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Students gear up for campus fight over BDS with launch of new UK fellowship programme

StandWithUs has now launched its year-long UK Emerson fellowship

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The fight against the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) cam­paign on UK university campuses is about to get a boost, with a prominent Israel education organi­sation announcing the UK launch of its fellowship programme.

StandWithUs’s year-long UK Emerson fellowship, modelled on their Ameri­can fellowship, aims to select student leaders and “empower each of them to teach their peers about Israel and combat anti- Israel rhetoric”.

The American fellowship, which has been operating since 2007, has grown to around 100 students a year.

For the first UK programme, 22 stu­dents from 20 universities, including Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle and UCL, will be taking part, including members of both the Con­servative and Labour parties.

The year-long programme begins this week in London, and will include a trip to StandWithUs’s international conference in Los Angeles next March, when UK students will have the oppor­tunity to meet their US counterparts.

Jonathan Farrell, the organisation’s UK director for student affairs, said: “Since its inception in 2010, the SWU UK office has been effectively helping students share Israel’s story and also counter the delegitimisation of Israel on campuses.

“The UK Emerson Fellowship formal­ises the programme and accelerates the potential for student leaders to excel as educators, not just on campus, but in every forum where Isra­el education should be presented.”

One participant, Maya Sterrie, a stu­dent at the University of Leeds, said she was “super excited to be able to facili­tate more Israel education and discus­sion on my campus”.

She added: “Having been an NUS delegate, I would also like to encour­age students from other universities to attend events to experience a greater understanding about Israel within the movement.”

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