Commentary
Philadelphia Jewish Community Sends Health System a Clear Message: Ditch DEI
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Jewish Pennsylvanians are rightfully concerned that their popular swing state governor was snubbed as a vice presidential candidate because of his Jewish identity. Liberals will need to prove that they are serious about confronting antisemitism if they want to win back Jewish voters.
If a petition circulating in the Philadelphia suburbs is any indication, that means abandoning the DEI agenda.
The Change.org petition, which has accrued more than 4,000 signatures, calls for Main Line Health (a large health system that serves the Philadelphia metro area) to “totally dismantle” its “Diversity, Respect, Equity and Inclusion” (Main Line’s branding of DEI) programming.
“Time and again,” the petition notes, “the Jewish community has observed that the tenet of ‘inclusion’ within the DRE&I apparatus does not extend to Jews. Rather, DRE&I portrays the world in a reductive paradigm that imagines ‘white’ oppressors pinned against a ‘nonwhite’ oppressed, with Jews assigned to the first group. This type of thinking doesn’t help anybody, including the patients it purports to help.”
The petition, drafted by local Jewish activists (including several physicians at Main Line Health), came in response to the headline story in Main Line Health’s July Diversity, Respect, Equity, and Inclusion (DREI) newsletter. The story, “Biography of a hospital during occupation and war,” purports to chronicle the plight of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. Instead, it offers an account so deluded that it could reasonably pass for either Hamas propaganda or anti-Hamas satire.
The story begins with the line that “Al-Shifa Hospital translates as ‘house of healing.’” It predictably unfolds to characterize the destruction at the hospital as an unprovoked assault on Gaza’s health infrastructure.
“The article is rife with misinformation and omissions,” notes the petition, “creating a dangerously false narrative that distorts the truth and misleads readers. Omitted is any mention of the atrocities that precipitated the current conflict, the holding of multiple hostages at Al-Shifa hospital and the use of the hospital as a Hamas command hub.”
Ultimately, “these omissions and distortions propagate a hateful narrative against the world’s only Jewish state. This unmasked contempt sets the tone for discourse and conduct across MLH.”
The apology that followed the incident, which referred to it as an “ouch moment,” only stirred more anger. The petition calls it “an appalling understatement of what transpired. The apology letter outrageously referred to Hamas, which repeatedly calls for the genocide of Jews, as a ‘combatant organization.’”
For the uninitiated, it might seem odd that DEI officials would wade into the Israeli-Hamas war or that they would so shamelessly and uncritically crib Hamas talking points. For many others, however, it doesn’t qualify as a surprise.
DEI tends to adopt simplistic and neo-Marxist paradigms that imagine the world as a conflict between groups of oppressors and oppressed. It views global affairs through a lens that inextricably links race and power, hence the contempt for the “white” Jews of Israel (most of whom are in fact descendants of refugees from Arab countries) and the apologism for or infantilization of the “resistance” of Palestinian terrorists.
Consternation over DEI within the Jewish community isn’t new. When I traveled to Israel earlier this year as part of a solidarity trip organized out of UCLA, President Isaac Herzog and his wife were explicit to our delegation about the threat that wokeism and DEI in particular poses to the welfare of American and Israeli Jews alike. Yet, the Main Line Health petition marks a notable development. Most American Jews are (or at least were) politically liberal and reside in progressive metropolitan areas. The incentives to self-censor about DEI are abundant, and yet, the stakes are apparently making silence untenable.
Though it’s unclear precisely how many of the petition signatories are Jews in metro Philadelphia, Dr. Lev – an Israeli-American physician based in the Philadelphia area who published the petition – insists that number is at least 1,000.
“The Jewish community is furious and many now believe DEI to be dangerous,” he tells me. “Opposing DEI can create some awkwardness among neighbors and friends who truly believe that it stands for the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. But given what is happening in our communities – Swastikas appearing etched onto the side of public buildings, pro-Hamas demonstrators marching through college campuses, Jews being harassed in Philadelphia public schools – we’re now forced to have these uncomfortable conversations.”
Philadelphia’s suburbs are being courted by both candidates in the upcoming presidential election. The petition sends a clear message: Embrace DEI at your own peril.