The Pattern Persists: Anti-Jewish Discrimination Across the Helping Professions
I often wonder at what point writing about continued anti-Jewish discrimination within the allied mental health professions will become unnecessary. Unfortunately, however, this thought does not last long, as new incidents continue to arise that reinforce how normalized these concerns have become within the profession. Recent months alone have demonstrated additional examples across the allied mental health professions that reflect this ongoing and troubling pattern.
In January 2026, Counselors for Social Justice, a division of the American Counseling Association, released a statement and call to action titled “Abolish ICE: Counselors’ Demand for Justice and Human Rights.” The statement focused on “state sanctioned violence” and ways in which the agency has upheld “pillars of White supremacy.” It also indicated that “staying silent is violence” and that “apathy and neutrality only upholds [sic] oppression.” Among the suggested ways to engage in communal connection and become involved “in the resistance” was participation in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The statement, which provided hyperlinked resources as a means of “boycotting companies in support of the current Administration,” directed counselors to a solidarity statement with anti-ICE protesters, titled “From Palestine to Mexico, All the Walls Have Got to Go! Palestinians Stand in Solidarity with Anti-ICE Protestors” on the BDS Movement website.
It is notable that BDS is a Palestinian-led movement that calls for economic and political pressure on Israel through boycotts, divestment, and government-level sanctions. While concerns regarding its exclusionary and indiscriminate impacts have been documented across academic, cultural, economic, and professional contexts, including impacts on both Israelis and Palestinians, its inclusion in a counseling association’s call to action raises concern about the scope of political advocacy within professional spaces—particularly in a document that frames silence as “violence.” It also highlights how well-intended counselors seeking to learn more about communal engagement and advocacy may be directed toward politically charged, discriminatory, and harmful campaigns such as BDS.
These developments are not limited to the counseling profession. Similar anti-Israel sentiment and ideological exclusion have become more firmly embedded across the allied mental health professions as well as the medical field. Within the field of social work, for example, the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) censured the Israeli Union of Social Workers (IUSW) in January 2025, citing members “serving in active combat roles under mandatory conscription,” and the Union’s decision to “decline requests for exemptions from combat roles or to issue a public call for peace.” The censure was based on the Federation’s conclusion that this constituted a failure to uphold its “ethical principles of supporting peace and non-violence.”
On January 19, 2026, Dr. Pascal Rudin, Interim Secretary General of the IFSW, shared a comprehensive report with member organizations titled “Membership of the Israeli Union of Social Workers in the International Federation of Social Workers: Historical Background, Ethical Concerns, and Procedural Basis for the Special General Meeting.” The report described what it characterized as a “factual, ethical, and procedural basis” ahead of a February 18, 2026 vote on whether to suspend or expel the IUSW. In the days that followed, the Jewish Social Work Consortium issued a statement describing the IFSW’s proposed vote as “a clear escalation in a selective enforcement campaign,” arguing that, rather than being judged on professional conduct, the action was driven by antizionism, prejudice, and exclusion “based on nationality and ideological litmus tests that undermine all ethical credibility.”
The vote, which ultimately failed to expel the IUSW from the Federation, represented a meaningful rejection of efforts to target and exclude the IUSW, and a shift toward preserving its continued membership within the Federation, thereby maintaining space for collective dialogue and professional collaboration among social workers across the globe—consistent with the IFSW’s stated commitment to international cooperation.
Despite the preservation of the IUSW’s membership, similar efforts have been pursued within the medical field. For example, in June 2026, the leading medical journal The Lancet published an article calling for the suspension of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), one of its founding members, from the World Medical Association (WMA) over its “failure to speak out against the genocide of Palestinians, the destruction of health-care infrastructure, and the torture and killing of health-care workers in Gaza.”
Although the World Medical Association has indicated opposition to excluding any of its member organizations, such proposals and measures continue to foster selective targeting that would otherwise restrict opportunities for scientific partnerships and undermine international medical discourse, all while allowing healthcare professionals to further be targeted based on nationality. When leading academic journals or professional associations permit such exclusionary and politically motivated practices, they establish dangerous precedents that permeate the profession and risk legitimizing discriminatory treatment both toward colleagues and patients.
As previously documented, psychology has also contributed to the same dynamics of targeting and exclusion observed across the helping professions. More recently, in May 2026, APA’s Division 39 (Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology) put forth a Call for Submissions for its 2027 Annual Spring Meeting, themed “The Power of Tongues.” Yet what could have been a meaningful opportunity to explore the importance and power of language was instead overshadowed by a note from the Conference Chair in which the Call for Submissions was released on “Nakba Day,” stating that “This year commemorates the 78th anniversary of the Nakba of 1948––an event of mass killing, disablement, and dispossession of the Palestinian people of their homeland. Our committee stands in opposition to the ongoing ethnic cleansing and displacement in Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, and SWANA region through Israel-US military force.”
While Division 39 proclaims a desire to emphasize the importance of language, its selective framing of the Nakba suggests otherwise by disregarding the mass killings, displacement, persecution, expulsion, and forced migration experienced by other groups indigenous to North Africa, the Middle East, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Although the Division encourages those submitting conference proposals to consider “the power of language and narrative-building,” narratives are simultaneously being constructed around “Nakba Day” without a comprehensive account of historical events.
As Division 39 discusses the “constitutive violence of language,” one must ask what type of violence may arise—and indeed has been perpetuated—from the selective use of language if not the reinforcement of ideological assumptions and the further exclusion, marginalization, and invalidation of those whose histories and identities fall outside this preferred narrative.
In response to concerns raised by members, communication was later shared with members of Division 39 in which the current President apologized for the “framing” of the Call for Submissions, which “felt alienating to some members,” in addition to having made comments about “older and whiter” members, explaining that this phrasing was intended to speak to “broader organizational and generational dynamics and intersectionality.” Noting that many members have left the division or are considering doing so, the communication emphasized the importance of “resist[ing] the temptation to retreat into certainty about one another.”
And yet, the question remains why such a meaningful recommendation has not been implemented by the same Division whose actions continue to communicate certainty regarding its position on Israel and the Jewish people.
Whether framed as a language faux pas, Freudian slip, or “broad organizational tensions,” the Call for Submissions remains listed on the Division 39 website and underscores the very point raised by the conference theme: language can be used to build narratives and serve as a means of “constitutive violence,” particularly when shaping belonging through targeting and exclusion. In this context, concerns about inclusion are acknowledged in principle, yet institutional inaction continues to reinforce whose experiences are afforded legitimacy within professional spaces.
The issues described above are not isolated to Division 39. Rather, they reflect the broader pattern that has increasingly emerged throughout psychology and across the helping professions. Given the persistent reports of anti-Jewish discrimination within the field of psychology, it is unsurprising that, on June 17, 2026, the US Department of Health and Human Services launched a civil-rights investigation into the American Psychological Association.
The very existence of this investigation provides something the broader mental health profession has too often failed to offer—validation of the experiences repeatedly reported by Jewish and Israeli psychologists, academics, students, and clients. In doing so, it acknowledges a deep-seated pattern of exclusion, invalidation, and inequity that has permeated professional spaces otherwise expected to uphold principles of justice, inclusion, and respect for human dignity, and, as the APA states, “to benefit society and improve lives.”
What comes next may prove even more significant. The mental health profession is at a crossroads as to whether it will continue to default to blanket statements and apologies while justifying, excusing, and failing to meaningfully confront anti-Jewish discrimination when it is fostered through institutional practices, professional discourse, and ideological frameworks. Until these issues are fully examined and addressed, any remaining trust will continue to erode—not only in the practice of psychological science, but also in the profession’s professed commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion that is not selectively extended. And until that occurs, writing about continued anti-Jewish discrimination within the allied mental health professions will remain imperative.
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The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the United States government, or the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.
