Ruthie Blum, senior contributing editor at JNS and former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says a recent rise in antisemitism is a 'sign of a decaying society.'

Earlier this month, psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, a pioneer in trauma research, sparked outrage as he led a workshop on trauma at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, a retreat center in Rhinebeck, N.Y., comparing Israelis to "Nazis" and disparaging orthodox Jewish patients for choosing their "tribe" over "truth."

Weeks later, the fallout is still reverberating in the Jewish, healthcare and trauma communities, with the Omega Institute apologizing to participants for van der Kolk’s "inappropriate and antisemitic comments" and van der Kolk sharing with me emails he sent the Omega Institute after initially apologizing for his comments, now threatening to sue the retreat center for libel for calling his remarks antisemitic.

'NEVER AGAIN' REQUIRES VIGILANCE AS ANTISEMITISM SPREADS THROUGH ELITE INSTITUTIONS AND CAMPUSES

This story would be just another unseemly saga of an academic falling from grace, but it is much more. It’s a cautionary tale of how even the most celebrated voices in the psychology and healing fields can become ideologically captured and carry blind spots so profound that they leave Jewish trauma invisible, mischaracterized or invalidated in moments of greatest vulnerability.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk speaks at a press conference with supporters of the "Yes on 4" campaign in front of the Massachusetts State House. (Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe)

Known globally for writing The New York Times best-selling 2014 book, "The Body Keeps the Score," and for his pioneering PTSD research with psychiatrist Judith Herman, van der Kolk has long been regarded as the authority on trauma studies, broadening our understanding of the impact of trauma beyond combat veterans to survivors of child abuse and domestic violence. I’ve known him personally for decades, taught his work to psychology students at Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles, where I was a professor, and hosted him in Los Angeles, where he drafted parts of his bestselling book at my dining room table.

Van der Kolk should know how to parse the trauma that Jews carry. He grew up in Nazi-occupied Netherlands, where the Dutch establishment complied quickly with Nazi orders that sent 75% of Dutch Jews to their deaths, the highest in all of Western Europe.

Fast-forward to early August when van der Kolk and his wife, Licia Sky, led a workshop on "Trauma, Memory and the Restoration of Self," at the Omega Institute.

According to an........

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