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A surge in discrimination, exclusion and hostility is being reported by Jewish patients, doctors and medical students in therapy sessions, hospitals and university programs. Some patients are even being told by their therapists that they cannot talk about Oct. 7 and its aftermath. Physicians are being fired, marginalized or silenced for raising concerns about the hatred of Jews (antisemitism). Students and professors in health care fields face increasing pressure to disavow Zionism – or remain silent – to protect their academic standing. Most disturbingly, Zionism is now being framed by some academics and professionals as a psychological pathology – a mental illness to be diagnosed, treated and eliminated. This is not a professional dispute – it is a moral crisis.
Activist Psychologists: Targeting Zionists
These disturbing ideological trends will be prominently featured at the August national conference of the American Psychological Association – the largest organization of psychologists in the country. Several sessions are set to portray Zionism as inherently violent and advance anti-Zionist activism as an ethical responsibility in clinical practice.
Planned presentations by the APA’s Peace Psychology Division are particularly troubling. One asserts that Israel’s war against Hamas “began on Oct. 7 in response to Palestinian attacks on Israeli military bases” – a description that erases the murder, rape and kidnapping of more than 1,500 Israeli children, women and Holocaust survivors. Another session on “decolonial understandings of Palestine” features a psychologist who encourages therapists to “use your voices as psychologists as a form of resistance.”
Another symposium – for continuing education credit – focuses on “anti-Palestinian racism,” a concept that redefines political disagreement as psychological harm. It argues that denying that Israel’s creation was a catastrophe (the Nakba), opposing the destructive Palestinian right of return and challenging false claims against Israel are considered forms of racism. In contrast, the APA’s only session on antisemitism lasts just one hour.
Kenneth Marcus, founder of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, calls this trend a red flag: “If Zionism is being treated as a mental disorder, how can Jews expect fair treatment?” He warns that when ideology overtakes clinical standards, Jewish professionals and patients are left increasingly vulnerable.
Jewish Therapists: ‘A blacklist of Jews’
Jewish therapists across the country are being fired, blacklisted and pushed out of their profession. In Dallas, clinicians Jackie Junger and Jacqueline Katz were terminated days after raising concerns about the erasure of Jewish trauma in a staff meeting. A non-Jewish colleague asked for help understanding a Jewish client’s distress, but their supervisor cut them off and later banned discussion of the “Palestine Israel topic” – even though there was no mention of this. Junger concluded that the Jewish patient will “not be allowed to get competent healthcare” and questioned if “this rule only applies to Jewish clients.”
Therapists in Chicago who responded to a referral request for a “Zionist” clinician to help a patient dealing with the conflict in Israel were added to a public blacklist – alongside others who had said nothing at all. Licensed clinical social worker Anna Finkelshtein: “It was a list of Jews. How is this considered okay today?” Illinois state regulators issued a formal reprimand, but this did not stop Heba Ibrahim Joudeh from continuing her blacklist. Clinical social worker Dana Cohen: “We are still traumatized by this experience a year later.”
Jewish Patients: ‘Traumatic invalidation’
Trauma therapists Miri Bar-Halpern and Jaclyn Wolfman described how “rather than being met with compassion and care, many Jewish patients following Oct. 7 were instead met with a stunning mix of silence, blame and exclusion – and even the outright denial of the atrocities – along with any emotional pain stemming from them.” They call this “traumatic invalidation.”
This discriminatory treatment is causing patients to increasingly search for Jewish therapists. A patient returning from Israel was told by her therapist: “Wow. It’s good you were assigned to me. No one else in this practice will treat a Zionist.” Another patient, Rachel, had been treated by her therapist from middle school through adulthood. She is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. Rachel was struggling with the surge in hatred against Jews after Oct. 7. She broke down in tears during a therapy session. Her therapist explained that the massacre videos filmed by Hamas were “fake.”
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