I am not Jewish, but, when I was a student at the University of Leeds in 2008, I stood side by side with the Leeds Jewish Society. Even then, I could see that my fellow students were subject to racism and discrimination simply because they were Jewish. As a Labour party member, that shocked and appalled me.
Twenty years later, and now having the privilege of representing Leeds South West and Morley in parliament, I returned to Leeds JSoc.
I was equally shocked and appalled by what they told me: of being taunted by shouts of “Free Palestine” when they’re going to Shabbat dinner at Hillel House; of having a lecturer describe how proud he was of seeing his son arrested for supporting Palestine Action; and of hiding their identities from their flatmates for fear of how they will react.
This abuse and intimidation isn’t just directed at Jewish students. Rabbi Deutsch, the university’s Jewish chaplain, was hounded, bullied, and, with his family, forced into hiding after death threats.
The experience of Jewish students and staff in Leeds has been repeated across the country. Following the October 7 attacks, antisemitic incidents rose by 413 per cent from 2022/3 to 2023/4.
Against that backdrop, as one Jewish student was proudly told, “antisemitism no longer needs disguising”.
As I argued in the debate on campus antisemitism I secured in parliament this week, we will never be able to combat this racism until we recognise it is being driven primarily by antisemitic antizionism, the ugly form in which centuries of Jew-hate today finds its most virulent expression. The most precious aspects of our democracy – the rights to free expression and peaceful protest – are being abused to intimidate, harass and, on occasion, physically assault Jewish students in pursuit of a cause which, at its core, is animated by racism, hatred and violence. This is what globalising the intifada means in the real world.
While it has worsened considerably over the past three years, antisemitism on our campuses is hardly a new problem. Fifty years ago, anti-Israel activists on British campuses responded to the passage of the UN’s infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution by attempting to ban Jewish student groups which supported the Jewish state.
But half a century on, technology has exacerbated the challenge. As the Antisemitism Policy Trust has rightly warned: “Campus antisemitism is the direct physical consequence of the online ecosystem. Social media platforms, AI chatbots, search engines and computer games have allowed extreme, conspiratorial antisemitism to shift from the dark fringes of the web directly into the mainstream student experience.”
Campuses are not hermetically sealed bubbles.
Through the soon-to-be proscribed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Tehran and its media mouthpieces are seeking to radicalise the young, spread antisemitism and amplify anti-Israel activism and narratives. In recent years, IRGC commanders have addressed UK-based students' groups in online seminars, urging them to become “holy warriors” in an “apocalyptic war” against the Jews.
We must not allow our seats of higher education and learning – which, at their best, should promote, cultivate and guard the Enlightenment values of reason, tolerance and freedom of expression – to become incubators of extremism, fundamentalism and hatred.
Of course, there are good examples of where Jewish societies, student unions and university administrators are working together to tackle the scourge of antisemitism.
King’s College London, for instance, has adopted UJS’ antisemitism awareness training, working with it to adapt this important resource for a wide range of staff across the institution.
But too many universities have been too slow, too timid and too ineffectual in tackling antisemitism. They have failed Jewish students and staff, the wider student body, and the very purpose of, and principles underpinning, academia and university life.
I welcome the action the government is already taking, especially the Prime Minister’s announcement that universities will be required to publish the scale of the problem on their campuses, as well as the specific steps they have taken to clamp down on it.
But I also want to see us go further. The government should establish a statutory framework for the investigation and disciplinary handling of hate crime incidents in higher education and universities.
The Charity Commission, Office for Students and other regulatory bodies should be empowered to ensure proper conduct and strengthen students' union accountability, implementing sanctions where unions fail to address antisemitism.
Higher education should be designated a priority area in the government’s “Protecting What Matters” agenda to confront extremism.
The government should take-up UJS’ proposal for formalised taskforces to better coordinate action by the police, universities and government to combat criminality and extremist activity on campuses.
And the government should examine the Antisemitism Policy Trust’s call for a dedicated strategy to address the role of algorithms, gaming platforms, encrypted online networks and generative AI systems in facilitating the spread of antisemitic conspiracy theories, extremist narratives and online-to-offline radicalisation.
Last year, I attended one of Leeds University’s JSoc Friday night dinners.
Some students discussed their studies. Many more, gossiped and made new friends.
Everything that student life should be about.
Nothing about this should be unusual or noteworthy. Jewish students should expect to enjoy the same experiences at university – with all its new opportunities, discoveries and challenges – as any other student. It’s really not much to ask.
Mark Sewards MP is the honorary parliamentary chair of Labour Friends of Israel
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