JCRC Statement
January 18, 2025
The following is a statement from the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Greater Washington regarding Dr. Elon Glassberg and the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
“Dr. Elon Glassberg’s nearly three decades of service with the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps — including as a Special Forces medical officer, head of trauma and combat medicine, Surgeon General, and leader of multiple humanitarian missions — makes him ideally and uniquely suited to discuss saving lives and improving health outcomes. We applaud the University of Maryland School of Medicine for inviting him to speak to their community.
The decision to temporarily postpone Dr. Glassberg’s address was unfortunately necessary in light of security threats that no hospital should be forced to deal with, but which were sparked by the unjustified opposition to his appearance. To their credit, school leaders have already made a firm commitment to rescheduling Dr. Glassberg’s speaking engagement; organizations like CAIR that are crowing about him being “dropped” from the program are simply spreading false information.
We are thankful each day for the life-saving work of the UMD medical community, and we are pleased they will soon have the chance to benefit directly from Dr. Glassberg’s knowledge, experience, and compassion.”