#jewish therapists

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Gabby Deutch

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.

“The goal in therapy is to provide compassionate care to whoever walks through your door,” Dean McKay, a professor of psychology at Fordham University, told JI. “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.’”

“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, Ariz. 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.”

*****

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. 

[yourdailyqueer]

Charlotte Wolff (deceased)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

DOB: 30 September 1897 

DOD: 12 September 1986

Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish

Nationality: German / British

Occupation: Doctor, psychotherapist, writer, poet

Note: In the 1970s, translations of her books led German lesbians to seek her out and invite her to speak in Germany.

[irenespring]

Why must the chronic chest pain be especially chronic and painful on my big Hilson fic writing day. I need to write the chapter but instead I must sit and try to focus on something other than "ouch."

There are two possible causes of the pain, acid reflux or anxiety. So I hereby declare the reflux is antisemitic because I'm Jewish and it is inconveniencing me, and the anxiety is homophobic because I'm a lesbian and it's inconveniencing me.

Either way, I am inconvenienced.

[vibingforjudaism]

I need a therapist who I can argue with and who will give me jewish advice ....a rabbi. I need a rabbi

[mihrsuri]

I keep trying to write an update and then being embarrassed about it and feeling like I’m trauma dumping on people by updating and I just..I know it’s on me to manage my crap, I know. I am trying (not very well but I’m trying) and it’s just…I don’t know. I don’t even know.

[nappingpaperclip]

idk it rlly gets to me sometimes to be told that I like don’t get it/don’t care about trans youth or whatever whenever I am vocally critical of democrat politicians cause. idk I AM trans youth, I struggle a lot and get treated like shit a lot for it, by politicians and people who should care about me and idk, have y’all ever been kicked out as a teenager and had to call the only adults who support you to come pick you up as a lonely suicidal trans kid? have you ever had to walk home from pride cause you can’t call your parents? ever been outed to your parents against your will and without your knowledge? cause I have and it rlly sucks. having my own experiences and rights used against me, as a token to silence me and others is rlly frustrating and upsetting. It was so lonely being a trans teenager and I spent a lot of time trying to connect with other lgbt+ people but especially younger trans people at my high school (lowerclassmen at the time) when I was a teenager cause I knew how lonely it was growing up with no one to see you for who you are.

People talk down on me for speaking out against politicians who have done nothing to secure my safety or rights, my right to exist because it is “too controversial,” ever since I was a child, and things are somehow even worse now… like I don’t live in the south, like I don’t see the obituaries of murdered trans people on my social media every day, like I don’t see tv ads from local politicians insulting eachother via support for people like me aka “letting men in girls bathrooms” and like I don’t have to see signs around local places bathrooms that say transphobic stuff. like I somehow don’t get it even though *I* don’t feel safe or comfortable no matter which bathroom I’m in, like I don’t have evangelical conservative “”redneck”” family members who would pop a blood vessel in their face if they saw what I look like now, like I don’t get called slurs by strangers or experience crazy micro aggressions in public & at work, like I didn’t have the experiences of being one of the literal handful of openly queer people in my southern public school.

Do you guys even know what it’s like for trans people in the south?? do you know how often trans kids get assaulted in bathrooms at school? it’s so fucking scary to hear from my friends from Florida, to hear them talk about how their friends got assaulted in their high school bathrooms, to hear about the crazy shit their teachers and classmates and politicians said….

idk. y’all don’t know me. You don’t know my story, you don’t know how hard I’ve fought just to be here. I don’t rlly have a point, I just wish people would stop saying stuff like that in my replies. I can take getting screamed at and flipped off irl but this type of stuff is worse and for some reason it rlly gets to me.

I know it’s the internet and ppl are going to be cruel but sometimes it makes me feel very isolated from my community and it drives me crazy because like, damn what about me? Am I not the trans youth too?? am I not included in that, are my opinions thoughts and experiences not important just cause I’m loud abt my opinions in a way u disagree with…??

[gxlden-angels]

Sometimes working through religious trauma is a heartfelt hour talking about reclaiming your bodily autonomy after being sexualized and shamed from a young age with your religious trauma coach and other times it's this text message from your therapist then a caption suggestion to "show my tumblr friends":

[jackeysack]

I have a mentally ill Mexican Jewish mother who had a mentally ill Mexican Jewish mother who had a mentally ill Mexican Jewish mother. Of course she guilted me so bad I quite literally have flashbacks!

[earlymodernlesbian]

my therapist: i've been looking forward to our chat all week, i'm expecting it to get spicy!!

[rotzaprachim]

very funny to picture jews of the extended sw universe having a passover seder together because like. you’ve got leia (modox-y girl About Town with a super popular tzniut fashion blog WHITE IS THE COLOR THIS YEAR but also hardcore orange-on-the-seder-plate cup of water for miriam) (kippah? maybe one of those wire ones with the beads) you’ve got cassian andor (unbranched deassimilationist sephardi who refuses to bow to ashkenormativity or anything that’s not hebrew during services, undoubtedly the guy who Leads the seder and it is at least four hour long) (kippah: classic, embroidered, orange or rust colored i feel) you’ve got din djarin who spent his formative years in an orthodox yeshiva before falling in with some hippies and now wants to interrupt proceedings so everyone can admire his baby (kippah: one of those black velvet jobs. you know the ones) you’ve got han solo whose been passed out on someone’s couch for the holiday. (he and jyn are both taking random bulk-buy kippot from the box at the front of the shule.) you’ve got ezra bridger, who brought the blunts. 

[monachopism]

maybe the real generational trauma was the friends we made along the way

[junimo-hexed]

So I noticed we don’t actually know much about Leslie’s past in DC (or least from what I’ve read), so I decided to to completely reimagine her. I drew two versions of her depending on the canon, the 1950’s version is specifically for the New Earth version of her assuming she’s in her late 60s during NML which ends in 2000. 1970’s for when the canon takes place in the mid 2010’s. Enough jabber onto her new backstory:

In her youth Leslie was big on the social justice scene, you could always see her at protests helping whoever she could. She stood behind and helped to lift up everyone’s voices, breathing life into any movement she joined. She was the kind of gal who would throw tear gas back at police, shout until lungs gave out, and stay standing even when times seemed lost. She considered herself a pacifist (not an absolute one), believing that violence should always be the last solution to defending oneself or others.

Leslie’s life would take a turn in her mid 20’s when after an automobile accident she would heavily injure her right hip and knee. Her days of throwing tear gas and marching for hours on end were over. It would not stop her though for doing what she loved, she put more time and effort into humanitarian efforts as a doctor and focusing herself to be the best she could be. She still protested when she could often on the sidelines offering medical help and food rather than being in the fray of it all.

As she got older she became more pacifist, believing more and more that violence cannot solve issues and that it only breeds more violence.

Wooo so that’s what I got so far. Feel free to add thoughts.

[kingfakey]

yo............... weirdo behavior. get well soon and by get well soon i do mean eat glass

[mihrsuri]

I think fathers day + period arrival imminent feelings should be illegal actually.

[swarmfly]

I finally caught one of the livestreams last night (I'm in Canada so it's at like ass o'clock in the morning for me) and it made me so fuckin happy. Every time I catch clips of them on stage I'm reminded of just how much MCR means to me. I've carried them with me for over half of my life, their art has impacted me in ways I can't fully explain. I'm just so greatful to be here and to be alive to experience this alongside so many people who feel the same.

I just took my meds and also had coffee so It's Real Kvelling Hours™️ over here so ignore me if you find this sappy shit boring-

I used to get so embarrassed about saying shit like "This band saved my life" because I was scared of sounding cringey or obsessive, but they really did and I'm so fucking thankful. They helped me save myself, this community helped me save myself, and thanks to that I'm living a life I could have never imagined.

I remember being 12 years old, making my first emo little tumblr account and finding the MCR community. My friends and I making matching URLs and blog themes, sharing memes and making edits and just having so much fun. Throughout all the terrible, scary times I've been able to come back here and have a safe place to just engage in my special interest and find some peace. I might have grown apart from those friends, but this community has always felt like home to me so I don't exactly feel alone in it.

It's because of this community, as well as MCR's loud acceptance, support and welcoming of queer people that I've really learned how to be proud and unashamed of my queer identity. When I was in situations where I wasn't being accepted or treated fairly, it made that shit hurt far less knowing that there were so many good people out there like me, and that would support me. Now with all the scary shit going on in the world it's been really comforting to know that I still have this to turn to.

So basically thank you MCR for making art that's shaped me in ways I hold so close to my heart and will forever, Thank you MCR Community for existing alongside me and sharing this beautiful experience, we might not be perfect but I've felt safer here than I have any other fan space, and thank you Autism Brain for slapping me in the face repeatedly with this special interest for over a decade without a moment's rest you're the real MVP.

[jimgandolfini]

the audacity

to insinuate

i have a type…