Jewish therapists fired from Texas clinic for pushing to help client with trauma from antisemitism: lawsuit

Two Jewish therapists say they were “wrongfully” fired from a Dallas mental health clinic after a colleague asked them for help with treating a client facing trauma from rising antisemitism, according to. lawsuit.

D2 Counseling co-owner Dr. Dina Hijazi allegedly “blocked” Jewish therapists Yocheved Junger and Jacqueline Katz from sharing insights with a colleague who asked for their advice in treating a Jewish client who was struggling after facing discrimination, the therapists alleged in a case filed by The Lawfare Project.

Hijazi said that Junger and Katz’s advice would be unhelpful and “one-sided” and shut down the conversation during the Nov. 19 staff meeting, according to the lawsuit.

Less than a week later, the Jewish therapists were notified of their firing, the documents allege.

“Before we could even say anything, ask the questions, talk about it like any other case consult, Dina Hijazi jumped in and she just goes, ‘oh, that’s not a good idea. You’ll get a one-sided response,’ ” Junger, who had been with B2 for more than two years, told The Post.

“I was really taken aback and just appalled,” she added.

The entire situation spun Katz into a “panic” for days, she said.

“I couldn’t believe what was unfolding,” said Katz.

Before the therapists were let go, Hijazi sent an email to staff banning discussions involving the “Palestine Israel topic,” which she said caused her “great pain,” according to the lawsuit.

But Junger and Katz said their colleague didn’t ask anything about “Palestine, Palestinians, or Israel.”

Junger asserted that the coworker was merely “doing her due diligence to understand what her client is experiencing and asking her colleagues who have first-hand knowledge to help her out,” according to the lawsuit.

“How can we service our clients if we are not allowed to talk about their experiences?” she questioned.

Hijazi allegedly doubled down on the ban against sharing “political or religious opinions” with colleagues, according to the lawsuit.

Katz then replied that both Hijazi and fellow co-founder Rev. Daniel Gowan failed “to see that this was not a political conversation.”

Gowan replied that Katz had gone “way over the line” in trying to advocate for the Jewish patient, according to an email cited in the lawsuit.

The Jewish therapists again tried to push back days later, but received a call on Nov. 25 that they were “terminated.”

They were given 30 days to leave the clinic, which hired movers to take their belongings to a new and isolated office space, where they could continue to see clients before their last day, the therapists said.

“They didn’t even want us in the office for those 30 days so they rented an additional office in different buildings, so they wouldn’t see us and literally moved our stuff,” said Junger.

Junger called the situation “disheartening” and “scary” because she “heard that there was discrimination against Jewish practitioners and Jewish clients in the therapy world” but didn’t “really want to believe it,” in an interview with The Post.

“The nature of our job is to be there for people going through hard times and for us as therapists, that it’s not about us. And it’s about client experiencing and everyone has a right for their story,” she said.

Katz emphasized the need for therapists to exercise “cultural competency” in treating clients.

“It’s not our clients’ responsibility to educate us. If we get a client that we don’t understand — their culture, their religion, their background — it’s up to us to seek consultation to understand or to do some research to understand the perspective,” said Katz, who was with B2 for more than six years.

“That’s your responsibility as a therapist to ask if you don’t know,” she added.

D2’s website describes the clinic as “a safe, non-judgmental place where we’ll challenge you to move beyond whatever is causing you pain.”

An attorney representing D2 said Gowan and Hijazi “vehemently deny the allegations made against them.”

Antisemitic crimes have exploded since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. In the US, the Jewish community faced more than more than 25 antisemitic incidents per day last year, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League.

There were 9,354 incidents of antisemitic assault, harassment and vandalism in the US in 2024, marking a 344% increase over the past five years, according to ADL’s annual audit.