The academic year is upon us, and some 10,000 excited Jewish students across the land are getting ready for university life. From refreshing the stickers on their laptops and deciding which night-out clothes to pack, to worries about new relationships and academic challenges, any graduate can relate to the excitement, and the stress, of this period.
But for Jewish students, there is something else in the air too: the sound of the drums of war. These days, being on campus means fighting antisemitism and identity erasure, being asked to disavow Zionism and, sometimes, institutional complicity in all three.
According to the Community Security Trust (CST), antisemitic incidents on campus rose by 413 per cent, from 53 in the 2022–23 academic year to 272 in 2023–24. And in March of this year, the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) report painted a similarly troubling picture, with the study concluding that antisemitism had become “normalised” at British universities.
Which is why this newspaper has created the Ultimate Resilience Playlist for the Jewish Student. Our eclectic collection of 12 songs – one for each of the tribes of Israel – was crafted with the help of campus warriors, Israel activists, journalists and music critics, all of whom were asked to choose one anthem that expresses resilience in its broadest sense: defiance and solidarity, but also Jewish pride, humour, hope and joy. From Pink to Regina Spektor, an extended playlist below also celebrates other musicians including those who have themselves fought to be heard amid rising global antisemitism.
I Won’t Back Down
by Tom Petty
Dov Forman, Holocaust educator and social media influencer: “Starting university should be about being curious, meeting people who think differently from you and having your assumptions challenged. But Jewish students should also feel confident in who they are and in standing up for themselves and others when it matters. I Won’t Back Down feels like a pretty good soundtrack for that: be open-minded, be proud of who you are, and don’t be intimidated into silence.”
I’m Still Standing
by Elton John
Max Royston, co-founder of Stop the Hate: “This song is full of energy, joy and defiance, exactly what I’d want a Jewish student to take into university. There will be challenges, and there may be moments when people make you feel that being openly Jewish is something you should apologise for. You owe nobody that apology. Be loud. Be proud. We’re still standing, yeah, yeah, yeah!”
Vehi She’Amda
by Yonatan Razel
Jael Cohen-Rothschild, student, advocate and content creator: “Vehi She’Amda reminds us that in every generation, there have been those who have stood against us, but Hashem has always stood with us. That message has become particularly meaningful for me; I have experienced antisemitism on campus, and I know how isolating it can feel to be visibly Jewish in an environment where your identity can become a subject of hostility or debate.
“Resilience doesn’t mean that the challenges we face do not hurt, it means finding the strength to remain proud and knowing that we are part of a people who have survived and endured so much.”
I Will Survive
by Gloria Gaynor
Nicole Lampert, journalist and winner of the the 2025 Pete Newbon Award for the greatest contribution to the public understanding of antisemitism: “This was my favourite song to dance to at Ricky’s on a Thursday night when I was a student at Leeds University in the 1990s. I know from my older son who is now at Leeds that Ricky’s no longer exists, but the anthem persists. And so it should: it’s a story of strength and survival over adversity.”
Chai
by Ofra Haza
Ben M Freeman, author of Reclaiming Our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride: “In this song, written for Eurovision in Germany in 1983, Haza turns the Jewish story into one of strength rather than victimhood.”
Sibat HaSibot
by Ishay Ribo
JC intern Alma Green starts at Cambridge University next month: “Campuses today are full of noise. To tune out chants and encampment drama, I’d recommend Sibat HaSibot. Don’t be fooled by the slick production of the streaming version. Played live with an additional call-and-response bridge – either to IDF soldiers in the immediate aftermath of October 7, or to a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Gardens in 2024 – it yields a stirring performance.”
Pull Me Through
by Zusha
Zach Margs, comedian: “It is a song I always come back to during difficult periods, and a reminder that God has your back.”
You Want It Darker
by Leonard Cohen
David Cohen, journalist and author of Book of Cohen, “Leonard Cohen died nearly 10 years ago, but his best music lives on forever, not least on the magnificent title track of his final LP, You Want It Darker. Although the Grammy-winning song is sometimes cited as something of a last will and testament, the song is much more than that. It’s wise and honest and full of Jewish life, loftily theological but also self-guying (“I struggled with some demons/they were middle-class and tame”) with a bit of Hebrew thrown in for good measure.
“The way the sandpaper vocal is arranged has the voice incredibly close to your ear. The arrangements are youthfully crisp with the kind of driving bass groove one would expect from having Madonna’s producer on board for the session. And then there’s Montreal’s Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue Choir in the background killing the flame.”
New Day will Rise
by Yuval Raphael
Tali Smus, a student advocate, known online as the British Zioness: “Yuval’s song is a reminder that no matter how dark things seem, light will prevail and a new day will come with new opportunities. That gives me strength in the hard times.”
The Ballad of El Goodo
by Big Star
David Bennun, writer, journalist and music critic: “There is so much to love about this greatest of songs: its chiming, sorrowful elegance and dignity; its sublime melodicism and artful arrangement; above all, its understated but unyielding defiance and self-reliance. It has long been my anthem of endurance, my reminder that when you know who you are, what you stand for, and where your principles lie, you can not only survive but find a way to thrive in a world that demands you be otherwise.
“It is particularly hard to follow such a path when you’re younger. When social tribe is paramount, and all around you are peers insisting you are wrong to be who and what you are. Oh, but if you will only come over to their side, you may go from pariah to prize. It’s all too tempting. Yet the cost to your selfhood is all too high. That’s when you must remember: You need turn your pockets out for nobody. If your friends insist you must, then find better friends.”
HaTikvah
by Naftali Herz Imber and Shmuel Cohen
Michael Ben-Gad, Professor of Economics at City, University of London: “Do not adopt the monomania of our enemies. Learn to compartmentalise; appreciating music in Irish Gaelic—or, for that matter, Arabic or Persian—does not make you a self-hating Jew. The principle also works in reverse: you can appreciate an artist’s work without heeding their demands that you disown or betray your own people. That should also inoculate you against some of the stupidity you will hear on campus about ‘cultural appropriation’.
“My choice, HaTikvah, is no less meaningful because Naftali Herz Imber’s words were set to an adaptation of a Romanian folk tune, or because the melody of Israel’s national anthem shares musical ancestry with the theme of the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana’s ‘Vltava’. Against the tyranny of the now, it offers words expressing a longing two thousand years old: ‘to be a free people in our land’ while also serving as a charter for a liberal, pluralistic and democratic society. Finally, it will remind you that the future of our civilisation is now up to you and your generation and thankfully, not subject to a students’ union vote.”
I Want You Back
by The Jackson 5
Rachel Riley, television presenter and MBE for services to Holocaust education: “My whole college used to take their tops off whenever this song came on.”
Godmother
by Noga Erez (feat. Eden Ben Zaken)
Florit Shoihet, journalist: “This powerful hip-hop ballad was released in 2024, at the peak of the storm of post-October 7 hate, and there is probably no other song that depicts Jewish students’ current struggle as well as this gem. Noga has a gift for radiating raw yet far-from-shallow anger, captured in lyrics such as: ‘Wait for their blessing of me, I keep on forgetting / They tear up faces in campuses, burn the flag, and I’m torn / You’re too cold for my blood / There’s no need to pretend / If you want me around, beg.’ “Accompanied by the inimitable vocals of Mizrahi-pop singer Eden Ben Zaken, Noga masterfully distils Jewish diversity and peoplehood: ‘Mommy from the desert, daddy from the snow / And I am everywhere because I got nowhere to go.’ Bold, empowering and perfectly angry.”
Mami I’m On It
by Jimbo J
Florit Shoihet, journalist: “A friend of mine, an IDF reservist, sent me this Tarantino-esque comic relief to cheer me up after yet another ugly antisemitic incident in London. This extremely funny song tells the story of an Israeli couple who go on honeymoon to Europe. At first, everything seems ideal, but once they pass swastika graffiti next to a synagogue, they drop everything and embark on a quest “to hunt Nazis” (a mission they accomplish).”
Al Tifhad
by Eviatar Banai
Tova Solomons, president of UCL’s JSoc: “For me, this song is a reminder not to hide your Jewish self away; there may be setbacks, and it may feel simpler not to share your Jewishness, but there’s a whole community of Jewish students ready to support each other, across campuses.”
Sploosh
by Ozric Tentacles
Ella Crook, chair at the Salford JSoc: “I’ve found the song to be brilliant if I want to take my mind off things when it gets tough on campus. It makes me feel silly when listening to it – and I feel we need to listen to more silly songs.”
Neighbourhood Bully
by Bob Dylan
Dominic Green is a historian and a columnist for the JC, Wall Street Journal and The Critic: “I went Oxford less than a year after the First Intifada started. Campus attitudes to Israel, always snooty, had chilled after the 1982 Lebanon War and were starting to become actively hostile. What you face now is the same but different: this was before the age of mass immigration and globalised media. Rather than do the playlist equivalent of dad-dancing, I recommend a tune that stiffened my resolve then and which still does today.
Neighbourhood Bully is “just one man” who is “outnumbered a million to one” and has “no place to run”. He’s “criticised and condemned for just being alive”. He’s “not supposed to fight back” but to “lay down and die when his door is kicked in”. But he’s made “a garden of paradise in the desert sand”. He takes “sickness and death” and “turns it into health”. And remember this: “Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone/ Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.”
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