Jewish students viewed as ‘agents of a government many of them have no connection to’
Union of Jewish Students president Joel Rosen speaks of 'subtle, more insidious cases of political antisemitism' relating to the Israel/Palestine issue across UK campuses
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
Jewish students are being viewed as “agents of a government many of them have no connection to” a communal leader has warned.
Joel Rosen, president of the Union of Jewish students, spoke out on what he said was”more subtle, more insidious cases of political antisemitism” relating to the Israel/Palestine issue that had been found within the NUS in recent years.
“It’s an antisemitism that sees all Jewish students as being agents of a government many of them have no connection to, and many certainly don’t support,” he said.
“There is an exclusionary political culture within NUS where Jews are marginalised within student discourse.
“The prejudice they face is denied. They feel ostracised.”
Rosen spoke to the BBC ahead of the forthcoming report into antisemitism in the National Union of Students, which had been conducted by the KC Rebecca Tuck.
The BBC report told how Amy Cregor, a drama student at the University of Leeds, suffered an antisemitic incident.
Her hair and clothes were covered with barbecue sauce, and she was taunted, before a group of attackers drove away.
“I was a bit in shock,” she said. “I had a bit of a cry to myself, but I was just like, ‘Pull yourself together’.”
Amy had been wearing a Star of David necklace which all four of her grandparents had clubbed together to buy her when she was a baby.
She said doesn’t wear it around her university city any more.
“For every traumatic incident that gets reported, there are many that go unreported,” added Rosen.
Last month, in the first of two inquiries, the former NUS president t Shaima Dallali was dismissed from her role following Tuck’s investigation into claims of anti-Jewish racism.
Amongst the evidence against Dallali was a tweet she posted in 2012, which referenced what has been described as a massacre of Jews in the 7th Century. Since has apologised for it, but faced further allegations of more recent conduct breaches.
Dallali has said she is appealing against her dismissal.
One element of Tuck’s wider report will look at how the NUS handled complaints about its invitation of the rapper, Lowkey, aka Kareem Dennis, to its conference in March.
In one episode of Lowkey’s podcast, which aired shortly before the NUS conference, he said the media had “weaponised the Jewish heritage” of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Following anger from Jewish students, Lowkey’s performance, at the NUS’s planned centenary event, was cancelled.
A spokeswoman for the NUS said the organisation knew that antisemitism was “real within society, and within education and the student movement”, and was “deeply concerned about the hurt and pain being expressed”.
“We are prepared to be accountable, to listen, and to take action,” she said – including through complaints processes, education, and culture change.
“This is not Jewish students’ fight to take on alone, and we want to play our part. There is no place for antisemitism within NUS because Jewish students have the right to feel safe and welcome in every corner of our movement – and our society.”
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