A Jewish British doctor who is immigrating to Israel has said doctors he met told him they would not treat patients who come from Israel, even if their life was in danger.
Speaking to ITV News for a program on the rise in antisemitism aired Monday, the London doctor, identified only as Baruch, said:
“It is very scary to me that I have met doctors who’ve said that they will not, point-blank, treat somebody who has come from certain areas of the world,” he said. “If they are dying in [the ER], I’ve been told by doctors that if they’re from Israel, then they will not treat that person. That to me is disgraceful.”
Baruch also said he has been berated on the streets repeatedly as a kippah-wearing Jew, including “Free Palestine” and “You don’t belong here,” and that before moving back to London last year a man driving by in Manchester threatened to throw acid on him.
Responding to the report, the UK’s Department of Health called Baruch’s comments “shocking.”
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“It is unacceptable that people do not currently feel safe working in and using the health service,” it added.
Discussing the move to Israel, Baruch attributed the decision to surging antisemitism in Britain, both at a broader societal level and particularly in the healthcare system. He and his family will be joining his parents and siblings, who have all already left the UK for Israel.
???? NHS doctors say they would not treat Israelis
Doctors told me they would refuse to save dying Israelis, says Jewish NHS medic, Baruch, in an interview with ITV News.
The Department of Health said Baruch’s revelations were “shocking”, adding that: “It is unacceptable that… pic.twitter.com/F34vPq6yVP
— The Jewish Chronicle (@JewishChron) June 2, 2026
“To have that long lineage of a family who came here 400 years ago and now having to leave because on the one hand we want to leave, we love Israel, but also leaving because of antisemitism, is very sad,” he said.
The family will be moving from London’s Golders Green neighborhood, one of Britain’s largest Jewish enclaves that has seen several recent antisemitic attacks, including in April when two British Jews were stabbed by an assailant outside a synagogue. Baruch noted that his family was living in Manchester this past October when two Jewish men were killed in a terror attack on a synagogue during Yom Kippur.
Following the Golders Green stabbings, the UK’s terrorism threat level was raised to the second-highest level of “severe,” with security officials citing the “broader Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorist threat.”
Some 63 percent of Britons say antisemitism is a major or significant problem in British society, according to a YouGov survey published last month in the aftermath of the Golders Green stabbings, and a record number of Jews in the country attended an Aliyah event last month.
“Going to Israel, for us, is about our kids being able to go to school without worrying about their safety. Our kids celebrating Hanukkah, Passover, without worrying about any verbal or physical abuse,” Baruch explained to ITV News. “Experiencing a Jewish life, for us, I think will be a lot richer.”
His wife Daniella acknowledged that while “it seemed weird you would want to go to a war zone,” people in Israel “worry about us. They ask us how we are coping with the antisemitism [in the UK]. You never know when some random person is going to come out and stab you or set fire to something. That is when you have to be worried.”
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