‘We’re going to come for you, you dirty Zionist motherf***er’: Jewish chaplains reveal horrific abuse
Leeds University's Rabbi Zecharia and Nava Deutsch received death threats following October 7th Hamas atrocities
A university chaplain couple at Leeds University have revealed the full scale of the horrific abuse and threats they received in the aftermath of October 7th.
As reported by Jewish News, following the atrocities, Israeli citizen chaplain 34-year old Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch was called up for IDF reserve duty. On his return to campus, he, his 32 year old wife Nava and young family faced a barrage of antisemitic abuse, including more than 300 abusive and threatening phone calls, and a number of death threats. The university J-Soc building Hillel House was also- defaced with antisemitic graffiti.
In a new interview with The Times, Nava revealed that whilst on a call to a woman she assumed was a concerned Jewish mother, the caller asked: “Your husband just got back from committing genocide? How can our kids be safe on campus? How many babies did he kill?”
With their famíly home in Woodhouse targeted, they received abusive, threatening, violent and abusive phone calls, WhatsApp messages and death threats. Nava was sent rape threats.
“Tell that Jewish son of a bitch we’re coming for him,” said one male caller: “We’re coming to his house and we’re going to kill him, and you as well you f***ing racist bitch. Stupid little slag.”
Another said: “You killed innocent Muslims, and they’re going to get you. I promise you now, we’re going to get you, I’m going to get you. We’re going to follow you home from Leeds, you and your wife, and we’re going to do the f***ing same as you’ve been doing in Israel. Us Muslims are going to come for you, you dirty Zionist motherf***er.”
Faced with a deluge of horrific abuse, Zecharia and Nava called the police. Nava recalls that “One of the policewomen had tears in her eyes. She said she’d never seen such disgusting messages.”
The written messages called Nava a “dirty whore”, adding “Gonna bend y over and f*** u up ya daft immigrant bitch. 15 min away tell your husband to get ready, f***ing immigrants.” Others were so sexually graphic as to be unprintable.
Zecharia says videos he posted of himself in uniform to a small WhatsApp group of Jewish students in Leeds were leaked. One of the videos showed Zecharia on base, dancing with fellow soldiers to song ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ (The People of Israel Live).
He said: “People took that video and said, ‘Oh, you’re celebrating death’. But we were not celebrating the war, we were still mourning October 7.”
As student chaplains, the Times articles reports, Zecharia and Nava are not employees at the University of Leeds but were treated as “honorary staff members and given a university email address, as well as library, internet and printer access. When Zecharia came home, those privileges were gone.”
He says: “I lost access to my university email account. I wasn’t able to print any more. I didn’t have internet access at the university. They said the reason for this change was due to security concerns that didn’t enable them to give us what we needed..”
Nava lost her privileges too. They were never reinstated, despite repeated requests.
The couple are keen to emphasise that they returned to Israel not out of fear, but because their three-year tenure had come to a close. They have criticised the university authorities, with Nava saying: “I feel like people in authority are scared and intimidated. I would expect them to have more backbone. We are surprised that on a personal note they didn’t reach out to us. Absolutely nothing. These are people we worked with for three years. These people are leaders, but this whole time, no one took responsibility.”
The couple say West Yorkshire police, who arrested three people, later released on bail, were helpful and supportive.
A spokesman for the university said: “The University of Leeds remains deeply saddened at, and continues to condemn, the public threats that were made to the safety of Rabbi Zecharia and Nava Deutsch. We are grateful for the support they have provided to Jewish students at Leeds and universities across the Yorkshire region.
The investigation continues but no charges have yet been made.
- The full interview with Zecharia and Nava Deutsch was written by Jewish News columnist Josh Glancy and first appeared in The Times.
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