20 Percent of UK Students Would Not Share Room with Jews, Report Says Amid Deepening Antisemitism Crisis

A new report by the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) says that Jewish campus life in Great Britain is rapidly deteriorating amid a resurgence of antisemitism across the nation.

Released on Monday, the report, titled “Time for Change: A Landmark Report on UK Campus Antisemitism,” highlights a climate of increasing fear for Jewish students.

47 percent of Jewish students, for example, report having heard their classmates justify the Oct. 7 massacre in which Hamas slaughtered civilians and committed mass rape; 23 percent have witnessed Jewish students persecuted over their identity; as many 36 percent have either lost friends in this new milieu or know someone who has; and a shocking 40 percent report “having changed their journey through campus” to avoid anti-Zionist protests occurring every week at some universities.

“This report demonstrates that antisemitism on campus is not isolated but normalised,” Union of Jewish Students president Louis Danker said in a statement. “No Jewish student should have to face social ostracism, abusive language or physical violence — there is a right to protest but not harass. If we are serious about combating extremism in Britain, we have to start on campus, where half of students have seen glorification of Hamas or Hezbollah. Concerned sentiments and piecemeal progress are not enough.”

Some of report’s most concerning findings focused on anti-Jewish sentiments expressed by non-Jewish students. 20 percent said they prefer not be roommates with a Jewish person, while a quarter of students surveyed say that arguing that “Zionists control the media/government” does not constitute antisemitism. Responding to a separate question, 16 percent expressed approval of saying outright that “Jews control the media/government.”

“An environment in which Jews cannot be full members of the community, one which we are ‘othered’ and excluded and insulted is a failing environment,” Lord Daniel Finkelstein, a member of the upper house of Parliament, said in a foreword contributed to the report. “Universities are a place where people can exchange ideas and learn facts in an atmosphere of civility, equality, and respect. Bullying people because of their ethnicity or history or political views is completely unacceptable and a university administration that ignores such bullying is failing in its duties.”

The Algemeiner has previously reported on campus antisemitism Great Britain. At City St. George’s, University of London Israeli professor Michael Ben-Gad has been unrelentingly pursued by a pro-Hamas organization which calls itself City Action for Palestine. It has subjected him to several forms of persecution, including social media agitprop, spontaneous, unlawful assembly at his place of work, and even a petition of their own.

In 2023, just months before Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel, the National Union of Students (NUS), a body representing thousands of university students in the UK, apologized for discriminating against Jewish students.

In November 2022, NUS removed president Shaima Dallali after finding her guilty of antisemitism and other misconduct. Dallali’s tenure at NUS brimmed with controversies, including the discovery of tweets in which she called Hamas critics “Dirty Zionists” and quoted the battle cry, “Khaybar, Khaybar o Jews, the army of Muhammad will return,” a reference to the Battle of Khaybar in 628 that resulted in a massacre of Jews.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.