A "Softer, Compassionate Approach" ... Unrestrained Jew-Hate

"It is our ethical duty to speak out against the genocide being committed against the Palestinian people."

"I was born in apartheid South Africa where my family were lesser humans under the law. Our freedom is incomplete without freedom for the Palestinians."

"I did go to a small number of protests on work days but would take vacation days for that."

"I could no loner bring myself to give my labour to a workplace where people were targeted for speaking out against a genocide, including the bombing of hospitals and the murder and abduction of our Palestinian colleagues."

Kavita Algu, one-time palliative care MD, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto 

 

"Sinai Health is committed to fostering a respectful, inclusive and professional workplace where all our people feel supported, and patient care remains our top priority."

"We don't share details or comment about our employees, physicians, scientists, learners or volunteers."

"Our highest priority is to ensure accessible and safe care for all."

"[We take] any concerns related to workplace culture, professionalism, or discrimination seriously and address them through established policies and fair, confidential processes."

Mount Sinai Hospital spokesperson 

Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto

 

Dr. Algu worked at Mount Sinai Hospital as a palliative care doctor for a decade. Then came October 7, 2023, and she became an instant advocate for Palestinian rights when Israel responded to the massacre, rapes, mutilations, hostage-taking by Palestinian terrorists flooding into southern Israel from Gaza, led by Hamas. All the propaganda of Palestinian victimhood by a racist-occupying Jewish state that was propagated in the West by willing news media convinced many people, validated by Palestinian student groups marching through Canadian cities to label Israel genocidal, set the stage for savage harassment of Canadian Jews.

 

Mount Sinai Hospital was created in the early 20th century by Jewish-Canadian doctors and other Jewish health-care professionals who found themselves locked out of Canada's health and medical institutions at a time of severe national antisemitism. The hospital gained a reputation as an outstanding institution delivering top health care. And nor did it confine its services to the Jewish-Canadian population; anyone could be treated there, and in time staff expanded to include non-Jewish health practitioners.

 

Dr. Algu resigned from her post at the hospital months after October 7. A result of the palliative care department being roiled with disorder stemming from her anti-Israel activities condemning the Jewish state as genocidal. The hospital administration, alarmed at the sudden dysfunction among formerly collegial medical staff called in a a workplace investigator when Dr Algu lodged a complaint of discrimination. The investigation found that she was disruptive, unprofessional and her disproportionately negative impact in the workplace culture was injurious to the delivery of health care. 

 

 

Some unit physicians declared their feelings of antisemitism within the discord; this when Jewish healthcare workers in other hospitals reported rising prejudice and trauma dismissal resulting from the Hamas attack in Israel, within clinical, academic and social-media institutions. While divisions within the Mount Sinai palliative care unit deepened, departmental heads attempting to be fair and supportive to all, hesitated to delineate clear expectations and boundaries, according to a separate workplace assessment.

 

Deep divisions arose among some hospital staff in the wake of the Israel-Gaza conflict. An open letter was signed by some doctors including Algu's supervisor from the palliative care unit stating that accusing Israel of "apartheid" or "genocide" was untruthful and antisemitic. In response Dr. Algu wrote an open letter of her own, invoking the Canadian government's intervention to broker a ceasefire and support access to medical aid in Gaza.

 

Another doctor at the palliative care unit, Hershl Berman, posted a screenshot of an earlier tweet by Algu on X. She had demanded the University of Toronto stop investing in companies profiting from what the International Court of Justice "has already deemed plausible genocide". Dr. Algu's name and profile photo appeared on Dr. Berman's post, with the caption: "Just because a loud racist minority is yelling hate and lies does not mean U of T has to bow to their wishes even if those people are doctors". 

 

Another of Dr. Berman's X posts stated that people who would avoid a Jewish doctor who supports Israel were fee to find other doctors, given that there were ample nonracist patients to look after. Dr. Algu stated that the post targeted her specifically, creating an "unsafe professional and academic environment". One that she contended violated Sinai Health's respectful workplace policy, forbidding "any act of discrimination, harassment, bullying, or incivility toward any of Sinai Health's people".

 

The environment assessment found Sinai Health leadership failed to manage challenges relating to the expression of views around Israel-Palestine as the leaders had practised a "softer, compassionate approach" and did not clearly and decisively communicate expectations and boundaries during a complex geopolitical situation. The report concluded that Dr. Algu appeared to have a "disproportionately negative impact" on the workplace culture.  

 

A letter was sent to Dr. Algu by the hospital referencing concerns that she posed a risk to safety, including the investigator's assessment of unspecified colleagues who said her social media advocacy was "irresponsible" and inconsiderate of the impact it had on them. She was notified of potential consequences such as sanctions or penalties that could impact the scope of her practise or ability to work in the health system. 

 

"It was  difficult to walk away from a career path I had invested so much into, and a team I genuinely loved."

"I left accepting that I may no longer get to practise in palliative care."

"I lost my job over Palestine, but I found a deeper commitment to life and justice."

Kavita Algu 

 

"Footage from a protest shared by Sa’d showed Algu speaking, apparently in support of activists arrested for their involvement in Palestine Action, a banned terrorist group in the UK."

"Just before she spoke, Tsabar and another protester were bellowing “long live intifada” on bullhorns. The intifada was a period of Palestinian terrorism from 2000 to 2005 which killed around 1,000 Israelis, mostly civilians."

"The intifada was perpetuated largely by Palestinians in the “West Bank” (Judea & Samaria), though this has not stopped Algu from claiming there is “no Hamas” there, a brazen falsehood."

"Algu practices medicine under Duncan Algu Medicine Professional Corporation, alongside Dallas Duncan, an cardiac anesthesiologist at Toronto General Hospital and assistant professor in the Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine department at University of Toronto."

"Like Algu, Duncan is a prolific social media user, repeatedly demonizing Israel online."

"Algu wrote that the world is “witnessing — a livestreamed extermination of Palestinian life.” As evidence, she cited a United Nations report making those scandalous accusations, evidently expecting readers to be impressed by the magnitude of her source. But her evidence is lacking. It was a measly three authors who authored said report: anti-Jewish conspiracy theorist Miloon Kothari, longtime vocal anti-Israel activist Navi Pillay, and Chris Sidoti, affiliated with the anti-Israel boycott movement."  

Honest Reporting Canada 

The Palestinian Narrative in Canada

"Targeting Mount Sinai Hospital to incite intifada against Israel and the Jewish people is flagrantly antisemitic and undermines the health and safety of the patients and medical professionals who work there."

Member of Parliament Macro Mendicino

"[The] demonstrators were actually protesting [the] indiscriminate killing of any and all innocent men, women and children."

"Anyone who condemns one but not the other is demonstrating to all of us how Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism operate to devalue the lives of those deemed less than human and unworthy of protections, including those afforded by international humanitarian law."

"Many have joined the hundreds of peaceful protests that have taken place across the country. And many report being silenced and/or having faced repercussions for standing up in solidarity with the Palestinian people."

Amira Elghawaby, Canada's Trudeau-appointed Islamophobia representative

 

"The demonstration at Mount Sinai Hospital yesterday was reprehensible. Hospitals are places for treatment and care, not protests and intimidation."

"I strongly condemn this display of antisemitism."

"In Toronto and across Canada, we stand with Jewish communities against this hate."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

A screenshot from video posted to X of protesters outside Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto on Monday, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo by @DrJacobsRad /X

On Monday, Canadians and Torontonians in particular were treated to yet another now-predictable spectacle of pointed Jew-hate in a triumph of pro-Palestinian public relations when hundreds of committed Hamas admirer/supporters were out marching for the Palestinian 'cause' of a final, decisive intifada that would excise the State of Israel from the Middle East geography and lavish love on the Palestinians by affirming its state from the '(Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea'.

Following the demonstration, social media posts showed a Spiderman-clad protester scaling the hospital to mount a Palestinian flag over Mount Sinai's identifying logo, a stylized Star of David. This was a hospital established in 1923 to allow for a medical system that would treat Jews, responding to the practices of antisemitism of the day restricting university admittance to Jews in medical faculties and from practising in the hospitals of the day. 

 

The protest, organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement Toronto and toronto4palestine, drew their route with its final destination, the Israeli Consulate in Toronto, through University Avenue's "Hospital Row", where five hospitals are situated. Mount Sinai, the sole institution with the Star of David logo, established to serve a growing 1900s Jewish population facing discrimination at other facilities and where Jewish doctors, barred from other hospitals could find employment. Now a public hospital, it serves the medical needs of all.

 

These are people marching for justice for Palestinians, and who deny justice for Jews. Justice for Palestinians equates with disrupting Israel in every conceivable manner, claiming it an apartheid state where puzzlingly to that claim two million Palestinians living as Israelis enjoy citizenship in the country, with opportunities to sit in the Knesset as full parliamentarians, to sit as justices on Israeli courts, and teach in Israeli universities. But to march in protest against Israel in Canada it is mandatory to deny the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on October 7.

"They are using these made-up acts of cruelty and barbarism to tell the world a mini Holocaust just happened to them again."

"Is it possible that if they are lying about these events and creating a false genocide, it is likely they may have lied about certain details of a previous big genocide that may have occurred?"

toronto4palestine social media post

Emergency physician Raghu Venugopal along with a colleague, witnessed the protest and recorded a video in front of the hospital "to witness and to counter-protest any kind of protest in front of a hospital". Introduced in the House of Commons in 2021, Bill C-3 outlines protections for health care workers under Canada's Criminal Code, making it illegal to intimidate health care workers or whose assisting them from performing their duties, or attempting to prevent someone from obtaining and accessing health services. Ironically, that Bill arose from problems related to COVID, the pandemic that conspiracy theorists indulging in race hate attributed to Jews.

Canada's special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism announced her office's intention to call "Toronto's Mayor and Chief of Police today to discuss how they will put a stop to this despicable targeting and attempted intimidation of Mount Sinai Hospital and Jews across Toronto and Canada". While she's at it, she might consider contacting the Liberal-led government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to talk about his appointed Islamophobia expert whom he touted as helping to fight "hatred in all its forms" to build "a country where everyone feels safe and respected".

"Palestinian Spider-Man," or spiderman4palestine on social media, has become a "fixture" at pro-Palestinian protests in Toronto for climbing up various structures. On Monday, he was widely condemned for climbing up historically Jewish hospital Mount Sinai. Social media