On May 5, Louis Danker found himself inside 10 Downing Street, addressing the Prime Minister alongside university leaders, trade union figures and politicians, urging non-Jewish allies to stand up and be counted against antisemitism.
Just days earlier, the 23-year-old had been in Golders Green when two Jewish men were stabbed in an attack that sent shockwaves through the community.
It is not the sort of thing most graduates expect from their first job after university. But then most graduates do not spend their early twenties as the public face of Jewish students during one of the most turbulent periods British Jewry has faced in decades.
For Danker, the outgoing president of the Union of Jewish Students and a recent geography graduate from the University of Edinburgh, the past year has been a rotation of crisis meetings, campus visits and media appearances.
“It has been a mad year for the entire community,” he says over a bowl of shakshuka at Beit Café on Golders Green Road.
Danker addressing Downing Street in May 2026[Missing Credit]
Elected on a record-breaking 938 votes, the highest in UJS history, Danker campaigned on a platform of Jewish pride, diversity and inclusion.
Despite that ambition, the year has seen continued antisemitism and extreme activism on campus. Students returned to university last year to demonstrations glorifying Hamas’s “Al Aqsa Flood” marking the second anniversary of October 7, Danker himself has been at the hard end of some nasty targeted campaigns, and Israeli professors have been hounded in a way not seen for years.
Then there was the Manchester terror attack, which saw two Jews killed. Within hours, Danker was on a train north to spend Shabbat with local students.
“It has been a frightening time for the community,” he says.
But Danker has been careful not to let fear define his tenure.
“In the immediate aftermath of October 7 and the crisis on campus, people moved into JSoc spaces and retreated into safe spaces, which was really important,” he says.
“I think this year we’ve turned a bit of a corner. People are now keen to move back outwards and be more open.”
“I’m very proud of my team,” he added. “But I’m even more proud of the hundreds of students who stepped up this year. It would have been very easy to retreat inwards. They haven’t. They’ve been present on campus. They’ve done more than ever.
Across the year, UJS supported more than 900 Jewish Society events and carried out more than 300 campus visits. Danker – who attends Barnet United Synagogue – has attended different student minyans up and down the country.
“This year has been about moving from crisis engagement to sustained positive engagement with Jewish life on campus. I’ve been a broken record about the importance of Jewish pride and Jewish resilience and defining our own experience,” he says.
Among the Jsoc presidents he has met with, the shared message he has conveyed to government and campus leaders is: “We don’t want antisemitism to be the centrepiece of Jewish life on campus. We want it to be Friday night dinners, socials, speaker events and friendships.
“If we’re only focused on what we’re protecting against, and not what we’re protecting, then we’re losing the point.”
“We are proud British Jews and we’re a proud part of multicultural Britain. We have a brilliant culture and values that the whole of Britain can endorse.”
He is frustrated by broader debates about the “future” of British Jewry, particularly when they come from outside the community.
“I despair at the notion that there’s no point staying in Britain because we don’t have a future here,” he says. “That really nags at me because I think we absolutely do have a future here. The thing that gives me faith is the hundreds of Jewish student leaders who are defiantly living Jewish lives on campus and building bridges.”
One of the flagship initiatives was Jewish Experience Week, JEW for short. With more than 40 events across 24 campuses, the February programme was designed to introduce non-Jewish students to Jewish culture.
At Exeter, students hosted a rugelach tasting; Queen Mary University JSoc organised a Jewish walking tour of the East End; and Liverpool, which won JSoc of the year, staged a mock bar mitzvah complete with Israeli dancing.
Many highlights from his year came from regional JSocs. Glasgow JSoc’s art exhibition won JSoc Event of the Year at the Student Awards, while York’s annual JSoc ball, held in April at Clifford’s Tower – site of the York massacre – was an act of reclaiming space.
York JSoc ball at top of Cliffords Tower[Missing Credit]
“So often we’re a political football,” Danker says. “People on campus who aren’t Jewish experience Judaism through discussions around protest and antisemitism.
“Actually, we want them to experience Judaism by meeting Jews and having interesting cultural encounters with Jews.”
It is an approach that mirrors the effort of the Board of Deputies’ first Jewish Cultural Month initiative.
“We as a community risk becoming too concerned with making counterarguments,” he suggests. “Counterarguments to people who hate us, counterarguments online, counterarguments to antisemitism. We have to do that. But if that’s all we’re doing, we’re not defining who we are.”
Despite this emphasis on culture and positivity, much of Danker’s year has necessarily been spent confronting antisemitism.
There was UJS’s landmark Time for Change report into campus Jew-hate, which found that one in five UK students would be “reluctant” to share accommodation with a Jew, and one in six believe that glorifying October 7 should be protected speech.
The report made six recommendations to universities. Danker says there has been “progress on all six,” noting increasing pressure on universities to improve transparency around disciplinary processes, even where confidentiality rules remain a constraint.
He cites growing engagement from university leadership but acknowledges that at times there has been “real inaction” from authorities.
“But I think the perception of inaction doesn’t help either. It leads to underreporting.”
He is concerned about what he describes as an “ambient antisemitism” on campus.
Fellowship cohort at the Capitol in Washington[Missing Credit]
“There’s this general drumbeat and ambient antisemitism. Students become numb to it. I always say: if you’ve experienced something, even if you think it’s nothing, tell someone. We need to understand what’s going on and find the patterns,” he says.
Danker previously served as president of Edinburgh JSoc before becoming the first UJS president from a non-English university in more than three decades.
He has tried to broaden what student leadership looks like and is proud of UJS’s refugee ambassador programme, which saw 50 Jewish students take part.
“We're very intentional about making sure that our spaces feel inclusive of as many people as possible, but also that we are exposing students to a diversity of views from across the spectrum.
“Our leadership fellowship is built around productive discomfort,” he says of another scheme for young Jewish leaders. “My generation isn’t very good at disagreeing. I’d also wager that the Jewish community hasn’t always been particularly good at disagreeing with itself.”
That instinct to make space for disagreement comes amid a shifting campus landscape, where UJS remains firmly supportive of Israel, as Jewish student societies with antizionist positions have begun to emerge in some universities.
Danker encourages all Jewish students to involve themselves in UJS if they want to shape or challenge its direction.
Danker on stage with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson[Missing Credit]
“UJS is a democratic organisation and will represent the views of the people who show up and make their views known.
“When people on the left, on the right, with all sorts of politics, say to me, ‘why doesn't UJS do this?’ My answer is: if you want UJS to do something, come to our annual conference, put forward a policy, make the argument, and if the student movement agrees with you, they'll pass the policy and then UJS will do what the policy tells us to do.”
As his term draws to a close, Danker is thinking about the next stage of his career – with politics likely to feature – while his successor, Raphi Leon from Warwick University, begins a three-week handover.
He will certainly have big boots to fill.
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