The Hebrew University has high hopes of dismantling the “obstacle course” facing Arab students in higher education.

In a forum at Birkbeck University hosted by British Friends of the Hebrew University last Sunday, a panel of three Hebrew University guests discussed the current situation for Arab students on campus.

Professor Sarah Stroumsa, professor of Arabic and Jewish thought and former HU rector, explained that it had been the “force of tenacious and unchallenged habits” that only three per cent of HU doctoral students came from minority backgrounds.

Her Arab colleague Professor Nayef Jarrous, adviser to the Hebrew University president for minority affairs, credited the Council for Higher Education for their five-year “brave investigation” into the challenges facing Arab students.

The third speaker, Arab doctoral student Rana Ess’ed, praised the Equal Opportunity Unit in her social work department. The unit, she said, “allows for an Arab identity on campus.” Ms Ess’ed hoped that HU would continue “to create change on a policy level”.