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NYU NURSE IS FIRED AFTER CALLING THE GAZA WAR A ‘GENOCIDE’ IN
SPEECH  
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Joseph Goldstein
May 28, 2024
New York Times
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_ NYU Langone Health gave the nurse, Hesen Jabr, an award for her
work, for compassionate care. Later that day, she said hospital
officials then fired her because she made pro-Palestinian remarks in
an acceptance speech. _

NYU nurse Hesen Jabr, was terminated after referring to the Gaza
"genocide" during a speech. (Fox News),

 

Earlier this month, NYU Langone Health bestowed an award on a labor
and delivery nurse for providing compassionate care to mothers who had
lost babies. But shortly after, the nurse said, the hospital fired her
over the speech she gave when she accepted the award.

In it, she spoke of the suffering of Palestinian women amid the
Israel-Hamas war, which she called a “genocide.” The nurse, Hesen
Jabr, is not the first medical worker to be fired at NYU Langone, a
major New York hospital system, over commentary about the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The hospital is currently embroiled in
a lawsuit
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a prominent cancer researcher, who was fired from his job
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the director of its cancer center after he posted a variety of
anti-Hamas political cartoons. Some included offensive caricatures of
Arab people.

A young doctor-trainee was also “removed from service” at an NYU
Langone hospital on Long Island, according to the hospital, after
being accused of posting a message on Instagram defending the Oct. 7
Hamas attack on Israel — though he was later quietly reinstated.

In her speech, according to a video she posted on social media
[[link removed]], Ms. Jabr drew a connection
between her work with grieving mothers in New York and the war in
Gaza.

“It pains me to see the women from my country going through
unimaginable losses themselves during the current genocide in Gaza,”
said Ms. Jabr, who is Palestinian-American. “This award is deeply
personal to me for those reasons.”

She added [[link removed]],
“Even though I can’t hold their hands and comfort them as they
grieve their unborn children and the children they have lost during
this genocide, I hope to keep making them proud as I keep representing
them here at NYU.”

Ms. Jabr said that these remarks led to her firing on May 22 after she
returned to work following the ceremony. “As soon as I walked into
the unit, I was dragged into an impromptu meeting with the President
and Vice President of Nursing at NYU Langone to discuss how I ‘put
others at risk’ and ‘ruined the ceremony’ and ‘offended
people’ because a small part of my speech was a tribute towards the
grieving mothers in my country,” she wrote in a post on Instagram.
She said that she then worked most of her shift before being summoned
to an office where she was fired and escorted off the premises.

Israel has categorically denied the accusation
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it is carrying out a genocide in Gaza
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A spokesman for NYU Langone, Steve Ritea, confirmed that Ms. Jabr was
fired following her speech, saying that there had been “a previous
incident as well.”

“Hesen Jabr was warned in December, following a previous incident,
not to bring her views on this divisive and charged issue into the
workplace,” Mr. Ritea said in a statement. “She instead chose not
to heed that at a recent employee recognition event that was widely
attended by her colleagues, some of whom were upset after her
comments."

“As a result, Jabr is no longer an NYU Langone employee,” he
added.

Mr. Ritea did not say what the “previous incident” was. On
Facebook, Ms. Jabr suggested there had long been workplace tensions.
Her postings described heated political arguments on the labor and
delivery floor. “The pure psychological warfare NYU has waged on me
as a nurse, Muslim, Palestinian, and woman, has only left me
resolute,” read one message she posted on Facebook.

Ms. Jabr’s activism dates back to her childhood: When she was in
fifth grade in Louisiana, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a
lawsuit
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her behalf after she was forced to accept a Bible from her school
principal. “This is not my first rodeo,” she said in an interview
Tuesday evening.

Ms. Jabr, who had worked at NYU Langone since 2015, said that in
recent months she had been questioned repeatedly by hospital
administrators about her social media postings about Israel and the
war in Gaza. She described her speech at the awards ceremony as “the
straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Other employees around the country have been fired
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investigated
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their comments about the Israel-Hamas war. While some states, such as
Connecticut, have restricted the ability of employers to fire workers
for their opinions or speech, New York’s protections for workers
are more limited
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In Ms. Jabr’s case, she had been invited to the lectern and
delivered a brief speech at the awards ceremony, where, according to
the hospital
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she had received an award given to “a nurse who exemplifies what it
means to provide compassionate care to patients and their families
during perinatal bereavement.”

Before turning to the war in Gaza, Ms. Jabr expressed gratitude to her
co-workers, saying the award belonged to them: “Truthfully, it does
belong to all the nurses on labor who have held the hands of a
grieving mother.”

In the interview, Ms. Jabr defended her speech and said talking about
the war “was so relevant” given the nature of the award she had
won.

“It was an award for bereavement; it was for grieving mothers,”
she noted.

_[JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
[[link removed]] covers health care in
New York for The Times, following years of criminal justice and police
reporting.]_

HESEN JABR, HONORED BY NYU LANGONE HOSPITAL FOR HER WORK IN GIVING
COMPASSIONATE CARE - LISTEN TO HER SPEECH - AFTER RECEIVING THE AWARD,
NYU FIRED HER

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Watch here [[link removed]] 

Instagram Post by Hesen Jabr (iknowwhythejaybirdsings)
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"May 7th, 2024. Nurse's Week. I gave an acceptance speech for an award
I received for my work with bereaving mothers who lost their children
during pregnancy and childbirth. On May 22nd, I arrived on my first
shift back since receiving the award. As soon as I walked onto the
unit, I was dragged into an impromptu meeting with the President and
Vice President of Nursing at NYU Langone to discuss how I "put others
at risk" and "ruined the ceremony" and "offended people" because a
small part of my speech was a tribute towards the grieving mothers in
my country. I was sent back to work my shift while the hospital spent
the day "figuring out" what to do with me. After working almost the
entire shift, I was dragged once again to an office where I was read
my termination letter by the director of human resources, Austin
Bender, and escorted off the premises by a plain clothes police
officer.

You're not going crazy and you're not missing anything..This is the
paradox that is NYU Langone Medical Center. @nyulangone
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Read additional comments here
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* Palestine solidarity
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* Palestinian-Americans
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* Muslims
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* Palestinians
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* Palestine
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* Gaza
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* Israel-Gaza War
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* Genocide
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* Rafah
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* mothers
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* nursing
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* Nurses
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* NYU Langone
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* worker rights
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* zionism
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* New York City
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* xenophobia
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