Antisemitic attacks at British universities soar to record levels, report finds

Antisemitic incidents at British universities reached record levels over the last school year, a new study has found.

The report by Community Security Trust (CST), a non-profit that helps secure British Jews from antisemitism, found that there were 272 antisemitic incidents recorded during the 2023-2024 school year, more than five times as many as the previous year, as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate surged under the shadow of Israel’s war in Gaza sparked by Hamas’s October 7 terror massacre.

Over 85 incidents were recorded during October 2023 alone, according to the report. The previous monthly high was 55, during the 2021 Israel-Gaza conflict.

“These findings paint a stark picture of the challenges faced by Jewish students and staff on UK campuses,” said Union of Jewish Students president Sami Berkoff. “It is clear that urgent action is needed. The legitimization of extremist rhetoric on campuses, including support for terror groups, emboldens protestors and further alienates Jewish students.”

The report included online and offline cases of verbal abuse, threats, assaults, and desecration of Jewish property relating to people’s roles within the university. It did not include incidents of campaigns with extreme, sometimes violent, rhetoric toward Israel, calls for “Zionists” to be excluded, or implicit support for terrorism.

Nine instances of assault were recorded during the year, including an incident where eggs were thrown at a group of visibly Jewish students in St. Andrews after an event with the chief rabbi.

There were 17 incidents of property damage, including the vandalism of the Leeds Hillel House with graffiti stating “IDF off campus” and “Free Palestine.”

CST recorded 23 threats made to Jewish students during the year and two cases of mass-produced antisemitic literature distributed. The remaining 221 incidents were categorized as abusive behavior, including all forms of verbal and written antisemitism both online and offline.

The report included a litany of examples of incidents endured over the school year.

In one of the most extreme cases, the University of Leeds Jewish chaplain, Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch, received death threats, including threats to rape and kill his wife and murder his children, after he returned from carrying out IDF reservist duty in February.

In January, a PhD candidate at a university in Wales shared a video on X titled “Humanity united against AshkeNAZI” which included extreme antisemitic conspiracy theories.

In March, someone scratched “Kikes Out” onto a toilet cubicle wall in a student union building in the North of England.

In March, students on a bar crawl wrote “I [heart] Hitler” and drew a caricatured Jewish face on the back of a known Jewish student’s T-shirt.

In April, a university Jewish Society received a bomb threat via email reading, “I placed multiple explosives inside of the Synagogues. The explosives are well hidden and they will go off in the morning. Everyone inside will die in a pool of blood.” The threat was checked and ultimately found to be a hoax.

Also that month, swastikas were graffitied on toilets at the National Union of Students (NUS) conference in Blackpool.

In May, a visibly Jewish student was told to leave the street across from the campus’s pro-Palestine student encampment because he was wearing a yarmulka.

In June 2024, the wall of a Chabad house in the Midlands was graffitied with the message “FREE PALASTIAN [sic].”

During April and May, 36 pro-Palestinian student encampments were established on campuses, inspired by student protests across the United States at the same time. Notably, these lacked any of the violent clashes or disorderly conduct that characterized many of those in the US, the report said.

The report noted that a recent survey of 497 Jewish staff and students by the Intra-Communal Professorial Group found that only about 22 percent felt comfortable being open about their Jewish identity on campus after October 7, while 70% said they felt “somewhat” or “very” uncomfortable. Generally speaking, 60% said they felt unsafe on campus.

There are currently over 9,000 Jewish students studying at UK universities, and 86 Jewish student societies in schools, the report noted. CST has recorded antisemitic incidents in the UK since 1984.

“British universities have suffered for decades with antisemitism, but these latest figures are worse than ever before,” noted CST CEO Mark Gardner. He noted while CST offered several recommendations to crack down on anti-Jewish hatred and protect Jewish students, “ultimately, this comes down to university authorities, government, and police standing up to extremists who are permitted to harass, intimidate, and disrupt on campus.”