Publications
Social Work and Antisemitism: Issues and Interventions
Authored by: Professors’ Carole B. Cox and Dana B. Marlowe
This book offers a turnkey solution to the present stark absence of any education on antisemitism in mental health graduate programs. The groundbreaking text is comprised of nine chapters each offering a summary of main points, discussion questions, short assignments and in-class exercises along with pages of references:
- The Human Rights, Social Justice and Social Work establishes foundational values and situates antisemitism within rights-based practice.
- Antisemitism: History and Social Work traces antisemitism from ancient stereotypes to modern manifestations.
- Holocaust and its Impact examines the Holocaust and its impact on collective and intergenerational trauma.
- Palestine, Israel, and Zionism explores complex intersections of Jewish identity, political contexts, and antisemitism.
- Contemporary Antisemitism addresses modern forms of online hate, conspiracy theories, far-left and far-right dynamics.
- Antisemitism and Mental Health details the psychological toll including anxiety, depression and PTSD along with strategies for healing.
- Antisemitism and Intergenerational Trauma connects historic persecution to ongoing patterns of familial and collective trauma.
- Antisemitism and Trauma-Focused Interventions Suggests therapeutic approaches and trauma-informed care to support Jewish clients.
- Antisemitism: A Guide for Teaching and Social Work Practice is a text unto itself; A veritable roadmap for educators and institutions to seamlessly include antisemitism into anti-oppression work supporting social justice, inclusive pedagogy, and ethical practice.
November 11, 2025
Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment
Compounded traumatic reality among Jewish mental health practitioners in the diaspora post-october 7: an exploratory qualitative study
Rotem Regev
This exploratory qualitative study chronicles the lived experiences of Jewish mental health practitioners in the Canadian diaspora following the October 7, 2023 attacks. Twenty-eight clinicians provided anonymous written responses to three open-ended prompts regarding professional challenges, personal impact, and desired supports. An interpretive thematic analysis identified five interrelated themes: Emotional Strain and Boundary Diffusion; Self-Silencing and Identity Concealment in Social Justice Spaces; Experiencing Antisemitism and Professional Unsafety; Erasure and Invisibility in Social Justice Spaces; and Heightened Empathic Attunement. Respondents prioritized supports across three domains: Community and Peer Connection, Targeted Professional Development, and Institutional and Societal Advocacy. Taken together, the narratives depict a convergence of collective trauma, identity-based threat, and professional marginalization that strained therapeutic presence, wellbeing, and a sense of safety. To name this layered pattern emerging from the data, the article proposes Compounded Traumatic Reality (CTR) as a practice-oriented term describing how simultaneous exposures to communal trauma, antisemitism, and institutional omission co-occur and intensify one another in clinicians’ daily work. The paper outlines clinical implications for building identity-affirming, trauma-informed work cultures, establishing structured peer supports, and advancing visible institutional responses, and suggests directions for more rigorous and comparative research to test and refine CTR.
September 29, 2025
The Jewish Social Work Consortium
Report and Testimony on Antisemitism in Social Work
Jennifer Kogan & Andrea Yudell
A report and testimonies outlining what Jewish social workers have been experiencing and are bearing witness to in our field since October 7. Social justice is foundational to social work, and a primary reason so many of us chose this profession. However, the current application within social work schools and professional spaces often leads to the harmful stereotyping of Jewish and Israeli individuals, categorizing them as ‘oppressors’ within a rigid binary. This approach or lens overlooks the complexities of identity and fails to recognize the unique challenges faced by Jewish communities, students, and colleagues. As a result, Jewish social workers are facing discrimination and urgent attention from our governing social work bodies is required.
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September 29, 2025
Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment
Editors: Lori Sousa-Meixell, Eugenia L. Weiss, Jessica Aldrich Strassman, Sara L. Schwartz & Malikah Marrus
This special issue, the first devoted entirely to antisemitism in social work, begins a long-overdue conversation and challenges the profession to act. The work ahead is substantial and requires a collective commitment: research must expand, curricula must evolve, practice must reflect awareness, and institutions must assume responsibility. Nevertheless, social work can no longer tolerate antisemitism and allow it to fester. The profession must confront it directly, for only by confronting this entrenched oppression can social work fully honor its commitment to end discrimination, oppression, and all forms of social injustice.
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August 8, 2025
Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment
Addressing antisemitism in psychotherapy: A trauma-informed and culturally responsive approach
Aliza Scharf-Bendov
It is the goal of this paper that readers develop both a deepening empathy and increased clinical competence in addressing their Jewish clients’ struggles with antisemitism.
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May 13, 2025
Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment
Traumatic invalidation in the Jewish community after October 7
Miri Bar-Halpern & Jaclyn Wolfman
This paper aims to shed light on the dynamics of traumatic invalidation within the Jewish community post October 7, provide recommendations for trauma-informed and culturally sensitive interventions, and discuss implications for future research.
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February 24, 2025
Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment
A tool for addressing antisemitism: The NASW Code of Ethics
Julie Ancis & Robert S. Weisskirch
The NASW Code of Ethics guides the conduct and decision-making processes of social work professionals. This ethical code emphasizes the importance of social justice, dignity, worth of the person, and the significance of human relationships. We propose that the NASW Code of Ethics serves as a template for education, training, and systemic change in the field of social work to address present-day antisemitism.
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January 18, 2025
Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought
Antisemitism: Social work’s silence is deafening
Carole B. Cox, Dana B Marlowe & Annette Poizner
Social work’s core values demand that it challenges social injustice and oppression. Antisemitism is one of the oldest oppressions and one that continues to flourish. However, it remains ignored by the profession both in education and practice.
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2024
The International Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics
Editorial: Social Work’s Role in Ending Antisemitism: If Not Us, Who?
Jo Dee Gottlieb & Anne Steigerwald
Social work programs have rarely addressed antisemitism in teaching about anti-racism, diversity, inclusion, and equity (ADEI). It is time for social workers and educators to become knowledgeable about antisemitism and speak out about it.
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December 7, 2023
Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought
Antisemitism in social work findings from an exploratory national survey
Carole B. Cox & Dana B. Marlowe
This paper reports on the findings of a national survey of social workers that details their experiences with antisemitism in school, in practice, and in the community.
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August 8, 2023
Migration and Social Work
Empowering the lived experience voices of Arabs but not Jews: The attempted subversion of universal social work values by the extremist Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement
Philip Mendes
This paper examines several interventions by the BDS movement within social work organisations and journals in Britain aimed at suppressing recognition of Jewish lived experience of racism and oppression.
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February 3, 2023
Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism
Exclusion, Isolation, and Rejection: Emerging Anecdotal Reports of Jews Studying Social Work
Annette Poizner, Stacey Love, Andria Spindel, Jesse Primerano, Elisa Alloul, Rebecca Katzman & Robert Walker
Owing to documented and anecdotal reports of antisemitism experienced by Canadian and American Jews undertaking social work training, a qualitative research project was launched to better understand the lived experience of Canadian students, specifically as it relates to their Jewish identities.
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2023
American Journal of Qualitative Research
The Lived Experiences of Anti-Semitism Encountered by Jewish Students on University Campuses: A Phenomenological Study
Chaya M. Abrams & Kelsey Armeni
Although many studies discuss inequity among marginalized student groups, institutional Anti-Semitism is minimally discussed in scholarship. The current qualitative phenomenological study contributes to this literature gap by providing insight into the lived experiences of Jewish students in Counseling and Couple and Family Therapy programs who encountered Anti-Semitism at a public university.
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July 14, 2021
Social Work Practice With Individuals, Families and Groups
Are Practitioners Equipped to Work With and Advocate for Members of the American Jewish Community?
David R. Hodge & Stephanie C. Boddie
The results suggest that American Jews are largely invisible in social work discourse, which raises questions about the profession’s ability to comply with its ethical standards.
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January 18, 2021
Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought
Addressing Anti-Semitism in Social Work Education
Carole B. Cox
Social work with its mandate to promote social justice and human rights and challenge oppression cannot ignore antisemitism and its impact on individuals and societies. However, the subject is basically ignored in the curriculum. This paper offers a brief history of antisemitism and presents guidelines and models for integrating it into social work programs.