University staff union slammed for failing to back Israeli lecturer ‘threatened with beheading’

Similarly, former minister for higher education and skills Robert Halfon urged the union to speak out in Ben-Gad’s defence

Speaking to the JC in a personal capacity, Halfon welcomed UCU's stated commitment on their website, committing to "promote and protect the academic freedom of its members and of UK higher education institutions".

However, the former chair of Parliament’s education select committee added: "It is time for UCU leadership to put their money where their mouth is, live up to their values and come out strongly protecting and supporting this respected professor, and condemning any intimidation."

Some academics have also been outspoken in their condemnation of their own union’s conduct.

Jon Pike, a philosophy professor at the Open University posted on X that it was “essential, for its own credibility” that UCU and its general-secretary, Dr Jo Grady, speak out about the attempts to silence Ben-Gad, as well as other lecturers facing intimidation at the hands of aggressive protesters.

UCU has faced significant criticism in recent years for its alleged failure to create a welcoming environment for Jewish academics.

In a 2023 report on the Jewish experience in higher education, Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, highlighted the concerns of Jewish academics he interviewed.

“Many Jewish academics with whom we spoke are members of UCU and had been for a long time. However, there was a feeling amongst some that the UCU is no longer a place for Jewish people to feel safe and accepted, especially when discussions of the Israel-Palestine conflict arise.

“A Jewish member of staff who had recently joined their institution told us they would not join UCU, as they had heard about the negative environment that existed for Jews.”

He also pointed to 2022 UCU pamphlet about inclusivity, which explained that holding a branch meeting on Friday night in a pub might make Muslim activists feel uncomfortable, but made no mention of how observant Jews might be prohibited from attending.

One academic the JC spoke to described UCU as “consistently the most hostile and antisemitic space I have ever been in”.

Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths University, London David Hirsh, who was a member of UCU for 22 years before resigning in July, told the JC: “Antisemitism was invited into the union in the form of a campaign to exclude Israeli colleagues from our journals, conferences and campuses.

The boycott campaign was treated as legitimate and anybody who spoke against it was treated as a supporter of Israeli racism and apartheid.”

The CEO of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism described how he had been labelled a “far-right white supremacist” by the head of Goldsmiths Student Union, and rather than offer him support, his local UCU branch “offered her all the solidarity and me none”.

Hirsh eventually resigned from UCU in July after the union opposed the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group.

The union’s general-secretary described the government’s decision to ban the group, whose activists smashed the windows of a Jewish-owned shop in Stamford Hill and vandalised its mezuzah, as a “move which accelerates our slide into authoritarianism”.

Hirsh questioned whether UCU would side with Ben-Gad and other Jewish victims of abuse, or with the perpetrators of it: “Today, gangs of antisemitic students are trying to bully Israeli professors out of their universities.

“UCU has been conspicuously and deliberately silent. Will it side with the antisemites or with their Jewish targets on campus?”

UCU was contacted by the JC but declined to comment.