In January 2026, the Chief Executive Officer of the American Psychological Association (APA) wrote that leadership means “deciding which battles matter most and committing fully to them, rather than spreading ourselves thin trying to respond to everything at once.” Psychologists were encouraged to use 2026 to “rise to the challenge and show the world the full power of psychology to heal, unite, and lead.” Yet in the months that followed, psychology has increasingly appeared to move in a different direction. Across APA divisions and ethnic minority associations, leadership has engaged in selective outrage and exclusionary approaches to justice, reinforcing rather than addressing anti-Jewish discrimination.

Despite support from a coalition of Jewish American organizations, in February 2026 the APA Council of Representatives voted to defer action on affiliation with the Association of Jewish Psychologists (AJP) as a recognized Ethnic Psychological Association (EPA). While the APA President stated that “the deferral gives council members time for robust discussion and critical deliberation about how best to ensure that all voices are heard and represented,” it remains unclear whose voices are, in fact, being heard and represented. This question is especially pressing given that the APA’s Coalition of National Racial and Ethnic Psychological Associations (CONREPA) had previously opposed recognition of a Jewish ethnic minority association, asserting that the “conflation” of religion, race, and ethnicity “obscures the role of racism, white privilege, and white supremacy in the historical and contemporary oppression of people of color.” CONREPA further argued that Jewish psychologists are “not underrepresented within APA,” that “the majority of Jewish Americans in the United States identify as white,” and that “Jewish psychologists of color already have a home in each of the existing EPAs.”

Although CONREPA’s statement was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), what is less widely discussed is the fact that some ethnic psychological associations have taken positions that raise serious concerns among the greater Jewish population. These include calls for a “humanitarian ceasefire and an end to the senseless genocide in Gaza” without any mention of October 7, the brutal killings, or the abduction of 251 hostages; another that described the October 7 atrocities as a “unified Palestinian resistance action,” and a third that compared Israel’s response to October 7 to historical instances of “colonization, oppression, and violence” through “war, genocide, and its complexities.”

Of note, member associations of CONREPA have also taken positions aligned with Psychologists for Justice in Palestine (PJP), which describes itself as “united in solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian liberation.” In a joint letter to APA leadership, signatories and endorsing associations expressed concern that the APA’s 2007 Resolution on Anti-Semitic and Anti-Jewish Prejudice “has been used to obstruct efforts to promote and protect human rights — a core commitment of the Association,” and urged the rejection of the rationale underlying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, arguing that it has been used to prohibit advocacy for Palestinian human rights and well-being.

While Psychologists Against Antisemitism challenged claims set forth by the PJP in its own letter to APA leadership, in February 2026 the APA Council of Representatives approved the APA Resolution on Antisemitism (2026). The revised resolution, however, has proven most problematic, as it silences Jewish concerns while catering to advocates who had called for revisions to the prior resolution, on the basis of similar claims about silencing.

In fact, Dr. Julie Ancis, founder of Psychologists Against Antisemitism, has identified several concerns about the updated Resolution, including the glaring omission of antizionism as a contemporary form of anti-Jewish discrimination and the use of the phrase “state of Israel” rather than “government of Israel,” thereby reducing a nation’s existence to the actions of an administration. The Resolution also suggests that Jews in Israel/Palestine may “exist and flourish as Jews,” which disregards significant safety concerns and restrictions related to Jewish access and residency within areas under the Palestinian Authority.

Most concerning, however, is the clause addressing the “weaponization of antisemitism,” which defines such weaponization as the “manipulative or bad faith invocation of accusations to silence legitimate criticism, scholarship, or activism.” This clause—one that does not prominently appear in any other APA resolutions or statements addressing discrimination against minority populations—minimizes, invalidates, and silences concerns raised by Jewish colleagues. In doing so, it places Jewish students, clients, clinicians, and academics at greater risk that such concerns will be reframed as bad faith attempts to suppress discourse.

Is this what the APA Chief Executive Officer had in mind when encouraging psychologists to show the world “the full power of psychology to heal, unite, and lead?” When APA publications describe advocacy as an emerging trend and as “becoming central to the field of psychology,” is this the form of advocacy the APA envisioned? When the APA shared a resource in March 2026 on how to talk to children about antisemitism, virulent comments on its social media platforms prompted Jewish psychologists to request that comments be disabled. Was this, too, the advocacy the APA sought to encourage?

The APA Resolution on Antisemitism (2026) professes to “respect the dignity and worth of all people” and asserts that psychologists “recognize and protect civil and human rights.” It further resolves that the APA will condemn antisemitic attitudes and actions, “use its influence to promote fairness, respect, and dignity for all people,” and encourage psychologists to “act to eliminate all discrimination of an antisemitic nature.”

Yet when resolutions do more harm than good for the very group they are meant to protect, when outside voices claiming to be silenced are instead amplified in ways that further marginalize Jewish colleagues, and when the overseeing organization permits longstanding concerns about anti-Jewish discrimination to remain unaddressed, the professed visions of leadership, advocacy, and justice begin to lose credibility in a field already marked by documented concerns raised by Jewish professionals. What instead emerges is the understanding that justice and inclusion are extended readily to most, while Jewish concerns—particularly from those who speak up—are more likely to be dismissed under the guise of “weaponization.”

After extensive, ongoing discussions of leadership, advocacy, and exclusionary approaches to justice, this is what the updated American Psychological Association Resolution on Antisemitism ultimately appears to “resolve.”

— 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.

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