The former Israeli ambassador to the UK, Yehuda Avner, last week spoke to a crowd of 120 students from universities around the country in Oxford’s David Slager Jewish Student Centre. The talk, hosted by Chabad, was set against the backdrop of a small crowd of anti-Israel protesters who demonstrated against the speaker, waving flags and offering leaflets to passers-by and people entering the centre. Rabbi Eli Brackman, who chaired the event, said: “The protesters respectably fell silent not to disturb the prayers that were going on inside, after they learnt from a student that it was a religious, rather than political, event.” The student centre was patrolled by a number of representatives from the Community Security Trust, and the protesters voluntarily dispersed by the end of the evening.
