Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Jewish patients reportedly ‘hiding their identity’ at University of California

Faculty at the state school’s San Francisco medical school told the “Washington Free Beacon” that advocacy workshops for students “betrayed a breathtaking lack of professionalism.”

School Desk, Classroom
Desks in a school classroom. Photo by DeltaWorks/Pixabay.

Jewish patients coming to the University of California, San Francisco for medical care report hiding their identity, a senior faculty member at the school told the Washington Free Beacon.

The professor added that the public school has contributed to “an erosion of professionalism” and a “loss of the centering of the patient-physician relationship” with its activist teaching, per the Free Beacon.

The publication reported that a required, six-week medical “justice and advocacy” workshop taught that an anti-Israel protest on Nov. 16, 2023—one that blocked the San Francisco Bay Bridge and prevented, among other vehicles, three UCSF trucks carrying organs to be transplanted that day—was a “‘direct action,’ akin to ‘sit-ins’ or ‘vigils,’ that disrupt ‘business as usual’ to ‘pressure targeted decision-makers.’”

It also found that a lecture at the school referred to the “humanitarian crisis in Gaza” as “structural trauma” similar to “red-lining” and “historical medical prejudice.”

JNS sought comment from the university.

A California native, Jake Retzlaff played at Brigham Young University during the 2023 and 2024 seasons before transferring to Tulane University in 2025.
After receiving complaints, Nisa Frank, head of school at Prospect Sierra, wrote that the relationship with the camp ended due to its negative impact on students’ “identity safety.”
“We’ve faced hate before, and every time we’ve responded the same way,” Jake Cohen, executive director of Congregation Beth Israel, said. “By staying together and by refusing to let fear define us.”
Under Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, Israel-Serbia relations have “entered a new phase,” Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said.
“Threats against synagogues and Jewish Americans are threats to the religious freedom promised to every single one of us,” according to the Justice Department.