61 Winter 2025 1. Introduction Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas perpetrated the most heinous massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,1 and the immensely destructive war in Gaza that followed, there has been a surge of antisemitism in UK universities.2 The vocal anti-Zionist and anti-Israel sentiment on campuses has at times tipped over into outright anti-Jewish discrimination and harassment. A survey conducted of Jewish students in the summer of 2024 found that many of them have experienced abuse, discrimination and/or ostracization, and many reported feeling unable to fully participate in university and/or campus life and activities.3 On UK campuses where anti-Israel encampments and protests have taken place, these actions have exacerbated what was already widely considered a “hostile environment” for Jews and Israelis.4 Within some academic disciplines, departments, trade unions, and student political groups, as well as online, there has been a significant increase in targeted abuse of Jews and Israelis. The abuse often involves using the term “Zionism” or “Zionist” as a synonym for those groups, and at the same time meaning “racist,” “imperialist,” “colonialist,” “supporter of genocide” or “Nazi.”5 There have been loud and widespread demands by protesters that their university should be a “Zionist free zone” or that there should be “No Zionists on campus.” Increasingly, Jewish students and staff are expected to publicly denounce Israel and Zionism if they wish to be treated as part of the “community of the good,”6 that is, as legitimate members of the university. If they do not comply, they are assumed to be “Zionists” and therefore regarded as legitimate targets for ostracism and verbal attack. It is within this painful context that Jewish students and staff are expected to participate in university and campus life, to study and to research, to engage in extracurricular activities, and to be part of their academic communities. The triangulation of far-right fascist antisemitism, radical Islamist antisemitism, and radical leftwing antisemitism is well-understood.7 In UK universities there are strong safeguards against fascist antisemitism,8 and largely it is dealt with appropriately when it does rear its ugly head. But the surge in antisemitism on campuses Academic Freedom and Antisemitism in UK Universities Matthew Bolton, Rosa Freedman and John Hyman 1. “Israel and Gaza,” UK PARLIAMENT (Oct. 16, 2023), available at https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons /2023-10-16/debates/4B1D5F8B-41E2-4977-855951C36494AC90/IsraelAndGaza?utm_ source=HOC+Library+-+Current+awareness+bulletin s&utm_campaign=7a7e42c8ee-Current_Awareness_ IADS_17_10_2023&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ f325cdb 2. For example, Community Security Trust data shows “a rise of 465%” in university-related antisemitic incidents in the first half of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023. See “Antisemitic Incidents Report January-June 2024,” CST (Aug. 8, 2024), available at https://cst.org. uk/news/blog/2024/08/08/antisemitic-incidents-reportjanuary-june-2024 3. “‘I have never felt less protected as a Jew’: Antisemitism at UK Universities since 7th October 2023,” ICPG (Oct. 2024), available at https://www.icpg.org.uk/_files/ugd/ e23fb6_f233abe19150411c95e84a73196b8bbf.pdf 4. Barry A. Farber and Arielle Poleg, “Campus diversity, Jewishness, and antisemitism,” 75 JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY 2034-2048 (2019); see also Graham Wright, Shahar Hecht, Sasha Volodarsky, and Leonard Saxe, “Antisemitism on Campus: Understanding Hostility to Jews and Israel,” COHEN CENTER FOR MODERN JEWISH STUDIES (Aug. 2024), available at https://www.brandeis. edu/cmjs/research/antisemitism/antisemitism-on-campus. html; see also David Hirsh, “The Meaning of David Miller,” in MAPPING THE NEW LEFT ANTISEMITISM: THE FATHOM ESSAYS 209-222 (Alan Johnson ed., Routledge 2023). 5. David Hirsh, “How the Word ‘Zionist’ Functions in Antisemitic Vocabulary,” 4 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY ANTISEMITISM 1-18 (2021). 6. David Hirsh has described this phenomenon as being excluded from academia’s “community of the good.” See David Hirsh, CONTEMPORARY LEFT ANTISEMITISM (Routledge, 2017). 7. Jeffrey Herf, THREE FACES OF ANTISEMITISM: RIGHT, LEFT AND ISLAMIST (Routledge, 2024).
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