Antisemitism Affecting Canada's Jewish Physicians and Health-Care Workers

"I fear their reaction to my name and identity. Being uncomfortable with colleagues as I am aware many are unsupportive."

"Feeling that I cannot share, express or even admit my identity."

Anonymous Jewish Canadian physician

"More than 80 percent of respondents in Ontario said they've face antisemitism at work."

"The data is clear, antisemitism has impacted Jewish doctors, healthcare workers, students, residents, and the health-care environment, and immediate action is needed to ensure safe environments for all medical students and residents, and uphold equitable care standards for Jewish patients."

Survey news release

 

"This is personal for me. I work with healthcare students and residents who are bright, compassionate, and committed to becoming the future of health-care in Canada."

"Yet they are navigating a hostile environment where their identity as Jews makes them targets of hate and exclusion."

"This cannot continue."

Dr. Sam Silver, associate professor, Queen's University

An anti-Israel protester waves a Palestinian flag from a window of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, February 2024. Photo by @MelissaLantsman/X

 

The Canadian medical profession has changed startlingly since October 7, 2023 following the sadistic savagery of the terrorist attacks in southern Israel. Over 500 Jewish medical professionals affiliated with the University of Toronto's Temerty Faculty of Medicine signed a letter in November of 2023, calling out "the gross insensitivity of some of their colleagues to the deep trauma they have suffered by the largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust."

"For millennia, Jews have been accused of doing the very thing that the anti-Semites do to the Jews -- classic antisemitism."

"Now is no different."

Doctors Against Racism and Antisemitism

According to a new survey, doctors across Canada are concerned about what has been occurring in their profession. Close to a third of Jewish medical practitioners in Ontario are actively considering whether or not to leave Canada as a result of rising antisemitism impacting their personal and professional lives. Widespread concerns of antisemitism among health-care practitioners across Canada was highlighted by data released by the Jewish Medical Association of Ontario.

Over 1,000 Jewish medical professionals across Canada took part in the survey to find that a mere one percent of Canadian Jewish doctors experienced severe antisemitism in a community, hospital or academic setting prior to the October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel. At the present time, however, 29 percent, 39 percent and 43 percent state having experienced a level of antisemitism in each of those settings, respectively.

Comments were made by over 400 Jewish physicians, on the most difficult aspect of rising levels of antisemitism. Some state they no longer feel comfortable around their patients and colleagues. 500 Jewish health-care professionals in Ontario were included in the survey and "more than 80 percent responded that they have faced antisemitism at work." Antisemitism was widely reported within academic spaces (73 percent) and hospitals (60 percent). 

"One of the hospitals where I work is unionized, and I have seen firsthand how the union has been visibly targeting Jews with hatred."

"Union members have been attending protests that condone terrorism, and I've witnessed colleagues showing up to these protests with union flags, chanting dangerous slogans."

"This environment has made me feel unsafe in my own workplace."

Serena Lee-Segal, Toronto-based occupational therapist

Organizational policies turned out to be the most common sources of antisemitism in Canada (57 percent) followed by organizational communications (55 percent). Some 53 percent mentioned interpersonal interactions with colleagues, along with similar social interactions with non-physician staff (41 percent). A mere two percent of Jewish doctors in Canada expressed no concerns about antisemitism in health-care educational environments.

Failing to address the concerns of creeping antisemitism within the medical staff could lead to "losing a generation of physicians, educators, and researchers", pointed out JMAO chair Dr. Ayelet Kuper. JMAO's report found increasingly common antisemitism displays affected close to a third (31 percent) of Jewish doctors in Ontario, to the point of deciding to leave the country. Therapist Lee-Segal spoke of the failure of organized labour, in particular the Ontario Public Service Employee Union, to come to the aid of beleaguered Canadian Jews.

Signatories to the November 2023 University of Toronto's Temerty Faculty of Medicine who had signed the letter  deploring the situation of lack of attention by their colleagues to the plight of harassed and vilified Jewish colleagues representing the Faculty of Medicine's failure to support their Jewish friends found themselves becoming the subjects of co-ordinated doxing campaigns.

 

Pro-Palestinian encampment in an area that was fenced off at the University of Toronto campus in downtown Toronto, May 2, 2024. Photo by Ernest Doroszuk /Toronto Sun

"It is incredibly concerning to watch antisemitism creep into our medical institutions across the province."

"Discrimination doesn't just impact doctors, it undermines the entire healthcare system, compromising patient care and eroding workplace integrity."

"This is a crisis for all people in Ontario, not just Jewish doctors."

"[This situation could lead to] losing a generation of physicians, educators, and researchers, impacting health-care in Canada."

Dr. Ayelet Kuper, chair, Jewish Medical Association of Ontario