“This is a Christian institution and we will tolerate no Jews here”: The Brooklyn Medical Interns Hazings

Anti-Semitic quotas to restrict access to medical school, graduate medical education and hospital privileges were common in the United States from the 1920s to the 1960s. In Brooklyn, New York, medical education prejudice resulted in violence. In 1916 a Jewish intern at Kings County Hospital, Matthe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of the medical sciences 2018-12, Vol.356 (6), p.505-517
Main Author: Halperin, Edward C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anti-Semitism
Brooklyn
Jews and medicine
Numerous Clausus
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Summary:Anti-Semitic quotas to restrict access to medical school, graduate medical education and hospital privileges were common in the United States from the 1920s to the 1960s. In Brooklyn, New York, medical education prejudice resulted in violence. In 1916 a Jewish intern at Kings County Hospital, Matthew Olstein, was bound and gagged by Christian interns, put on a train at Grand Central Station, and warned that if he returned he would be thrown in the East River. Olstein died in combat in World War I as an Army physician. In 1927 3 Jewish interns at Kings County Hospital were assaulted, bound, dumped in tubs of water and covered in black fluid. Six gentile physicians were charged with assault. Criminal proceedings and public investigations followed. These attacks are the only known episodes of violence associated with American medical education anti-Semitism.
ISSN:0002-9629
1538-2990
DOI:10.1016/j.amjms.2018.06.007