When someone posted in a private Facebook group for Chicago therapists in March, asking whether anyone would be willing to work with a Zionist client, several Jewish therapists quickly responded, saying they would be happy to be connected to this person. 

What happened next sparked fear and outrage among Jewish therapists in Chicago and across the country, and illuminated the atmosphere of intimidation and harassment faced by many Jews in the mental health world who won’t disavow Zionism. Those who replied, offering their services to this unnamed client, soon found themselves added to a list of supposedly Zionist therapists that was shared in a group called “Chicago Anti-Racist Therapists.”

“I’ve put together a list of therapists/practices with Zionist affiliations that we should avoid referring clients to,” Heba Ibrahim Joudeh, the document’s author, wrote. (A request for comment sent to the practice she runs with her husband did not receive a response.) The administrator of the anti-racist group chimed in, praising the list as a way “to be transparent about clinicians who promote and facilitate White supremacy via Zionism.” The comments came quickly: “Amazing, thank you,” one person wrote. “Omg a place I was looking at is on here,” another wrote, with angry emojis. 

The only trait shared by the 26 therapists on the list is that they are Jewish. “When I saw this whole list created and my name on the list, I was so confused and in disbelief about how, in 2024, this is considered OK. It was a list of Jews,” said Anna Finkelshtein, a licensed clinical social worker in Chicago who immigrated from Russia as a child. “I do not post publicly about the conflict or about Israel at all, ever. It feels like the only way to feel safe as a Jew in the mental health field is to publically speak out against Israel and condemn it and call it a genocide.”

The anti-Zionist blacklist is the most extreme example of an anti-Israel wave that has swept the mental health field since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and the resulting war in Gaza, which has seen the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians. More than a dozen Jewish therapists from across the country who spoke to Jewish Insider described a profession ostensibly rooted in compassion, understanding and sensitivity that has too often dropped those values when it comes to Jewish and Israeli providers and clients. 

At best, these therapists say their field has been willing to turn a blind eye to the antisemitism that they think is too rampant to avoid. At worst, they worry the mental health profession is becoming inhospitable to Jewish practitioners whose support for Israel puts them outside the prevailing progressive views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We all worried that it could get this bad, but I don’t think any of us were actually expecting it to happen,” said Halina Brooke, a licensed professional counselor in Phoenix. Four years ago, she created an organization called the Jewish Therapist Collective to build community among Jewish professionals and raise the alarm about an undercurrent of antisemitism in the field. “Once Oct. 7 hit, we’ve all been in crisis mode since literally that morning, and the stories that have come in from colleagues and about their clients have been horrifying.”

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The antisemitism problem in the mental health profession is more than just workplace gossip. Jewish therapists — and Jewish clients — worry about how the growing anti-Israel orthodoxy will show up in clients’ sessions, and if it will affect their care, especially at a time when more people than ever are seeking therapy. A Gallup survey showed that in 2022, 23% of American adults had visited a mental health professional in the prior year, compared to 13% in 2004. 

“This is where I think there’s some real serious problems of people either not being able to get appropriate care, or even if they do get appropriate care, whether they feel that they can continue it because of being judged,” Dean McKay, a professor of psychology at Fordham University, told JI. “The goal in therapy is to provide compassionate care to whoever walks through your door. As part of our training — I don’t remember in my own training, and it’s not the way that I train anybody else, to ever say, ‘Look, here are the people who are worthy of our care.’”

Regional listservs are awash with therapists seeking referrals for potential clients. They’re often identity-focused, like queer people seeking LGBTQ therapists or a Black woman looking for a female therapist of color. Lately, more of them have included in their list of requirements — alongside the insurance the person has and what type of therapy they want — a disclaimer that the therapist should be pro-Palestine or anti-Zionist.

The debate over Zionism within the mental health field reflects a bigger, thornier question that is still being litigated in the profession: Should therapists be neutral health-care providers, sitting and listening on a couch while keeping all details of their personal lives and political leanings private? Or at a time when clients are seeking therapists who look and think like them, is there a role for therapists to play in bringing their own experiences and beliefs into the therapy session? 

Ira Finkel, a licensed clinical social worker in Chicago whose name appeared on the blacklist, said he had no idea why its authors decided to add him. “I don’t make comments one way or the other, and never felt that it is appropriate for therapists to do so as it can be detrimental to the therapeutic relationship. My clients’ philosophical views never matter to me as they are coming to me for help,” Finkel told JI. Hannah Tishman, a licensed clinical social worker in Manhattan, said she found it difficult when one client said they didn’t know what was true and what was false about Oct. 7, but she didn’t respond with her own opinion. “I’m not there to provide facts or information. That’s not my job,” she said. 

In recent years, the mental health field — which encompasses a diverse array of practitioners, including social workers, licensed counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists and more — has embraced a vision of the practice that relies on a social justice framework, leaning heavily into the anti-racism worldview that was brought to the fore in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd.

Many Jewish therapists see themselves as stewards of that worldview. They want Black people who come to them for therapy to feel comfortable and to know that they have an ally sitting across from them. (One of the Jewish therapists named on the Chicago list asserted that “there’s space for Jews to be anti-racists,” but that Jews should also “be part of that framework.”)

Michelle, a Jewish queer therapist on the West Coast, has for years described herself as a social justice-focused therapist. But that began to change after Oct. 7, when the professional organizations she turned to for support were silent, or issued only tepid statements after the Hamas massacre — or, in the case of at least one colleague, outright supported Hamas. (Michelle is a pseudonym; she requested that her real name and location be omitted to maintain clients’ confidentiality, and to avoid backlash from colleagues in her liberal city.)  

“I think I just saw social justice as being conscious of systemic oppression, and being an anti-racist,” said Michelle. Putting that “on the website allows clients to feel like they can talk about it, or that they’re not working with someone who is racist or doesn’t have those similar values. But I think it’s now representing something different for me.”

The current environment has created a culture of paranoia. Worried about antisemitism, Michelle no longer describes herself as Jewish on her online profile. When a client drops out of therapy, is that because they no longer need care? Or because they don’t want to see a Jewish Zionist therapist? She has no way of knowing.

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Inclusive Therapists, an organization started in 2019 with the stated goal of helping people find a “therapist who gets you,” allows prospective clients to search a database of therapists filtered by expertise (like gender-affirming care or racial justice) or “cultural knowledge” (such as Middle Eastern, Jewish or East Asian cultures). Michelle still has several badges from Inclusive Therapists on the bottom of her website — “LGBTQ+ Affirming,” “Culturally Responsive,” “Social Justice Oriented” and “All Bodies, Identities, and Abilities” — but she recently quit the organization over actions it has taken since Oct. 7. 

“They’ve just been so extremely bent against Israel, and the opposite of inclusive,” said Michelle. “Therapists who are being labeled ‘Zios’ are being ostracized.” (The term “Zio” as a slur for Zionists or Jews was popularized by former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.) 

Social media communities like Inclusive Therapists have for many mental health care providers become a crucial source of support, networking and business development, and a way to counter the often-solitary work of being a therapist in a private practice. So when they adopt a controversial political stance, it can be crushing for longtime members who turned to the groups for community. 

All Inclusive Therapists’ blog posts by Jewish authors since October have come only from anti-Zionist Jews. Before October, the website had never published anything related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; now, a link at the top of the page calls on therapists to sign an open letter seeking to “end mental health field’s complicity to genocide.” 

A January newsletter from the organization included a section called “confronting antisemitism,” which condemned “shaming and bullying Jewish people calling for Ceasefire.” It also urged members to “differentiate between antisemitism and anti-Zionism” and speak out about “the dangers of conflation.” (Eighty percent of American Jews say caring about Israel is an essential or important part of what being Jewish means to them, according to a 2021 Pew survey.) 

In December, Inclusive Therapists posted an infographic on the group’s Instagram page, with 63,000 followers, that said, “Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world.” Melody Li, the Portland, Ore.-based therapist who founded Inclusive Therapists, did not respond to a request for comment, including specific questions about whether the group issues litmus tests on Zionism. But in at least one major online therapy forum, Israel has literally become a litmus test — and a barrier to entry. 

Therapists in Private Practice (TIPP), a private Facebook group with 25,000 members, is a crucial part of the online network therapists turn to for professional networking and support. The group asks potential members to answer a series of questions proving that they are legitimate mental health professionals. They must list their full name, degree, license type, location and website. They are also asked a single question about politics. 

“This is an anti oppression based group,” the group states. “We examine privilege and engage in discourse related to dismantling oppressive systems in the field. We support BLM [Black Lives Matter] and are Pro Palestine. Are you open and willing to support this direction?” Answering the question is not optional. This prompt was added at some point after Oct. 7. 

“TIPP used to be a group I loved,” said one member, a Jewish therapist in California who in the past turned to the community for advice and support, and to hire people for her practice. “It’s huge so of course [it] had its issues, but it became clear after maybe Oct. 10th or so that Jewish people were not safe to voice their opinions or thoughts, or they would be kicked out.” 

Multiple people told JI that they were removed from the group by its moderator, Nam Rindani, for writing posts supportive of Israel — or even for liking other people’s posts supporting Israel, or defending Jewish colleagues who were attacked for their views. In one comment on a post from a Jewish member, Rindani made clear that there is no room for dissent in the group: “I will be direct abt tbis [sic] and then you can make your choice from there. We as Admin call this is a Genocide. We are not open to debate about this in particular.” (After JI reached out to Rindani with a detailed series of questions seeking comment, she posted a screenshot of the email in the group, earning a chorus of enraged responses from people who stand by her as “anti-genocide.”) 

“The biggest issue is that anyone providing empathy to Jews for any reason is seen as anti-justice, anti-brown, anti-Palestinian, anti-advocacy,” said Brooke, the Jewish Therapist Collective founder, who was kicked out of the TIPP group. “If anyone’s having an issue about feeling alone being Jewish, you get spammed in the comments about, ‘Free Palestine.’” 

TIPP is far from the only forum to target those supportive of Israel. This spring, Tishman, the New York therapist, offered a free trauma-informed therapy workshop for Jewish college students facing antisemitism. She posted about it in a New Jersey counseling group on Facebook, hoping to spread the word. One therapist responded that there is no antisemitism on college campuses. 

“There were a few comments that were really aggressive,” Tishman said. “She totally gaslit me. But then I got a lot of support from other Jewish therapists.” 

The issue isn’t confined to Facebook groups and Instagram posts. Ayelet Schafir-Hirshfeld, an Israeli-American therapist who has been working in California for more than a decade, described a total lack of compassion and support from colleagues after Oct. 7.

“I was shocked when Oct. 7 happened. I thought that I would get some, I guess, empathy from colleagues. It was nonexistent,” Schafir-Hirshfeld said. “Instead, the response was hostility everywhere simply for being Israeli and being viewed as an apartheid aggressor, a white supremacist, as if you’re lying about things that happened, as if they didn’t happen, just because you are Jewish and Israeli.”

The lack of understanding for Israelis and Jews she witnessed after Oct. 7 has led her to reconsider the deeply held beliefs that form the basis of her approach to psychology. 

“I used to approach the field of psychology thinking that people are innately good,” Schafir-Hirshfeld said. “We have this question in philosophy. We have all of these philosophers arguing about human nature. And it changed my view. I started feeling that I’ve been very naive, that I didn’t see it before or that I was blind to it. Maybe people are not as good as I thought. It was and still is heartbreaking.”

*****

After the Oct. 7 attacks, Jewish practitioners noticed that leading professional organizations were much slower to issue a response than on previous issues of concern, like racism or homophobia. They recognized a double standard in language that equivocated about the violence in the Middle East while the same groups were precise and pointed when calling out discrimination faced by other marginalized communities.

The American Psychological Association — the largest professional organization of psychologists — didn’t weigh in until four days later, with a statement “warn[ing] of psychological impacts of violence in Middle East” that only made brief mention of the terror attack in Israel. The group “has condemned in no uncertain terms the recent violent attack by Hamas on Israel” and is “deeply disturbed by the crisis of human suffering and loss of life and liberty for civilians who are caught in this escalating conflict.” 

Compare that to earlier in 2023, when the APA “decried” a Supreme Court decision viewed as discriminating against same-sex couples and “deeply regret[ted]” the Supreme Court’s rejection of race-based affirmative action hours after each decision was released. 

The APA’s statement prompted a firm rebuttal from the Association of Jewish Psychologists, who said they are “deeply disappointed and terribly saddened that our professional association could not more forcefully and unequivocally condemn the horrific acts of barbarism against the Jewish people of the State of Israel.” An APA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Carole Cox, a professor in Fordham’s graduate school of social service, has been researching antisemitism in the field by surveying hundreds of Jewish social workers. The results have not left her feeling hopeful.

After Cox published an article about antisemitism, a human rights class at Fordham began incorporating it into the syllabus. One student mentioned it to Cox and said, “Oh, we read your article on anti— what is it?” She couldn’t think of the name for antisemitism.

“She didn’t even know what it was. It’s not taught,” said Cox. “The most upsetting thing is that this is social work … Social workers are taught to be sensitive. And somehow it ain’t happening.”

Against this backdrop of discrimination, communities for Jewish therapists have grown. Anecdotally, some Jewish therapists who spoke to JI reported an increase in the number of Jewish clients who are coming to see them after Oct. 7. Others said they, too, are seeking out Jewish clients, so that they can feel safe knowing their sessions take place with a shared understanding of Zionism and antisemitism. (Therapy forums on Reddit are full of posts from people questioning how to deal with a therapist who takes a different stance on the war. One post in a Jewish forum: “My therapist denied the [Oct. 7] massacre to my face.”)

“The secular therapy world has felt pretty unsafe,” said one therapist in Washington, D.C., who since Oct. 7 has begun considering a career shift into more distinctly Jewish spaces. “Some Jewish collectives have been formed out of feeling like there isn’t a safe space anymore in the secular groups to just be Jewish, and just be a Jewish therapist without being attacked and without having to be constantly vigilant about what people are saying and how they’re saying it.” 

One of the therapists named on the Chicago blacklist is considering leaving the field entirely to work at a Jewish summer camp.

“My hope for the future of the field of mental health and therapy is severely damaged at this point,” the therapist said. “I really don’t feel good about the direction that this has been going because all of the rules that we’ve decided about social justice just don’t seem to apply to certain groups of people.

Sleepaway camp, at least, is fun. 

“The one positive is if they really wanted to destroy Judaism, then the better way to have done it would have been to just leave the Jews alone,” the Chicago therapist said. “All this has done is reignite, I think, a real passion for a lot of people who previously just didn’t feel that way to feel really strongly about their Judaism.”