Antisemitism in the Field of Mental Health
In the wake of October 7th, Veronica Vyasovky, a mental health therapist in private practice, lost about 30% of her clients. “Some of them just dropped off and said, ‘We don’t need therapy right now,’ and some of them were more direct. One woman made an appointment with me with the purpose of yelling at me about the actions of the IDF. It was vicious and she just wouldn’t stop.”
Since the Hamas brutal massacre, Jewish therapists have been shunned from professional spaces, blacklisted for referrals, and refused opportunities for professional development when seeking better ways to help their Israeli clients deal with trauma.
Blacklisting in Chicago
In March 2024, a therapist in Chicago was approached by a potential client looking for a female Zionist therapist. Manya Treece wrote in a Times of Israel blog post1, “The client felt it was important to work with a Zionist in order to process their feelings around the ‘current geopolitical climate.’”
Manya Treece
Unable to take on a new client, the therapist forwarded the request to an online Chicago area therapist group. “Things devolved quickly,” wrote Ms. Treece. “Several therapists wrote that it was unconscionable to post requests from genocide apologists. One clinician made a comment that was especially menacing, something along the lines of, ‘If a Zionist client reached out to me, I would do worse than not become their therapist.’”
An anti-Zionist group member created a blacklist of “therapists/practices with Zionist affiliations that we should avoid referring clients to.” Other group members added names of other Jewish therapists to the list. None of the therapists were questioned about their views regarding Zionism or given a chance to explain anything.
Dana Cohen, a blacklisted Chicago-area Jewish therapist, recalls, “It was really traumatic to see them getting excited to put us on the list.”
Ms. Vyasovky, who was born in Ukraine and experienced open antisemitism as a child, felt that it was now following her in America. “It was awful! I was supposed to open an office, but I became afraid of being attacked by a patient who purposefully found me on that Zionist list. I would pre-screen every single patient because I was just really scared.”
Feeling unsafe in Chicago, Ms. Vyasovky and her family moved to Florida, where she feels a lot more comfortable practicing therapy as a Jew.
The creator of the blacklist was reported to the professional board but the only consequence was a requirement to take additional continuous education courses. The others who added names experienced no consequences whatsoever.
Industry-Wide Issue
Halina Brooke, a Phoenix-based therapist in private practice and founder and chair of the Jewish Therapist Collective, a worldwide online community for Jewish mental health professionals, says that antisemitism is an industry-wide issue that grew exponentially after October 7th.
Antisemitism is an industry-wide issue that grew exponentially after October 7th.
“Some people are really overt with their antisemitism,” says Ms. Brooke. “But some people are more subtle. We have some members who’ve confided that they work at a group practice, and that their boss has never had a direct conversation with them, but just stopped giving them new clients, and they’ve seen their caseload just dwindle, while everyone else got new clients. They were essentially fired without any communication.”
Sivan Komatsu, school psychologist and graduate student in Seattle, WA, says, “Mental health professionals care deeply about things like anti-racism and social justice. And I think the desire to uplift those who have been oppressed comes from a good place. Jews are just a convenient scapegoat for all of society’s ills.”
Dana Cohen
Ms. Cohen explains that self-proclaimed anti-racists equate Zionism with white supremacy. “They use buzzwords, like the oppressor and the oppressed. They really believe that we are white supremacists and that all Jews are white. And these categories are taught, especially in social work.”
Today’s slogan of ‘decolonize therapy’ is a shorthand for ‘cut the Jews out’.
Ms. Brooke adds, “There are some good concepts in social justice, but it’s increasingly used for forceful ends that ultimately hurt society. Today’s slogan of ‘decolonize therapy’ is a shorthand for ‘cut the Jews out’.”
Impact on Patient Care
Therapists are concerned about the impact of antisemitism in the mental health field on Jewish patients seeking care.
“We have not had a time in the past where Jewish identity has been so weaponized against clients,” Ms. Brooke says, “and because your therapist is in a position of power in the room, they can do things that are really harmful. People who really need therapy, when they have an experience like that, they’re not going to go back. So people who need care are not going to get it. And instead of coming to therapy and healing they’re leaving with crippling self-doubt.”
Ms. Komatsu adds, “I heard too many stories about people going to a therapist and hearing an offhand antisemitic comment. I’m a school psychologist at a Jewish high school and I have to be really careful about who I refer my students to for mental health support.”
The Jewish Therapist Collective maintains an international directory where a Jewish client seeking therapy can find a therapist who is known not to be antisemitic.
In addition, Ms. Brooke recommends getting in touch with the Jewish Community Mental Health Initiative, which offers free support groups.
“We Are Not Comfortable Engaging with Citizens of Israel”
Seeking professional training for trauma treatment, Israel-based trauma specialist Chana Mason applied to a program in Colorado. The program’s response stated, “Under the current circumstances of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and credible accusations of genocide, we are not at this time comfortable engaging with citizens of Israel.”
Ms. Mason shares, “When I received their reply, my whole body started shaking. I totally went into a trauma response…it was like a punch in the stomach.”
Jewish mental health professionals are facing many obstacles to gaining the skills they need to help their clients.
Chana Mason
Practicing therapists are required to take continuous education courses throughout their careers. Ms. Cohen shares that recently, she has chosen to take these courses online rather than in person because “it feels unsafe. Not that they would physically harm me. But it felt very traumatizing to be gaslit. It erases our Jewish trauma, like we don’t really get a voice.”
Graduate students, especially in social work, are exposed to antisemitic tropes on a constant basis in their classrooms. Ms. Brooke mentions “professors and guest lecturers, essentially painting Jews as predators, and excluding Jews from discussions about multiculturalism. They’re finding themselves unable to fight back. And in real time they’re noticing the 20 students around them being groomed to embody antisemitism in their clinical practice. It’s even caused some graduate students to really rethink being part of the profession. So we’re losing great people.”
Professional Conferences Spewing Jew-Hatred
Ms. Komatsu’s first encounter with antisemitism in her field took place at an international conference in Philadelphia in November 2024. The conference included a talk on anti-racism, and the speaker “had extremely antisemitic slides – graphics that depicted Zionism as racist, fascist, and white supremacist. There was a slide with a colonized mind. And it had Zionism along with rape culture, genocidal tendencies, all these other awful things.”
When Ms. Komatsu saw the slides on the plane on her way to the conference, “my heart sank. It was like a gut punch.” She had to use all the skills she had learned in her professional training to process her emotions.
Ms. Komatsu tried contacting the conference chairs but they were not responsive to her concerns. During the talk, recalls Ms. Komatsu, “The presenter seemed giddy and excited to talk about Israel and Palestine. It was very disturbing to see this coming from a mental health professional, who was given this platform and is positioned as somewhat of an expert in the area of anti-racism. I was thinking about the impact that would have not just on the Jewish attendees there like myself, but also the ones who don’t yet have the education to question what she’s saying and who would take it at face value. Because it’s this expert presenting at this prestigious conference – of course, she knows what she’s talking about. And I was thinking about the ripple effect this would have on their clients and students.”
Sivan Komatsu
Ms. Komatsu decided to speak up. At the Q&A session following the presentation, she took the microphone and called out the antisemitism in the talk, offering to help with future talks “being more inclusive towards the Jewish community.”
The presenter responded, claiming that she “didn’t disagree with 75% of what you said,” that she is “sorry that my words came across as antisemitic in any way,” and then declared, “my power analysis is that… Jewish perspective is easily accessible, and I think that the Palestinian perspective is not as easily accessible… so I am going to amplify the voice… that tends to not be represented.”
Supporting Each Other
Though the presenter’s response fell short of empathy, Ms. Komatsu was moved by the support offered by the other Jewish therapists present at the conference. “I was crying afterwards,” she recalls. “And these incredible Jewish attendees there, who I had never met before, came, held my hand, and then walked me out, and we were hugging, crying together. A whole bunch of us. It’s really incredible, just the sense of community that came out of that horrible thing.”
Ms. Brooke says that since October 7th, the membership in the Jewish Therapist Collective grew dramatically. “I think people rely on us a lot more,” she says. “We see a lot more outreach and a lot more community discussion focused on coping with distress, overwhelm, betrayal. People are really craving a lot more contact. And so we’re doing a lot more in person events to fulfill that need.”
Some Jewish therapists responded to the antisemitism by publicizing and emphasizing the fact that they are Jewish and strengthening their connection to Judaism.
Ms. Cohen’s experience with the blacklist led her to realize that Jews would be targeted regardless of their views or practices. “That actually allowed me not to be quiet and not to hide my Judaism,” she says. “The generational trauma piece is just so huge because Jews have had to do this before. It feels like an invisible blockade. Nobody’s forcing us into a ghetto and saying, you have to live here. But it feels in some way like to show up fully Jewish – we can’t do that.”
Ms. Cohen and her colleague, Michelle Magida, began their own Chicago-area Jewish group “because we didn’t want to have to hide. But it’s been such an incredible thing – it’s brought all observances of Jews together.” She adds, “This antisemitism, it’s made me light candles for Shabbat. I grew up Reform, and I think my connection to Judaism actually has grown. I think it has for a lot of people.” She has also been posting a lot of Jewish content on her Instagram account.
In addition, the antisemitic experiences in seeking therapy have led many Jewish clients to Jewish therapists. Ms. Cohen says, “I have clients of all religions, colors, and ethnicities. But I definitely have more Jewish clients than I’ve ever had before.”
Combating Antisemitism in Mental Health
Jewish therapists are working together to combat antisemitism. The Jewish Therapist Collective helps its members advocate for themselves. “Sometimes it works well, sometimes not as well as we’d hoped, but we get somewhere,” says Ms. Brooke.
“I think slow progress is being made,” says Ms. Komatsu. “The conference organizers did send an email apologizing for what happened.”
Ms. Mason believes that our response to antisemitism matters. She says, “You can put love or hate out into the world. If someone sends hate your way, you meet them on their frequency, then you are just like them.”
Ms. Mason made a conscious decision: “Under no circumstances I’m going to meet them with negativity. But I’m also not going to be a doormat, which is another version of fear and hatred.”
It took an effort, but eventually Ms. Mason managed to respond to the rejection email with an invitation. She wrote:
I’m assuming [your organization] is suffering from simple ignorance fed by the garbage propaganda that has chased the Jewish people for millennia. And because I believe your intentions are good and that you wish to be healers of the world rather than haters and abusers, I wish to offer the following…
To rectify the pain you’ve caused, come to Israel to train the Jews, Arabs, Druze, and Bedouins who are already working together to support our nation through these troubled times.
The head of the training program did not change his antisemitic views but under public scrutiny it became known that he had previously lost his therapist license due to inappropriate behavior. He is currently being investigated by the State of Colorado.
Ms. Mason did receive a heartwarming response from his colleagues. She says, “I responded with a very high frequency message, and I was met with high frequency people.” This fall, a group of non-Jewish therapists from Colorado is planning on visiting Israel and conducting training locally.
- Manya Treece. Psychotherapy blacklisted: A new cost of the war. Times of Israel, April 3, 2024. Available at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/psychotherapy-blacklisted-a-new-cost-of-the-war/, retrieved on June 4, 2025.
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Date: June 15, 2025
