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ANTI-SEMITISM

’Zionism’ and ‘Zionist’ carry no shame By Harold Witkov

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/02/zionism_and_zionist_carry_no_shame.html

According to the Washington Post, Facebook, due to the abundance of online antisemitic rhetoric, is considering censoring the word “Zionist.”

No doubt about it, “Zionism” and “Zionist” have become hate words du jour.  I find the whole thing quite upsetting.  But not to take it lying down, I have decided to defend the two words.

The word “Zionism” comes from the word “Zion,” a word that appears often in the Hebrew Bible and refers to the city of Jerusalem (and the Land of Israel).  Zionism is the name for the 19th-century nationalistic movement that called for the creation of a new Jewish nation in the same area where the Jewish people originated and have always had a remnant, and where the Hebrew kingdoms of the past once stood.

When Zionism was in its infancy in the 19th century, the land now called Israel was a sparsely populated region called Palestine, a small part of the Ottoman Empire.  Why was the lack of a significant population in Palestine so important?  Because it was important to Theodor Herzl.

Herzl (1860–1904) was a Hungarian Jew moved by the tragic story of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army officer wrongly accused of being a traitor and then sentenced to Devils Island.  Shocked by the antisemitism of his day, Herzl, who would one day be known as the father of modern Zionism, believed that the Jewish people would always be second-class citizens in their native countries and called for the creation of a new Jewish homeland where the old once stood — a homeland where Jews would not be discriminated against because they are Jews.

‘White Kikes’ and ‘Melanin Recessives’ By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/02/white_kikes_and_melanin_recessives.html

Tamara Weitzman, an oncology social worker in Seattle, was called an “insensitive, Canadian white bitch” and a “white kike” at her workplace. 

On both occasions she informed her superiors, but no action was taken against her abusers. 

Instead, her employer – the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), since merged with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Center (FHCC) – required Ms. Weitzman to endure “remedial” courses in racial sensitivity and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) at which her experiences with antisemitism were discounted and her political views denounced. 

She says the message she got at the courses was that a) though she was Jewish, she “could pass” as white, so she could not have experienced discrimination; and b) she could not understand the history of racial discrimination. 

Course moderators disparaged her opinions.

To add insult to injury, in February 2021, she was fired despite five years of service during which she received several favorable performance reviews – one said she was a “wonderful addition to the SCCA social work team” – and a 23% raise. 

Reason: her “ethnic sensitivity” and core values did not align with those of the SCCA and her supervisor could not work with her to address these issues.

On January 16, Ms. Weitzman filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (Seattle division) seeking relief and damages from the SCCA/FHCC and her supervisors there.  She was unable to evoke the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as her employer is not a government entity.  Unfortunately, she also missed the 180-day deadline to sue under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Israel’s resilience in the wake of the Oct 7 onslaught has astounded many of its overseas supporters and opponents alike. Israel is making an astonishing comeback, as this week’s positive newsletter highlights. Michael Ordman

There should be an antonym for genocide probably “benecide” a new word for doing good should be added to the dictionary, particularly about Israel. Israel, even during wartime, achieves more to benefit the world and ease suffering and deprivation than all the participating stooges in the United Nations and international kangaroo courts that routinely libel the Jewish nation. Read the positive news below.  rsk

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
Helping wounded soldiers recover. New York based NGO Belev Echad (With One Heart) supports wounded IDF soldiers, providing respite, rehabilitation, and emotional support. Volunteers who make hospital visits are mostly army veterans who were themselves wounded in battle and have been through the recovery process.
https://www.jns.org/soldiers-give-wounded-comrades-strength-during-road-to-recovery/ https://belevechad.nyc/
 
IDF recovers tractor stolen by Hamas. One of the videos that Hamas broadcast on Oct 7 was of a tractor that they stole from Kibbutz Nir Oz and drove through the streets of Khan Yunis. The IDF have since found the tractor, repaired it, and driven it out of the Gaza strip.  It will return to work in a rebuilt Kibbutz Nir Oz.
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-tractor-stolen-by-hamas-on-oct-7th-returned-by-idf/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2D0-ojOdXw
 
Christian group supports with visit and donation. A delegation from the Christian Passages group traveled to Netiv HaAsara and Kfar Aza in the Gaza Envelope – two of the hardest-hit communities on Oct. 7, to express their friendship. They gave a donation of $250,000 to help each community rebuild.
https://www.jns.org/wire/passages-christian-leaders-donate-500000-to-affected-communities-in-gaza-envelope/
 
JNF-USA plants trees at ground zero. More than 100 Jewish National Fund-USA volunteers planted trees at Kibbutz Re’im, near the site of the infamous NOVA music festival during Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish New Year for trees. It was part of JNF-USA’s broader efforts to revitalize and renew the battered region.
https://www.jns.org/wire/planting-trees-at-israels-ground-zero/
 
He raised the flag he lowered 19 years ago. Zvi, an IDF reservist volunteer, lowered the last Israeli flag in Gaza when he was the last IDF soldier to leave in 2005. He kept that flag for 19 years and has now raised it again in Khan Younis.  https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/384042
 
Bar Mitzvah boy treats soldiers to dinner. Amichai Jackson, from Elazar in the Gush, canceled his Bar Mitzvah party and used the money to prepare a lavish dinner for 200 IDF soldiers. He wasn’t sad about missing his party, “When I saw the soldiers eating and enjoying themselves, that was 1,000 times more meaningful.”
https://thejewishvoice.com/2024/01/bar-mitzvah-boy-forgoes-party-treats-200-idf-soldiers-to-dinner/
 
Showing reality to overseas students. The Maccabee Task Force fights against Antisemitism on college campuses. It brought 40 US student leaders (Jewish and non-Jewish) to see wartime Israel for themselves and then use the knowledge gained to make a difference on campus when they return to the USA.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/allies-of-jewish-us-students-visit-israel-after-oct-7-and-come-back-armed-with-info/   https://www.maccabeetaskforce.org/
 
Kibbutz printing press reopened in 3 days. Kibbutz Be’eri was famous for having the largest printing press in Israel.  Despite the devastating Hamas attack, by Oct 10 factory workers were back at work and within the week, President Isaac Herzog officially reopened the press in a special ceremony.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-768546
 
Displaced volunteer EMT is still working. United Hatzalah volunteer paramedic Vicky was evacuated from the upper Galilee to escape Hezbollah rockets. Now in a hotel in Tzfat she is the first responder for all residents, treating panic attacks, pneumonia, etc. She also co-ordinates doctors, insurance, incident training, and more.
https://israelrescue.org/stories/displaced-as-a-result-of-the-figthing-in-northern-israel-volunteer-emt-continues-to-help-the-community/
 
We shall not be moved. (TY Hazel) The residents of Hurfeish, a Druze town of 7,000 in the Galilee just 1.5 miles from the Lebanese border, refused to be evacuated. As the commander of the first response team said, “We’ll fight to the end. Whoever tries to infiltrate or harm us or the State of Israel, we’ll stop them.”
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/never-too-old-to-fight-druze-hamas-hezbollah
 
Amazing rescue. The remarkable story (could be a movie) of I24 News employee Noam, who was shot in his car on Oct 7 while his 9-month-pregant wife Noa was under attack in their Kibbutz Mefalsim. Noam was rescued by two men, both who were shot but survived. He woke up in hospital in time to hold his newborn son.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel-at-war/survivor-testimonies/1706440683-what-could-a-movie-plot-becomes-an-october-7-miracle   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr9zTn6egDM
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Partnering to develop solid tumor therapy. (TY OurCrowd) India’s Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories is partnering Israel’s Edity Therapeutics (see here previously). They plan to build a platform for developing intracellular proteins to destroy solid tumors. https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=316507
 
“Locked in” woman can speak again. The Israel ALS Research Association IsrA.L.S. It has worked with Israel’s D-ID (see here previously) to develop a virtual avatar for Debbie, a woman with ALS who can only move her eye muscles.  The AI technology recreated Debbie’s image, voice, facial and lip movements.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-783095  https://en.israls.org.il/
 
3D printer helps rebuild shattered leg. (TY Yehoshua) Doctors at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital used a 3D printer from Israel’s Stratasys to reconstruct the fractured knee of wounded IDF soldier Shilo Segev. The printer model identified a lack of upper thigh bone which surgeons rebuilt using bone from Shilo’s pelvis.
https://www.jpost.com/science/article-783484
 
A better world for animals. University of Haifa’s Tech4Animals lab (see here previously) is developing AI-powered analysis of video, sensor, and audio data to determine animals’ emotional states. Its most advanced project is Cat Reader, a mobile app for detecting cat pain – initially for veterinarians, and later for cat owners.
https://www.israel21c.org/unique-lab-uses-ai-to-make-a-better-world-for-animals/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-35846-6
 
Israel’s first Advanced Therapies Award. Israel’s Bonus Biogroup (see here previously) is the first Israeli company ever to receive an Advanced Therapies Award, winning in the Cell Therapy Biotech Innovation category. Bonus Biotech has two products in advanced human trials – MesenCure and BonoFill.
https://www.israel21c.org/first-ever-israeli-win-in-advanced-therapies-award-event/
https://advancedtherapiesawards.phacilitate.com/winners/  https://advancedtherapiesawards.phacilitate.com/
 
 
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
 
A home for graduates with disabilities. The “Line for Life” Association has completed a new NIS 6 million home for its graduates. Situated in Kibbutz HaGoshrim, it will house eight individuals aged 21+ who will integrate into the local community, study at Tel Hai College, and then work in the surrounding communities.
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/real-estate/article-782506  
 
Knights deliver rice to Israeli food charity. The order of the Knights of Malta (full title “Maltese Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St John of Jerusalem”) delivered 24 tons of rice to Leket Israel to support the people of Israel during the ongoing war. It was financed by Governor of the Nevada Commanderie David Flippo.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-782715
 
Israeli Arabs visit Auschwitz. It was a historic event when the first Arab Israeli delegation visited the Auschwitz death camp on Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day).  Israel-Arab Yussef Haddad features on this special documentary of the emotional journey of dozens of Arab Israelis to Poland to learn about the Holocaust.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-history-in-the-making-first-ever-israeli-arab-delegation-visits-auschwitz/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91OpBfO4_M4
 
Bedouin eco-village turns desert into oasis. Project Wadi Attir in the northern Negev (see here previously) aims to show the world that proper land stewardship and technologies can turn an unlivable place into an oasis. It opened an agricultural school in 2018, grows medicinal plants and produces health and skincare products.
https://www.israel21c.org/bedouin-culture-combined-with-modern-tech-blooms-the-desert/
 
Promoting Arab-Jewish unity. The non-profit Tsofen (see here previously) has launched a new campaign to promote unity among Jews and Arabs working in Israel’s high-tech sector. Its slogan is “working together – right now we are making a voice of partnership.” Startups Intuit, Hailo, and Sanofi have joined the campaign.
https://nocamels.com/2024/01/new-campaign-fosters-arab-jewish-unity-in-israels-high-tech-sector/
 
Helping protect ships in the Red Sea. This article mentions five Israeli startups that either are being used or could be used to help keep cargo ships safe from attack in the Gulf. Windward, and theDOCK hub startups WaveBL, Hoopo, ConboAI and DockTech. They all have previously been included in this newsletter.
https://www.israel21c.org/5-technologies-keeping-cargo-ships-safe-in-turbulent-times/

Rule of thuggery prevails in Denmark By Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/01/rule_of_thuggery_prevails_in_denmark.html

Denmark recently capitulated, forfeiting its hard-fought freedoms to those who hate it. According to a recent report,

Denmark’s parliament has passed a bill that makes it illegal to burn copies of the Quran in public places… The bill, which prohibits “inappropriate treatment of writings with significant religious importance for a recognized religious community,” was passed with 94 votes in favor and 77 opposed… In practical terms, it will be forbidden to burn, tear or otherwise defile holy texts publicly or in videos intended to be disseminated widely. Those who break the law risk a fine or up to two years in prison… The purpose of the law is to counter “the systematic mockery” that, among other things, has contributed to intensifying the threat of [Islamic] terrorism in Denmark, the Ministry of Justice said.

There is much to say here.

First, it is interesting to note that the new bill does not single out Islam or the Koran by name, but rather seeks to protect from desecration “writings with significant religious importance for a recognized religious community.” By employing such generic wording that applies to and presumably protects every religious text and community — though everyone knows the law exists exclusively to protect the Muhammadan creed — the Danes appear to have copied a play from the Islamic gamebook.

As it happens, the blasphemy laws of many Muslim nations do not officially protect Islam alone but extend to other religions. (Egypt, for example, criminalizes the mockery of “heavenly” religions — Islam, Christianity, and Judaism — though the law is virtually exclusively used to protect Islam.) Muslim nations — and now Denmark — pretend to protect all religions in order to appear neutral, objective, not siding with this or that faith. Muslim nations also do it for their image: better to appear interested in protecting the sanctity of all religions rather than appear as rabid fanatics who cannot tolerate criticism.

Antisemitism on College Campuses Has Shot Up 1,753% Since Oct. 7. Higher Education Spawned This Culture of Hate. Jarrett Stepman

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/01/24/study-finds-antisemitism-college-campuses-rose-1753-heres-how-higher-education-created-culture-hate/

The nation’s college campuses have created a climate of hate.

A report released Monday by the Combat Antisemitism Movement in partnership with the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University in Israel found that antisemitism has exploded in U.S. higher education.

The numbers are shocking, but not surprising.

The report found that in the fourth quarter of 2023, from October through December, there was a 1,753% increase in far-left incidents of antisemitism and a 268% increase of Islamist antisemitic incidents on college campuses since the previous quarter. 

That obviously stems in no small part from the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

A news release from the Combat Antisemitism Movement said that nearly all the antisemitic incidents were “tied to anti-Zionist forms of antisemitism and the conflation of worldwide Jewry with the state of Israel.”

The report confirms what many already assumed, but there are a few things worth noting here.

First, it’s absurd to contend that this increase in antisemitism is a general societal problem, as witnesses at the now infamous congressional hearing on antisemitism in higher education suggested.

Polls show overwhelming U.S. support for Israel. The older the American, the more likely they are to support Israel. While there has certainly been an increase in antisemitic incidents in general since Oct. 7, it’s on a whole other level in the ivory tower.

 Americans didn’t suddenly become frothing antisemites after Oct. 7, but college campuses and left-wing enclaves did.

They’re Coming After Us by John Podhoretz

https://www.commentary.org/articles/john-podhoretz/antisemites-coming-after-jews/?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=290858331&_

‘IHAVE NEVER FELT LIKE THIS BEFORE’

I have lost count of the number of times the phrase “I have never felt like this before” has been spoken in my ear, texted to me, or sent to me in an email, in the three months since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

When I talked with Israelis on a trip in November, the phrase described a gut emotion few under the age of 50 said they had ever experienced—the sense that they were personally vulnerable to outside attack in a manner more like an extended military invasion than a terrorist blow. They had lived through years of ineffectual rocket fire that was all but magically extinguished by the Iron Dome and Arrow anti-missile systems. Those interceptions had provided a feeling of near-divine protection. No longer. Israelis feel raw now, and such vulnerability is never momentary or transitory; one might say the opposite. Once it seizes you, it might take years before you wake up one morning and notice suddenly it’s no longer there.

I experienced that blissful moment once in my life, in New York City in 1998, when I was walking alone late at night across Central Park and realized I was doing something I simply would never have done before in my 37 years as a native Manhattanite. The feeling in the gut of every New Yorker of my age—the need to protect oneself from some sudden onslaught, in part because everyone we knew had been attacked in one way or another—was just no longer there, and I had never felt it disappearing. Because of the crime drop, because of increased police visibility, because of the presence of others like me in exactly the same place at exactly the same time, this new sense of freedom was now my new reality.

I am not saying Israelis ever felt secure in quite that way before October 7. They had, of course, lived through 60 years of terrorist attacks (the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded in 1964 as a violence-worshipping gang designed to attack civilians on the model of the anti-colonialists in Algeria) and several short wars over the past half century. But through the 2010s and early 2020s, the sense of immediate danger for Israelis had split in two—and might therefore have seemed, oddly enough, twice as weak.

The threat had either become too geopolitically large to affect their quotidian existences (like the existential risk posed by Iran’s nuclear program) or could have only come so suddenly and unexpectedly that it would have been absurd to disrupt your daily life taking personal countermeasures (Palestinians engaged in a bus-stabbing spree at one point; how do you defend against that?).

Harvard Establishes New Antisemitism Task Force, Appoints Professor Who Called Israel a ‘Regime of Apartheid’ By David Zimmermann

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/harvard-establishes-new-antisemitism-task-force-appoints-professor-who-called-israel-a-regime-of-apartheid/?

Harvard University has established an antisemitism task force designed to identify the “root causes” of anti-Jewish sentiment on campus, but in doing so appointed a professor who has been critical of Israel.

Interim Harvard president Alan Garber announced on Friday that the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism will be led by Derek Penslar, a professor of Jewish history, the Washington Free Beacon first reported.

In August, before the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war, Penslar signed an open letter along with nearly 2,900 other signatories who at the time called Israel a “regime of apartheid” over its treatment of Palestinians.

“We, academics, clergy, and other public figures from Israel/Palestine and abroad, call attention to the direct link between Israel’s recent attack on the judiciary and its illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the August letter read.

It has since been replaced by two new petitions, neither of which Penslar has signed. The latest petition, published in December, calls on President Joe Biden to help negotiate an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, facilitate a second prisoner-hostage exchange, and supply additional humanitarian aid to Gaza in the midst of the Middle Eastern conflict.

Penslar was also one of the faculty members to spearhead a December letter in support of former Harvard president Claudine Gay, following calls for her resignation after she failed to condemn the genocide of Jews at a House hearing on campus antisemitism. In the letter, over 700 faculty members urged Harvard’s administration to keep Gay in her post. Gay was fired nearly a month later.

Raffaella Sadun, a professor of business administration, will co-chair the antisemitism task force with Penslar.

Enabling Hatred of the Jewish People By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/enabling_hatred_of_the_jewish_people.html

In Viktor Frankl’s classic Man’s Search for Meaning he writes that “there are only two races – the decent and the indecent.” 

No more proof is needed when one considers the events of October 7 and the ongoing animus of much of the world toward Israel.

The bestiality of the Islamic Jihadists continues unabated.  The rabid hatred is truly difficult to fathom.  The indifference to life, to creativity, and to progress defies the imagination.

But it is not a new story. In teaching about the evolution of the ancient Israelites, sacred writings emphasized that the ancient Canaanites were more brutal than any other people in the region.  Prominent in Canaanite religious ritual was child sacrifice.  In Deuteronomy 12:30-31, it states “Do not ask about their gods — burning their sons and daughters in sacrifice to their gods.”  In essence, the Canaanites believed and taught others that their gods wanted and enjoyed cruelty toward human beings.  In fact, the ancient Israelites were warned not to assimilate to the Canaanite ways but instead retain their differences and follow the Ten Commandments.   

Jewish people believed that they owed G-d a debt for the miracles He had performed for the early Israelites. Consequently, they became a people devoted to morality and justice as taught by the Torah.  In essence, Torah-loving people seek to do tzedakah u-mishpat -– righteousness and justice. 

Fast forward to today when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is faced with an implacable foe coupled with a media that creates a myriad of lies about the IDF’s actions. Nonetheless, according to FrontPage magazine:

What does Israel do in Gaza? Does the IDF deliberately rape, torture, and murder Palestinian civilians, as Hamas did to the Israelis at the dance party and in the kibbutzim? Does the IDF take delight in killing, in as sadistic a way as possible, as many Gazan civilians as it can? No, of course not. The IDF tries instead, to minimize civilian casualties. It has no desire to harm the truly innocent. Unfortunately, Hamas wants to maximize those civilian casualties, and to exploit that result to undermine Israel’s standing in the world.

Whenever it can, the IDF warns civilians away from areas about to be targeted. These warnings are enormous undertakings. When the IDF had concluded that it was first going to concentrate its war-making in northern Gaza, it dropped 1.5 [sic] leaflets on that area, urging inhabitants to move south of the Wadi Gaza, so as to avoid the most intense fighting that was about to begin in the north. 900,000 Gazans ultimately heeded the warning, and headed south on the north-south corridor of Salah al-Din Street. Hamas fired on, and killed, some of the Gazans trying to move south, in order to keep their civilian shields trapped in the north. Later, when the IDF began to attack Hamas in the south, it dropped both leaflets, and sent emails, with maps included, that showed Gazans the precise areas in the south, in and around Khan Yunis, where the IDF would not be attacking, and that, therefore, they should move to for safety’s sake. It was the same with buildings — schools, apartment buildings, mosques — where the IDF was about to attack. The IDF messaged, emailed, telephoned, and used the ‘knock-on-the-roof’ technique to warn civilians living in or near those buildings soon to be targeted to leave them. Furthermore, Israeli pilots will call off an airstrike if they detect too many civilians near the target.

Antisemitism From the Left “I can’t believe this is happening in our country today.”by Betsy McCaughey

https://www.frontpagemag.com/antisemitism-from-the-left/

Jews are feeling increasingly afraid and unwelcome. Last week, girls on the basketball team of a Jewish private school in suburban Hartsdale, New York, were jabbed and hit with antisemitic slurs by players from Yonkers’ Roosevelt High School. “I support Hamas, you f—-ing Jew,” a Roosevelt player snarled. The game had to be called off in the third quarter, and the Jewish girls needed school security to help them leave.

Antisemitic incidents were already on the rise in 2021 and 2022. Now they are up nearly 400% year over year since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt explains, “I am not talking about, you know, stores producing IDF T-shirts. I’m talking about a coffee shop on Long Island, an ice cream parlor in the Bay Area, a restaurant in Chicago.” It reminds him of his grandparents’ barbershop, which was vandalized by the Nazis in Germany. “I can’t believe this is happening in our country today.”

Believe it.

The mainstream media choose to downplay it and the Democratic Party is, at best, divided. Antisemitism has often come from the Right, but it appears now to be coming from the Left.

When the presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania caused outrage by saying at a congressional hearing in December that calls for Jewish genocide don’t necessarily violate campus policy — “it depends on the context” — Democrats’ reactions were mixed.

Patients, Not Medical Students, Are a Vulnerable Population By Sheldon Rubenfeld

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/01/patients-not-medical-students-are-a-vulnerable-population/

Baylor College of Medicine’s cancellation of a lecture on antisemitism in medicine is just one sign of the troubling consequences of DEI.

Two months after Hamas’s October 7 invasion of Israel, Baylor College of Medicine canceled a lecture scheduled many months before on “Antisemitism in Medicine,” to be given by me and another physician who has received many antisemitic threats, some of which led to police protection. Last year, my long-running course at Baylor on medicine and the Holocaust was canceled. It has become increasingly evident that medical schools, medical-licensing bodies, and medical organizations are reluctant to acknowledge, let alone confront, the fact that their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies breed antisemitism in medicine.

For the past 20 years of my nearly 50-year affiliation with Baylor, I offered an elective course, Healing by Killing: Medicine during the Third Reich, to first-year medical students. The course describes Hitler’s adoption of the German medical profession’s eugenic racist ideology and the central and indispensable role of physicians in designing and implementing the Holocaust. It also includes many disquieting photos and film clips from Auschwitz, Dachau, and other concentration camps. Judging by essays submitted in earlier years, the students took to heart the lessons about the potential for physician abuse of patients.

In April last year, I gave the fifth of the course’s nine lectures, “Why the Jews?” The first half of the lecture outlines the history of antisemitism; the second half is about countertransference, a common psychological phenomenon that occurs when a physician allows his or her feelings to influence a patient’s treatment. I asked the students to identify personal biases that could interfere with good patient care, such as biases against patients with a particular diagnosis, disability, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, political party affiliation, religion, educational level, personal features such as tattoos, and so on, and gave as an example my experience as a young doctor with a suicidal Palestinian graduate student, an example I had used many times before.