antisemitism.
What definition of antisemitism did they use? The authors used the IHRA definition of antisemitism. This definition fails to situate antisemitism in right wing fascist ideology where it is currently exploding.
The consequence of this is that anyone who criticizes the genocidal behaviors of the Israeli government and military since October 7, who places the Hamas attacks within the context of decades of severe Israeli oppression, occupation, and siege, who calls out the Israeli destruction of Gazan hospitals, universities, housing, water and sanitation infrastructure, the imprisonment and torture of Gazan health care providers, the weaponization of food aid and rising levels of starvation, the enormous numbers of injured and dead, 2/3 women and children, the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world… all of these folks are, by the IHRA definition, antisemites.
What experts did they quote? The authors used the FBI and ADL who in turn use the IHRA definition of antisemitism. As an example, they stated: “ADL Based on FBI crime statistics, the Anti-Defamation League has reported a more than 300% increase in antisemitic incidents between October—December 2023.” None of this has validity because the initial definition is deeply flawed. The ADL has also repeatedly been found to be an apologist for Israel masquerading as an anti-hate, civil rights organization.
What assumptions did they make? The authors stated there has been a “Dramatic increase in campus antisemitism since the Hamas assault,” echoing the analysis from pro-Israel groups, Israeli hasbara organizations, and folks from Jewish organizations to college presidents to congresspeople who are all using the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Once again, the college students living in tent encampments calling attention to extremely disturbing Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity reaching the level of genocide as defined by international human rights law and organizations, and the International Criminal Court, and International Court of Justice, were not engaged in antisemitic speech. They were exercising their first amendment rights condemning a horrific bombing and killing campaign in Gaza with U.S.-made planes, drones, weapons, and surveillance equipment. They were criticizing the politics and behavior of a country, not a people with a particular religious affiliation or attachment. Their calls for boycott, divestment, and sanction of Israel or U.S. war-related industries were also not reflective of Jew hatred, but a desire to put pressure on Israel to stop destroying Palestinian lives and livelihood with total impunity, supported militarily and politically by the U.S. government and our taxes. To dismiss voices of protest as “Hamas supporters” is highly inaccurate and misleading.
Who was left out of this analysis? This focus on rising levels of supposed Jew hatred and Jewish fear is particularly concerning in the face of all the not-so-Jewish folks who were left out, who suffered verbal and physical assaults, doxxing, school expulsion, job suspension and loss, including medical students and faculty. The Institute for the Understanding of anti-Palestinian Racism has also documented high levels of racism against Palestinians, people perceived to be Palestinian, other Arabs, and allies who support Palestinian human rights and self-determination. This racism is layered onto the pervasive Islamophobia that is part of the U.S. psyche and inflamed by the rhetoric of the current government.
There will obviously be real antisemitic incidents, mostly from the extreme right as well as MAGA Republicans, less often from the left, as antisemitism persists in the brew of bigotries that flourish in the U.S. But the distrust, discrimination, and hatred of Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims is a far greater issue for our society. Accurately identifying these kinds of hatreds and separating antisemitism from principled criticism of Israel, will produce a more knowledgeable and tolerant society that will make lives for Palestinians as well as Jews safer in the future.
What finally destroys this paper? The authors include this extraordinary sentence:
Between 2014 and 2023, conflicts between Israel and Hamas have sparked false claims including accusations that Israeli and/or Jewish health professionals practice organ harvesting, withhold medical care from Palestinian Arabs, and deliberately target Palestinian healthcare workers and/or ambulances.
Newsweek, NBC, and other mainstream outlets reported that the Israeli military admitted to harvesting Palestinian organs from dead Palestinians without consent in the 1990s. The withholding of medical care from Palestinians and the deliberate targeting of Palestinian health workers and ambulances has been widely documented for years by many international and local human rights and health care organizations and became a defining characteristic of the latest attacks on Gaza and the West Bank. If the authors question these established, factually well-documented pieces of information, then the credibility of the entire opinion piece is seriously called into question as anything beyond a piece of right wing Jewish and Israeli propaganda.
Our obligation as healers
Ultimately, I am inspired that despite the severe repression that folks in the healthcare world are facing from those using the accusation of antisemitism to silence critics of Israeli policy, health workers are still speaking up. They are using their experience and credibility to reject those accusations and to speak out against the blatant and internationally recognized violations of human rights that Israel is imposing on the Palestinian people. They are protesting in their white coats, advising and protecting students, challenging academic pushback, and living up to their obligation to heal not only patients but also the societies in which they live.
Critiquing Israeli policies that have been condemned internationally, and the naming of war crimes and genocide where it exists, is part of our work and obligation as healers. It is also grounded in the teachings of prophetic Judaism and the work to create a more just world for everyone. Jewish exceptionalism is not a Jewish value. It bears repeating that never again means never again for everyone.
Alice Rothchild is a physician, author, and filmmaker who has focused her interest in human rights and social justice on the Israel/Palestine conflict since 1997. She practiced ob-gyn for almost 40 years. Until her retirement she served as Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harvard Medical School. She writes and lectures widely, is the author of Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience, On the Brink: Israel and Palestine on the Eve of the 2014 Gaza Invasion, and Condition Critical: Life and Death in Israel/Palestine. She directed a documentary film, Voices Across the Divide and is active in Jewish Voice for Peace.