Dr. Ted Rosenberg speaks with an audience member at the Medical Outcomes of Emerging Antisemitism event held at Beth Israel Sept. 4. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Dr. Ted Rosenberg never imagined he’d become an activist but, after the anti-Zionism and antisemitism he witnessed at the University of British Columbia faculty of medicine after Oct. 7, 2023, he couldn’t keep silent.
The 30-year practitioner, who resides in Victoria, addressed a group at Congregation Beth Israel on Sept. 4.
Rosenberg resigned from his post as clinical assistant professor at UBC’s faculty of medicine in January 2024, after repeated attempts to get the school to address antisemitism were essentially ignored. Since Oct. 7, he has written blogs, testified about the antisemitism before the House of Commons and, most recently, self-published the book Ayekha, Where Are You?
After Oct. 7, Rosenberg said he noticed that Jewish doctors weren’t regarded the same way they had been. Before that day, he’d experienced the odd antisemitic comment from patients. After it, he knew that a torrent of hatred towards Jews was coming, and that he needed the language to deal with it.
His activism began after 225 UBC medical students signed the petition “A Call for Action on Gaza,” which called for a ceasefire, condemned Israel as “a settler-colonial state,”
accused Israel of “collective punishment through indiscriminate bombing of civilians” and claimed that “Palestinian people have been continually abused, traumatized and killed by the settler state of Israel and its Western allies for over 75 years.”
In response, Rosenberg wrote to UBC president Benoit-Antoine Bacon, dean of the faculty of medicine Dermot Kelleher and other university officials.
“I assumed they didn’t understand these complex issues,” he said. “I explained to them that antisemitism leads to dehumanization, and I suggested we work together to meet with the students, talk about the petition and about antisemitism.”
Rosenberg described the dean’s response as a “boilerplate letter.”
“He said I could file a complaint through the university’s DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] program – which has nothing about Jews or antisemitism,” Rosenberg noted.
Demoralization set in as further incidents in the faculty failed to garner any action from the university.
Some 284 physicians wrote to the dean, describing the dangerous environment at UBC for Jewish students, faculty and patients. They received no response. Then, a professor Rosenberg worked with posted a picture of Jesus in the rubble of Gaza on social media. Rosenberg made the decision to resign.
“I’d been begging these leaders to stand up and speak about this, to model respectful dialogue, and no one was saying anything,” he said. “I realized the faculty of medicine had adopted hardwired ideological positions, and I felt I had to opt out and make a public statement about it.”
After his resignation, Rosenberg received a call from a retired dean, who admitted, in tears, how badly he’d felt about his colleague’s treatment. “He said the senior administration at UBC had silenced him and others, tying their hands. He spoke of how people were intimidated to speak out even when they shared my views, because they feared they’d be marginalized. He was looking for absolution.”
In May 2025, Rosenberg received a call from Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather, requesting he testify in Parliament the following week about the antisemitism he’d experienced. Rosenberg felt an enormous responsibility to get his testimony right. “In my work as a physician, I look after old people. I’m not a genocidal maniac,” he said. “But that’s what my students are thinking about me.”
While antisemitism has not subsided, Rosenberg is optimistic that truth and sanity will ultimately prevail. In his work with Doctors Against Racism and Antisemitism, he’s been writing letters to different medical departments, but, for the most part, those letters have been dismissed.
“I think there’s a systemic bias in the Western world against Israel and Zionism and a lingering bias against Judaism,” he said. “The title of my book, Ayekha, is a question to the world: where the hell are you? People need to wake up and look at the truth.”
Rosenberg noted that one requirement of entrance into medical school at UBC right now is a demonstration of your social justice activism.
“The epitome of evil in the social justice narrative is settler-colonialism, and the worst settler-colonialism is Zionism,” he noted of the school’s view.
“This means Jews are not going to get into medical school. I’ve had Jewish medical students email me to say they changed their names to non-Jewish names, just to get in. This is real, and BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] is happening. We need to speak out against it and be aware that DEI does not include us as Jews.”
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond.