As antisemitism sweeps across UK campuses, this is what it’s really like being a Jewish student right now

Most of the antisemitism I have encountered hasn’t been from my fellow students, but from my teachers.
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Antisemitism on UK university campuses have reached “record” levels, with an academic accused this month of “smearing” a Jewish student.

Senior education lecturer Dr Muir Houston has been found to be in breach of Glasgow University’s policy against antisemitism after calling the student a part of “the Lobby” and claiming that Jewish Labour MP Louise Ellman was working at the “behest of a foreign power”.

GLAMOUR spoke to a university student based in London about her experiences of antisemitism from both her fellow students and her professors…

When I started at university I was, like all students, looking forward to years of making friends, engaging in academic discourse and expanding my horizons.

It quickly became clear I was the first Jewish person many of my new friends had ever encountered. There were lots of comments about the size of my nose – mainly people expressing surprise that it wasn’t “even that big”. I tried to laugh it off at first.

Attempting not to take “jokes” about my ethnicity seriously became more difficult as the 2019 General Election drew closer. Like a lot of Jewish people, I was upset about antisemitism in the Labour party. People started saying nasty comments when I would bring this up – or say, “you might think Corbyn is an antisemite but he’s such a brilliant and good man”.
I felt isolated and surrounded by people who couldn’t care less about listening to another perspective, and it became frightening. I lost many of my new friends on campus very early because of antisemitism. When I wrote about this on Twitter, saying I was frightened to even go on campus, a person on my course wrote a sarcastic tweet telling me that maybe I should get myself an “experienced and armed” bodyguard paid for by Israel. It felt threatening.

Horrible as this was, most of the antisemitism I have encountered on campus hasn’t been from my fellow students, but from my teachers.

My course is international politics but a big focus appears to be on Israel. Like many Jewish people, for me Zionism – a belief that there should be a safe state for Jewish people in our ancestral homeland – is part of my identity.

As antisemitism sweeps across UK campuses, this is what it’s really like being a Jewish student right now

Most of the antisemitism I have encountered hasn’t been from my fellow students, but from my teachers.
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