The freshers have already started partying. The second and third years have been moving into houses with their mates and are contemplating the prospect of actually having to attend lectures over the coming months.
But what does the new academic year look like for Jewish students on campus? How are things looking for the antisemitism warriors? In short, not easy.
Yes, there are fewer encampments; university chiefs have figured out that allowing students to take over their lecture theatres for weeks on end isn’t much fun for anyone. But the new antisemitism – antizionism – is alive in both the lecture hall and on campus.
I can also reveal that there are moves afoot across the London universities to have a big “pro-Palestine” demonstration on October 7. The single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust has become a cause for celebration at the British university.
I write this with a deep, deep heaviness in my heart. I am the mother of a university student. I know first-hand that as much as Jews are still able to have a fun and fulfilling time at university in the UK – and they really are – they are also all, whatever their feelings about Israel, having to defend themselves.
Yes, help is out there and this piece is hopefully part of it, but we must accept that this war, for that is what it is, is not going to end any time soon.
Professor Anthony Julius, the prominent lawyer and academic who wrote The Trials of the Diaspora, the definitive history of antisemitism in England, likens our situation to being in a hurricane – one that we need to track and, as far as we can, damage control.
“The first thing to do when you are in a hurricane is to understand that you are,” he says.
“So what we are doing is trying to make sense of the force of direction, it’s likely duration and how we can protect ourselves from it.”
For him, protection means building Jewish morale, in particular the morale of the student generation. “This includes taking apart genocide allegations and demonstrating their provenance. But at the same time we know this is akin to throwing sticks into the wind. We do what we must and what we can, but we must also try very hard not to hold each other to account when we don’t stop the hurricane.”
Julius knows better than most how hard the task at hand is. In 2012, he represented maths lecturer Ronnie Fraser in an industrial tribunal against the University and College Union (UCU) over institutional antisemitism in its determination to boycott Israeli universities. The case was a rare loss for Princess Diana’s favourite lawyer – the employment tribunal upheld the union’s right to engage in debates concerning Israel. Fourteen years on, UCU branches are now openly antizionist with some even staging events on October 7 last year.
Two years ago, Julius helped found the Intra-Communal Professorial Group (ICPG), a network of academics dedicated to researching and combating antisemitism in the UK in response to the tsunami of hate following October 7.
The group has more than 140 academics across the country researching and fighting against antisemitism in their workplaces.
They report both overt and “shadow” boycotts of Israeli and Jewish academics, from “No Zionists on campus” declarations to the silent removal of individuals from conference programmes. They also report instances of staff receiving death threats online and in person and some requiring bodyguards and police protection.
In addition, lectures and public events featuring Israeli or Jewish-affiliated speakers have been cancelled or disrupted, they say, while extremists have openly spouted their hatred on campus. And academic staff whose teaching has been imbued with political messaging have encouraged students to attend antizionist protests.
And alongside this Jewish academics have been subjected to aggressive challenges about their political views from colleagues who have pledged support for Hamas and Hezbollah and spouted blood libels.
For their part, university establishments have in the main been weak: unable or unwilling to fight the scourge. Too often, university Equality Diversity and Inclusion networks don’t include Jews in their thinking and, in some cases, actively support extremist individuals.
As to what they can do, the answer is quite simple: report and work with other communities who are also being marginalised on university campuses for the crime of “wrongthink”, who are also throwing sticks at the hurricane.
ICPG is also looking at the increased presence and impact of Middle East Centres on universities. Another report in the works is measuring the cost of antisemitism for the UK; how the obsession with Israel, some of it emanating from campuses, has made its way onto our streets. They have also created a community of people who felt isolated in their workplaces.
The organisation’s director Professor Brad Blitz, a University College London academic, thinks the hurricane will one day pass. ‘”Universities have been purveyors of all sorts of horrible ideas and ideologies and dangerous traditions and some of our colleagues spouting this idiocy are part of that tradition,” he says. “Knowledge progresses. It can be slow, and progress is not constant, but things can be changed.”
Julius adds: “We want to contribute to the thinking part of the community that is pushing back.”
Working in tandem with them is Professor David Hirsh, a veteran campaigner against antisemitism whose eyes were fully opened to universities’ antisemitism problem by the Ronnie Fraser case.
In 2022, the Goldsmiths sociologist launched the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (LCSCA). It brings together academics from across the world to write papers and books about contemporary antisemitism – exploring the hurricane from the inside.
I started speaking out against the boycott of Israeli academics in my department in 20025 and I was frozen out for it
“I started speaking out against the boycott of Israeli academics in my department in 2005 and I was frozen out for it. All of a sudden, I was no longer considered one of the guys,” he says. “This is one of the ways antisemitism works. People suddenly find the place where they were at home is no longer their home.
“This happened to many more Jews in academia after October 7. Then, it spread across the arts, the caring professions and even law and journalism. Many Israelis who are in the UK, who are often here because they were fed up with life in Israel, have particularly found this. Some of them weren’t fans of our work before but now find themselves in the dock answering for the real or imagined crimes of Israel.”
He describes academia as “the base of the fire”. The ideas that we are now seeing becoming normalised in society originated in academia, he says. “Or they were legitimised within academia. This is why our work has an academic focus.
“By exploring contemporary antisemitism, we can become experts in it; our fellows can have an impact on police and policymakers, as well as working within universities. We publish books and also have a Substack. We do podcasts, videos and events aimed at the public.”
The academics can also see which way the wind is blowing. “Some of the stuff, the occupations, for example, have calmed down a bit, but the idea that Israel is committing genocide and is inherently genocidal and that Jews are complicit if they don’t disavow Israel is very well represented in universities. We have also seen the normalisation of the idea that Israel is a kind of symbolic evil and that the struggle against Zionism is a struggle for the whole of humanity.”
And because, he reiterates, the dissemination of these ideas often begins on campus, this is where the battle must take place.
“Sometimes I listen to Radio 4 and I think no one could possibly understand what was going on if this was your only source of information,” he says. “And that point of view, where does it come from? From graduate journalists. University is where they forged their political identities. This is why the academic focus is really important.”
As for the students, some of them leaving home for the first time, there is help at hand for them too.
Earlier this year, the Union of Jewish Students released a report into campus antisemitism entitled Time For Change. In it, young people revealed the horrendous bullying they had experienced for being Jewish and the frightening glorification of terrorism they had seen on campus. The study also revealed that one in five students polled said they wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing a flat with a Jew. The headline news was sufficiently impactful for university chancellors to realise that something really had to change, says the new UJS President Raphi Leon.
The report identified six ways to make universities safer not only for Jews and the country at large. They were: looking at how hate crime is punished; how student unions combat extremism; a better counter-extremism strategy; clearer public order guidance for universities; stepping up co ordination with the police to tackle extremism on campus; and making universities more inclusive for Jewish students through antisemitism-awareness training.
The government has already given the union money to roll out antisemitism training.
In May, UJS hosted more than 50 university vice chancellors so they could hear from the students firsthand what it was like for them on campus. “That really helped them understand the Jewish student experience, the reality of antisemitism,” says Leon. “It was a real injection of momentum. And the feedback has been reassuring – that it was a really useful opportunity for them to hear what is going on.”
Leon has since spent the summer speaking to vice chancellors and university teams across the country. “They are very much on board with what we have asked for and are cognisant of the experience of Jewish students. We’ve been impressed with the commitment many of the vice chancellors have shown to help Jewish students live proud, safe and supported.”
It is good news, of course, but there can be little doubt that academic freedom means lecturers will still be trying to inject their politics into their teaching. But at least we have a sizeable community of vice chancellors who more understanding or sympathetic to the antisemitism being experienced by Jewish students.
Meanwhile, the UJS has a more positive message and I admit that it is one which makes me, the parent of a Jewish student, gasp a little. In short: yes, there is a hurricane, but we can batten down the hatches and not only survive it but thrive.
“We have been doing really important work to instil a message of Jewish pride and give our students the confidence and resilience to stand up tall. It is there in our events, our parties, our Friday night dinners, and this year we have a Jewish Experience Week in which we will encourage J Socs to host events for non-Jews to come and learn about who we are as a community,” says Leon. “There are many people on campus who have never knowingly met a Jew before and we want to show them who we are.”
The former Warwick Philosophy student says that adversity has created a special sort of reliance. “We have all noticed it and we are proud of it,” he says. “Jewish students are resilient and they don’t want their time at university to be defined by the challenges. They want to build a story of what a British Jewish future can look like.”
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