Even in ancient times, Jews were often associated with the practice of medicine, an association that persists in both the popular imagination and in reality to this day. Edward Reichman tells the story of the first European medical school to accept Jewish students, and their battles against the plague that swept through the continent in the 17th century:

The university of Padua was the first officially to open its doors to non-Catholics, including both Protestants and Jews. Other Italian universities accepted Jews during this period as well, though papal permission was usually required. Thus, it was primarily in Italy, and particularly in Padua, that the majority of Jewish physicians of the Renaissance trained.

By the early 1600s a steady stream of Jewish students [from both] local Italian communities [and] from abroad availed themselves of this unique opportunity. . . . Their special status as physicians often exempted them from wearing the required Jewish garb. [Yet] Jewish physicians were largely confined by law to treating their fellow Jews. Only on rare occasions could one obtain special papal dispensation to treat non-Jewish patients as well.

Reichman zeroes in on four Jewish graduates of the Padua medical school whose careers, fortuitously well documented, placed them on the frontlines of the battle against the plague that struck Italy in 1631. Among them was one Clemente Caliman Kalonymus Cantarini, born in 1593 into a distinguished Paduan Jewish family:

[O]n July 8, 1631 Caliman’s father Shimon died from plague, to be followed by his uncle Menaḥem on July 22. Caliman himself would succumb to the disease only eight days later. He died on July 30, 1631, at age thirty-eight. His life and death are memorialized in the plague diary of Abraham Catalano, [himself a physician and one of the heads of Padua’s Jewish community]. Other Cantarini family members are also accounted for in the diary. Caliman lost two other brothers to the plague. . . . Three of Caliman’s brothers in Padua survived, and one . . . was in Venice during the outbreak and unaffected.

Caliman battled the plague, sacrificing his life in the process leaving no direct descendants.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.