I didn’t expect to encounter open political hostility toward Jews during my graduate nursing program. But that is exactly what happened; casually, publicly, and without anyone blinking.

I was walking behind a preceptor when I noticed it: a pin on their badge shaped like the State of Israel, filled in with the Palestinian flag. Not a peace symbol. Not a coexistence message. A map that replaces Israel with another nation. A visual argument for erasing a country and, by extension, its people. They wore it alongside their hospital ID, as if it were no different from a Pride sticker or a stethoscope charm. And no one reacted. Not students, not faculty, not preceptors. In a clinical environment that audits our professionalism down to our shoelaces, an erasure symbol was treated as entirely acceptable. This is how antisemitism often manifests in progressive spaces. Not through slurs or vandalism, but through symbols and statements so normalized that questioning them becomes the real offense.

Healthcare prides itself on cultural sensitivity and trauma-informed care. Yet somehow, antisemitism is allowed to exist as an “exception”. Too political to confront, too “complicated” to name. But it isn’t complicated. A symbol advocating the elimination of the world’s only Jewish state is not nuance. It is hate.

Bias in healthcare is not theoretical. It shapes who is believed, whose pain is dismissed, and whose humanity is instinctively recognized. If a provider can comfortably wear an erasure symbol on their badge, how will they treat a visibly Jewish patient? Or a Jewish colleague or student........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)