A Jewish physician at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia has forced a union to release him from membership and fees after objecting that the union’s positions on Israel violate his religious beliefs.
Dr. Jacob Agronin was covered under a collective bargaining agreement between Temple University Hospital and the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR), an affiliate of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1957. That agreement required employees to either join the union or pay agency fees. America First Legal (AFL) took up Agronin’s case and demanded CIR exempt him entirely, pointing to the union’s endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and its accusations that Israel is committing apartheid and genocide.
CIR confirmed the accommodation in an Oct. 9 letter. Agronin has not signed a membership card and has not paid dues.
“No fees will be taken out of his paycheck, his employer will honor that and he does not have to be a member of the union at all,” said Megan Redshaw, counsel for AFL.
Redshaw said Agronin’s objection went beyond political carve-outs. He argued that financially supporting the union in any form — even payments that exclude political spending — conflicts with Jewish law and his religious beliefs.
“[Agronin] wasn’t objecting to the union’s right to political speech. The union can have whatever views it wants to have. However, when the union imposes its views in the workplace and that affects the people that work at that organization, that institution, or that hospital, this becomes a Title VII issue,” Redshaw said.
CIR says it represents more than 40,000 resident physicians and fellows nationwide. Redshaw accused the union of spending members’ dues on political and ideological causes that rank-and-file workers never agreed to when they signed up for better pay and working conditions.
The resolutions behind the objection
In May 2024, CIR adopted two resolutions on Israel: “Housestaff for Human Rights” and “Housestaff Against Apartheid.” The union says the first set standards barring it from endorsing candidates who take money from “the Israel lobby” or who support what the union calls genocide and apartheid. The second called for a permanent ceasefire, an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, and, according to the union, “uplifted” the BDS movement.
One month after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, CIR issued a statement saying it was “appalled and shocked by the recent violence in Israel and Palestine.” The union mourned lives lost both on Oct. 7 and in the fighting that followed, and called on the Biden administration and Congress to restore food, water, electricity, housing and healthcare access in Gaza, secure the release of hostages and of “Palestinians detained in Israel without due process,” and push for an immediate ceasefire.
In written testimony submitted to the House Education and Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions in May 2026, for a hearing titled “Bad Medicine: Politics, Unions, and Antisemitism in Health Care,” Agronin addressed that statement directly. He acknowledged it mourned both Israeli and Palestinian deaths, called for the hostages’ release and condemned antisemitism and Islamophobia. But he also objected that Hamas was never named, that Palestinian casualty figures were “uncritically cited,” and that the condemnation of antisemitism was “subordinated.” He further argued the statement presented Israeli and Palestinian casualties “in morally equivalent terms,” which he said “implicitly treats the perpetrators and victims of October 7th as equivalent parties.”
What it means for other workers
Redshaw said the case opens a path for other physicians with similar objections.
“Most people believe that in requesting religious accommodation, you’re just going to get an accommodation from the fees that are taken out for these political or ideological causes, or they think that that fee that’s taken out has to go to a charity, usually of CIR’s choosing,” Redshaw said. “Which is nefarious in and of itself, because the union can just choose a charity that perpetuates its causes that it believes in and transfer your money there. But the reality of this situation is that, depending on the state that you’re in, you can request a full religious accommodation. You can object to being a member of the union as a whole.”
CIR and Temple University Hospital did not respond to requests for comment.
