Three out of four Jewish medical professionals and students have reported being subjected to antisemitism since October 7, 2023, according to a recent study.
The number of publications and social media posts about antisemitism written by people in the medical field have increased by five times in the past 14 months, and social media posts from medical professionals promoting antisemitism have risen by four times. The quantitative data affected more than 75 percent of Jewish medical professionals and students who were surveyed, a study in the peer-reviewed Journal of Religion and Health finds. It was published December 1.
The article, titled “Social Media, Survey, and Medical Literature Data Reveal Escalating Antisemitism Within the United States Healthcare Community,” was written by seven researchers from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Florida, New York, Rhode Island, and Illinois.
Dr. Steven Roth, who co-authored the study and practices anesthesiology at the University of Illinois Chicago, said the information they found and published was “very deeply distressing.”
“Medicine, and medical schools in particular, have always held themselves out to be places where no discrimination and no hatred is tolerated,” Roth said. “Once you get antisemitism or any form of hatred or discrimination creeping into medicine, it undermines the entire health care system.”
Roth and his colleagues performed three separate analyses while conducting their research. One involved studies found within the National Institutes of Health’s PubMed archive between 2000 and 2023 that included the words “antisemitism,” “antisemitic,” or “Holocaust” in the title or abstract. The second used an artificial intelligence tool to study social media posts on X made by 220,405 health-care professionals, and the third surveyed members of Jewish medical associations.
“All three analyses suggested growing awareness and evidence of rising Jew-hatred within the U.S. healthcare community,” the researchers wrote. “Posts about Jews and Judaism, including posts promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, were prevalent within the social media accounts of self-identified healthcare professionals. Most surveyed U.S. medical students and healthcare professionals experienced Jew-hatred and reported a marked increase following Oct. 7, 2023.”
The research uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
For example, accusing Jews of exaggerating or inventing the Holocaust and comparing Israel’s policies to those of Nazi Germany would be considered contemporary examples of antisemitism. However, criticism of Israel itself would not be considered antisemitic.
Dr. Daniella Schwartz, the article’s lead author, told the Jewish News Syndicate that while some major medical journals have endorsed the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism, “subsequent editorials published in those same journals referred to Israelis as ‘Nazis,’ which is an IHRA-defined instance of antisemitism as well as a Holocaust inversion.”
Medical journals have also “referred to Gaza as a concentration camp and casually discussed the ‘genocide’ in Gaza,” Schwartz said.
“We found these occurrences to be disturbing not just in their antisemitism but also in their hypocrisy,” she added. “Part of our response is to point out that at least some of the IHRA critics are hypocritically endorsing this definition under certain circumstances and then repudiating it in other situations.”
Over 33 percent of respondents to the survey said they had seen antisemitism promoted in medical or scientific journals, according to the study’s findings.
“Rising antisemitism in the medical field has grave potential implications for the future of healthcare in America,” the authors wrote. “This could include reduced enrollment in medical schools, increased mental health issues and physician burnout, loss of physicians to early retirement and/or reluctance of Jewish-identifying patients to seek treatment in hospitals or institutions associated with antisemitic incidents.”
To mitigate antisemitism in the medical field, Roth and co-author Dr. Hedy Wald advocate for a “4 E’s” framework of education, engagement, empathy, and enforcement in an editorial published by the American Journal of Medicine in October. The two physicians reiterated their unique approach in a Chicago Sun-Times op-ed last month, declaring there should no hate in medicine.
“Everything starts with education,” Roth said. “One of the main reasons antisemitism has been around for thousands of years is that it is fueled by lack of understanding and lack of education. Medical schools and academic medical centers need to lead by example.”