{"id":420490,"date":"2026-01-21T09:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T09:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/420490\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T09:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T09:01:17","slug":"jewish-groups-meet-with-hhs-civil-rights-office-to-confront-antisemitism-in-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/420490\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish groups meet with HHS civil rights office to confront antisemitism in medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Representatives from several Jewish groups met with Paula Stannard, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 Office for Civil Rights, last week to discuss potential action to counter antisemitism in health-care and medical education.<\/p>\n

The meeting, organized by the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, also included representatives from the American Jewish Medical Association, Hadassah (The Women\u2019s Zionist Organization of America), the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federations of North America and StandWithUs.<\/p>\n

Kenneth Marcus, the founder of the Brandeis Center, told JI that the meeting was the second sit-down between the Brandeis Center and HHS leadership, given an \u201can extraordinary surge in health sector related antisemitism reports\u201d to Brandeis and a \u201cgreater involvement by HHS in antisemitism and other civil rights issues than we\u2019ve seen before, so meeting with HHS has become much more important.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that, in the first meeting, which was just between Brandeis and HHS, his organization \u201cmade clear the nature and scope of the problem of antisemitism in health care,\u201d particularly the \u201cdecolonizing therapy\u201d movement in mental health spaces<\/a> that has characterized Zionism as a mental illness to be treated.<\/p>\n

The second meeting, last week, which lasted around an hour, brought in other Jewish communal groups to share additional information.<\/p>\n

Eveline Shekhman, the CEO of AJMA, called the meeting \u201cvery productive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went in with the goal of coming collectively, and also to take a look at how we can use the government relations arm to work and partner with the government, so in that way, we could take a look at what\u2019s going on in the workplace environment, as well as medical schools and all the other various stakeholders that would have a part in it, which includes the [medical] associations, the unions,\u201d Shekhman said.<\/p>\n

She said that the AJMA representatives sought to communicate the various forms and examples of antisemitism that providers and medical students have faced.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has a different level of gravitas because of the life and death nature of it. \u2026 When people are distracted in the ER and the OR by politics, and particularly by antisemitism, it really puts vulnerable people, patients at risk,\u201d Andrea Wolf, AJMA\u2019s director of advocacy added. \u201cAnd then on top of that, if a patient comes in as an identifiable Jew, wearing a magen david or a yarmulke, or something like that, we\u2019re not sure anymore that they can get the same level of care as someone who\u2019s not identifiably Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Granot, senior director of government relations for ADL, said in a statement, \u201cADL\u2019s data shows a troubling rise in antisemitism within health care settings. We must use all levers of government to respond to this crisis. Hospitals must remain places of healing, not hate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a member of the federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, the Department of Health and Human Services has a key role in confronting this scourge,\u201d Granot continued. \u201cWe welcome HHS taking this challenge seriously and appreciate the opportunity to engage in a constructive discussion on what should be done to protect patients, providers, and future providers alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachel Dembo, the director of policy and government relations for JFNA, said, \u201cNobody seeking medical care should be exposed to hate. Unfortunately, we have seen many disturbing instances of antisemitism creeping into medical settings, and too many instances where institutions failed to act or, worse, were permissive of antisemitism. We appreciate HHS OCR for taking this issue seriously and look forward to continuing to work with them and Congress to ensure Jewish Americans have access to hate-free health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

HHS is looking both at potential civil rights violations by individual institutions as well as at the possibility of broader policymaking to combat antisemitism in the field generally, Marcus said. He said that the problems in health care are wide-ranging, and come from patients, providers and healthcare students, in educational, hospital and medical association and conference settings.<\/p>\n

\u201cHHS has an extraordinarily wide jurisdiction. Since they fund such a high percentage of colleges and universities, they could certainly address many of the same sorts of situations that the Education Department\u2019s Office for Civil Rights is handling,\u201d Marcus explained. \u201cBut they also fund medical practices, health care of various sorts, and some associations, such as the American Psychological Association<\/a>, where there have been concerning reports of antisemitic activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said HHS could issue informal guidance in the form of a dear colleague letter on antisemitism, but added that he\u2019s \u201cconcerned at the appearance that HHS continues to fund some decolonizing therapy activity,\u201d which he said he would like to see addressed in guidance and in enforcement activities.<\/p>\n

Wolf said that AJMA is also pushing for a \u201cmore robust and accurate reporting mechanism\u201d for incidents of antisemitism, noting that \u201cour biggest challenge right now is not having a clear sense of the pervasiveness and the facts on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolf and Shekhman said AJMA would also support an HHS dear colleague letter \u2014 reminding entities of their legal responsibilities and duty to combat antisemitism \u2014\u00a0and further work across administrative agencies and with Congress to address antisemitism and expand scientific partnerships between the U.S. and Israel.<\/p>\n

Wolf said AJMA is also working to track donations to medical schools by bad actors.<\/p>\n

HHS was involved in, and announced the revocation of, funds from various university-affiliated medical programs as part of the administration\u2019s crackdown on campus antisemitism in early 2025. But that activity tapered off and faded from the public eye in the latter part of the Trump administration\u2019s first year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re looking for is a second wave of Health civil rights enforcement,\u201d Marcus said. He noted that much of that early action was undertaken by personnel in acting capacities who in some cases are no longer at the agencies, and was driven largely by initiative from the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re looking for something different,\u201d Marcus continued, calling for \u201cmore activity of a more institutionalized sort, such as investigations by HHS career officials throughout their regional apparatus\u201d by the Office for Civil Rights and a \u201cmore normalized effort through the HHS bureaucracy taking on the issue of antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said his conversations with Stannard and HHS have made him \u201coptimistic\u201d that such efforts would be forthcoming from the administration.<\/p>\n

Wolf emphasized that AJMA aims to take a more collaborative approach with both the government and with medical schools themselves, and to serve as a resource to both. She said that HHS does not \u201ccondone or encourage investigations\u201d of medical schools by HHS, \u201cbut once they are open by HHS, there\u2019s really no better source of facts than AJMA membership, and so we will work with the government to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said AJMA is happy that the administration is now taking a \u201cmore thoughtful and more targeted\u201d approach to addressing antisemitism \u201cwithout threatening a lot of scientific funding.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Representatives from several Jewish groups met with Paula Stannard, the director of the Department of Health and Human…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-420490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}