A hospital in north London last week suspended a physician for claiming publicly that all Jews have “feelings of supremacy” and downplaying antisemitism.
Whittington Hospital in the London suburb of Highgate suspended Dr. Ellen Kriesels, a consultant developmental pediatrician, for statements she made online and with signage at an anti-Israel protest, The Telegraph newspaper reported.
The news underlined concerns that the surging antisemitism problem in the U.K. was affecting the public health system and other areas of society that had been thought of as more resistant to Jew-hatred than environments with relatively low education levels.
An account bearing Kriesels’s name on X last month featured the claim that “Virtually every Jew has some feelings of supremacy (result of their Zionist upbringing) and they might oppose Zionism, but they are not going to challenge their precious community. That just doesn’t feel right to them!”
In one post about the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, she wrote: “Always trying to frame the Jews as victims. So ridiculous. So exhausting.”
At a Sept. 6 protest event, Kriesels was photographed holding a placard depicting the Israeli flag with the Star of David replaced by words such as “Rape,” “Lie” and “Kill.”
Before the suspension, the Whittington Health NHS Trust, which employs Kriesels, said it was investigating and claimed it would not tolerate “any form of discrimination, racism, antisemitism or Islamophobia.”
Kriesels reacted dismissively to a report by The Jewish News of London about her suspension, writing on X on Friday: “No credit for the rhyme on my placard? My comment you didn’t ask for: I ain’t listening to all that!” she wrote of article, adding: “Free Palestine.”
In July, the Board of Deputies of British Jews published a report that said that evidence suggests that “there is a specific unaddressed issue of antisemitism within the NHS,” referencing the U.K.'s National Health Service. “Many Jewish employees within NHS organizations feel that antisemitism in their workplace is not being addressed; for example, that that the issue of antisemitism has ‘simply been swept under the carpet’.”
Britain tallied its second-highest annual total of antisemitic incidents in 2024—3,528—according to the Community Security Trust (CST), a Jewish security group.
According to CST’s Antisemitic Incidents Report 2024, that was a decrease of 18% from the 4,296 anti-Jewish hate incidents
recorded in 2023.
There were 1,662 recorded antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 incidents in 2021 and 1,684 in 2020.
Critics of the Labour-led government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that its policies on Israel, including imposing an arms embargo on it last year and making statements in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state, fan the flames of antisemitism.
