The University of Manchester's Jewish Problem

Since the horrific events of October 7th in Israel, the University of Manchester has been engulfed with antisemitism. The university’s Jewish students have lost all hope in the university as well as the Students’ Union to effectively tackle the antisemitism on campus as they have proven that they are not able to take this problem seriously. Other than generalised and ineffective statements of condemnation and shallow words of support, Manchester’s Jewish students have been left to stand alone.

Antisemitism targets Jews in many ways on campus and for those who say, mistakenly, that the Jewish community in the UK and the State of Israel are two unrelated and separate things, a recent survey shows that a “near-unanimous 97% of British Jews feel personally connected to events happening in Israel”, as well as multiple surveys demonstrating that a majority of British Jews identify as Zionist. Many people misunderstand what Zionism is and it is often used as a derogatory term against Jews. Zionism is simply ‘the movement for the self-determination and statehood of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel’. The historic rise of antisemitism in the UK since October 7th demonstrates how British Jews cannot be separated from the State of Israel, whether we like it or not.

The vast majority of Jewish students in Manchester have been affected by the antisemitism on campus. I have spoken at length with many Jewish students over the past 8 months, it is hard to find a Jewish student who has not been affected since October 7th, and most share the same fear of being visibly Jewish on campus or expressing their Jewish identity. Students being afraid to simply be Jewish on a university campus is unacceptable. Here, I will address some of the main issues that have occurred over the last 8 months.

Antisemitic Posters

Firstly, I will address the antisemitic posters plastered around campus on bus stops and lamp posts. On October 11th, a mere four days after the brutal slaughter of the most Jews in a single day since the holocaust, posters proclaiming ‘Victory To The Palestinians” announcing a meeting explaining “why it’s right to resist Israel” were seen plastered around campus. These posters were advertising an event hosted by Britain’s Socialist Workers Party, who merely hours after the October 7th massacre and before any Israeli military response posted an article online similarly titled “Why Palestinians are right to resist Israel” in which they fully supported the actions of Hamas. This is the type of intimidating poster that Jewish students have been forced to regularly walk past over the last eight months.

In November, I discovered posters that compared Adolf Hitler to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while equating the war in Gaza to the Holocaust. A classic example of Holocaust inversion, the worst genocide of the Jews now being used against us. These posters were titled “Stop the Palestinian Holocaust” and had a red blood-spattered design with clear pictures of Hitler and Netanyahu as well as a Swastika and Star of David. I don’t think I even have to begin to explain why this comparison is ludicrous and wildly antisemitic. The industrial-scale annihilation of an entire people, the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews, will never be comparable to Israel launching a defensive war in retaliation against an emeny hellbent on the destruction of the Jewish State. Further posters with similar designs were found on campus with the Israeli flag featuring a swastika inside the Star of David, further comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and labelling the war in Gaza as the 'Zionist Holocaust'.

Dana Abuqamar

Dana Abuqamar is a 19-year-old former law student at the University of Manchester and has a leadership role within the university’s Friends of Palestine group as well as holding the role of Media and Diversity officer for the University of Manchester Bar and Advocacy Society. That diversity, however, doesn’t seem to be extended to Jews or Israelis. Only one day after the massacre on October 7th in which 1,200 were butchered and countless others raped and kidnapped, Dana took the streets of Manchester along with hundreds of others in celebration and in an interview she states, “We are full of pride, we’re really, really full of joy at what has happened” and alluded to the events of October 7th as ‘active resistance’ and “truly a once in a lifetime experience”.  While Dana doesn’t explicitly reference a specific terror organisation, it doesn’t take a genius to understand the context in which she is speaking and as the events she was referring to were carried out by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who else would be causing her to be full of pride? Jewish students were now sharing a campus with a fellow student who had gone on record alluding that they were proud and full of joy at an event that consequently caused the massacre of the most Jews in a single day since the holocaust.

In a subsequent interview, Dana claims that “the aim of breaking through the siege was not going on and conducting any crimes”. This claim is easily disproved. Weeks after the attack, Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad stated “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its October 7 onslaught] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth”. We also know that Hamas had planned this attack years before October 7th. Polls also show that a majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza support Hamas’ decision to launch the attack on October 7th. Dana, who is not a UK citizen, had her visa revoked this month because of this interview, with the Home Office citing reasons of ‘public safety’. Quickly, Dana chose to play the victim card and claimed that her words were simply taken out of context. She says “I came here to the UK to receive an education and as a resident, I thought that I would receive equal rights here in the UK in terms of my human rights to express myself”. Dana is right, she absolutely should receive equal rights as a resident, and she does. If you take to the streets of this country, of which you are a resident, and allude to supporting a massacre carried out by a proscribed terror group then you will face the consequences of those actions. Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation and supporting a terror organisation is prohibited by law in this country. Dana continues to say, “My voice is being suppressed and I’m being censored for simply standing in solidarity with my people”. Still failing to recognise her mistake, Dana instead continues to go down the route of denial. As we have seen in the months since October, with the masses of pro-Palestinian protests that have taken to streets across the country and encampments taking over university campuses, you are free to exercise your right to protest in this country and use your right to freedom of speech, but Dana crossed a line. She has at no point apologised and instead has evaded responsibility for her words. The University claimed that they were investigating the incident, however, it seems like she went on to finish her degree without facing any consequences from the university and continues to be involved in protests on and off campus. She has 60 days to appeal the decision of the Home Office.

Students’ Union

Moving on to the worst offenders, the Students’ Union have shown that they are incapable of tackling antisemitism on campus. The first issue is antisemitic graffiti and graffiti praising proscribed terror organisations consistently present in the main toilets of the Students’ Union building. Below I will list the graffiti that I have personally seen since October 7th and have evidence of:

• VICTORY TO THE POPULAR FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE

• VICTORY 2 THE RESISTANCE

• Death 2 Zionism

• I  HATE ZIONISTS

• UP HAMAS

• KIKES OUT

• Multiple Swastikas

Nazi symbolism, multiple proscribed terror groups and derogatory words for Jewish people were all etched into to walls of the university’s Students’ Union building and have been regularly appearing for the last 8 months. It took the university 5 days to remove ‘UP HAMAS’ from one of the stalls after multiple emails and in-person complaints from me. It is unacceptable that in any situation, let alone at such a prestigious university, ‘UP HAMAS’ can be left etched into a toilet stall for 5 days. The Union Affairs Officer of the Students' Union, in an email to me confirming that graffiti in this incident had been removed, stated that I should report further incidents like this to the university’s “Report and Support” service, which I had already done. However, in a recent meeting with the Activities & Culture Officer of the Students’ Union, I was told that they were fully aware that the “Report and Support” service was ineffective and not fit for purpose. So, why is it that the Students’ Union are directing Jewish students to use this service to report antisemitism if they know that it will be of little use? I must point out as well that the Activities & Culture Officer of the Students’ Union follows the Instagram account associated with the Palestinian ‘camp of resistance’ on the university’s campus. This is the same camp where chants of ‘Globalsie the Intifada’ can be heard and the same camp involved in occupying buildings and consequently disrupting student’s exam schedules. If this is signalling their view in support of this, which is likely as they follow multiple other pro-Palestinian accounts specifically related to campus ‘resistance’, then how can Jewish students feel comfortable that this elected officer of the Students’ Union will help tackle antisemitism effectively and be able to understand them?

Towards the end of November last year, as Jewish students were facing the highest record of antisemitism seen in contemporary history, the Students’ Union released a statement. While they did condemn the actions of Hamas and antisemitism, this statement was firmly aimed at shifting the view of the Students’ Union to pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. It is worth noting that they thought it wise to condemn the actions of the IDF and spend more time criticising Israel than focusing on the problem of antisemitism on their own campus, the issue affecting them the most. Jewish students were now increasingly feeling abandoned by the University and the Students' Union. The statement announced that because of a student vote in overwhelming support, the Students’ Union sought to adopt a policy of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel. The BDS movement has been plagued with antisemitism for over a decade and on multiple occasions the co-founder of BDS, Omar Barghouti, has rejected the right of a Jewish State to exist anywhere in Israel. As well as this, studies from American campuses show that campuses with BDS groups are much more likely to have antisemitic incidents and foster an environment hostile toward Jewish students. Fortunately, as the Students’ Union is a recognised charity, they are not legally allowed to boycott or divest from companies mentioned in the BDS policy. This didn’t stop the Student’s Union team from saying that, although they cannot legally implement it, they do personally believe in BDS as an effective form of protest. There was notably very little Jewish involvement in this process or acknowledgement of how this would affect Jewish students and inflame antisemitism. It seems that at every opportunity they get, the Students’ Union will continue to make Jewish students feel cast aside and left to stand alone.

Conclusion

Antisemitism on campuses is spiralling out of control across the country, the University of Manchester is only one of many affected academic institutions. Above, I have only spoken of a small number of problems affecting Jewish students.

The Union of Jewish Students recently launched an open letter to university leaders across the country which has received over 3,000 signatures from Jewish students. The letter is titled ‘We’ve had enough’. The ending of the letter is very fitting to this article so I have chosen to conclude with it.

“After eight months of this hate, we tell you that we’ve simply had enough. We’ve had enough of being society’s punching bag, absorbing its anger and hatred. We’ve had enough of constantly feeling on edge as we walk through our campuses. And we’ve had enough of our university leaders equivocating, unable to condemn the pervasive bigotry in the institutions that they govern. 

The future of Jewish life on campus is up to you. It is imperative that you understand, you condemn, and you act against antisemitism. Now.

We, Jewish students past and present, from the left and the right, religious and secular, from all points on the religious spectrum, say with one united voice:

We’ve had enough.”