Antisemitism aimed at health care professionals has grown since 2023, study finds 

More than twice as many Jewish health care professionals reported antisemitic experiences after the events of Oct. 7, 2023 compared with before, a new study finds. 

The research, co-authored by UIC’s Dr. Steven Roth and published in the Journal of Religion and Health, surveyed physicians, nurses, clinical psychologists and students in medical or related fields. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said they had experienced at least one incident of antisemitism after Oct. 7, 2023, compared with 40% who said they had experienced antisemitism before that date.  

Many respondents said they had encountered antisemitism on social media, at their workplace or medical school and in news media or professional publication articles they read. 

The authors also looked at posts on Twitter/X from over 200,000 self-identified American health care professionals between January 2020 and April 2024. They found a sharp increase in mentions of Jews, Judaism, Israel and antisemitism after Oct. 7, 2023, as well as more than twofold increases in mentions of several terms associated with antisemitic tropes, including conspiracies. 

The results parallel broader trends in antisemitism of the last several years on social media and in society but have additional significance for health care workers and their patients, said Roth, the Michael Reese Endowed Professor in the anesthesiology department at the College of Medicine. 

“What we found was very deeply distressing,” Roth said. “Medicine, and medical schools in particular, have always held themselves out to be places where no discrimination and no hatred is tolerated. Once you get antisemitism or any form of hatred or discrimination creeping into medicine, it undermines the entire health care system.” 

In an editorial for The American Journal of Medicine, Roth and co-author Hedy Wald called for a “four Es” approach of education, engagement, empathy and enforcement to mitigate antisemitism and other forms of hatred in the health care community. 

“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.”