Welby: Carrot and stick approach the best way to encourage universities to tackle antisemitism

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has told a packed Jewish audience that a “carrot and stick” approach needed to be applied to universities to encourage them to deal forcefully with instances of antisemitism or anti-Zionism on campus.

In a wide ranging conversation with the historian and novelist Simon Sebag Montefiore at Bevis Marks Synagogue, the archbishop spoke emotionally of the need to “reward” vice-chancellors for taking action which he understood “takes courage”. Better funding, he suggested, might serve as the “carrot” – though he was utterly committed to freedom of speech at universities. But he added: “no one is entitled not to be offended – but everyone has the right not to be abused`”.

The unique event was held under the auspices of the Board of Deputies, founded at Bevis Marks, Britain’s oldest synagogue, in 1760. Guests were greeted by the Board’s chief executive, Michael Wegier, its president, Marie van der Zyl, and the Bevis Marks rabbi, Shalom Morris.

Archbishop Welby spoke about his personal, fierce commitment to stamping out antisemitism, which he ascribed to two family issues.

One, he said, derived from what he had been taught by his mother and grandmother, neither of whom “had any truck with racism of any kind”. His mother had worked as a secretary to the Jewish scientist Sir Ernst Chain, who had treated her with great generosity; she is 93 and “in the last weeks of her life”.

Sitting with her in the early hours of Wednesday morning, he thanked her for the lesson she had taught him.

Less happy was a memory from boarding school, when aged nine he had struck up a friendship with a boy named Myers. His father told him not to play with this boy because he was Jewish – an instruction the young Welby determined to ignore.

Later in conversation the archbishop spoke passionately about refugees. “They are not refugees, they are people”, he declared. “They are not just a category”.

Simon Sebag Montefiore opened the discussion by asking when the English might be “nice” to the Jews. That day would come, growled the archbishop, “when you no longer require security”.