Record levels of antisemitism on UK campuses, CST report reveals

University-related antisemitic incidents have increased by 117 per cent over the last two academic years, according to figures released by the Community Security Trust (CST) on Monday.

The scale of antisemitism on Britain’s university campuses has reached unprecedented levels, with a total of 325 antisemitic incidents, the highest ever recorded in relation to universities. These include 53 incidents in 2022/23 and 272 in 2023/24. The figures mark a sharp increase from the 150 incidents logged in the two previous academic years.

The surge coincided with the fallout from the October 7 terror attacks in Israel and the conflict in Gaza, which triggered a spike in anti-Jewish hatred. October 2023 alone saw 85 university-related incidents, the highest monthly total ever recorded. The incidents recorded that month outstripped the totals for the entirety of the previous academic year and were the highest monthly total ever recorded.

Among the litany of incidents were ten violent assaults, including one where eggs were hurled at a group of Jewish students in St Andrews returning from an event with the Chief Rabbi. In Cambridge, a student wearing a Jewish Society (JSoc) fleece was spat on, while in another episode, a Jewish student wearing a kippah was told to move away from a Gaza encampment because his very presence was deemed “provocative.”

Most incidents fell under the category of abusive behaviour, which includes verbal attacks, antisemitic graffiti, and online abuse. At one student union, graffiti reading “Kikes out” defaced a toilet cubicle. In another case, Hitler was glorified in a student WhatsApp group, with messages such as “I’d bring Hitler back if I could.” At the National Union of Student (NUS) conference, swastikas and “f*** Zios” were daubed onto several toilets.

The CST recorded 26 threats, including bomb hoaxes and violent messages. In one instance, a JSoc was sent an email threatening mass murder: “I placed multiple explosives inside of the Synagogues. The explosives are well hidden and they will go off in the morning. Everyone inside will die in a pool of blood”. These emails were found to be a hoax, designed to intimidate Jewish communities across the country. In another incident, a JSoc received a death threat on X that stated: “I’m going to kill you and your whole forkin team [sic]”.

The report highlighted acts of property desecration, with 21 incidents involving vandalism of Jewish sites in Nottingham, Birmingham, Kent, Norwich, London, Sussex, Oxford, Liverpool, Canterbury, Brighton, Sheffield and Leeds. The Leeds Hillel House, for example, was defaced with graffiti stating “IDF off campus” and “Free Palestine.”

One hundred and fifty-two of the 325 incidents during these two years occurred online, 138 of which were recorded in the academic year 2023/24. In one example, a JSoc WhatsApp group was infiltrated by trolls who bombarded it with antisemitic slurs, forcing the group to shut down. The unknown individuals in the group chat posted on October 12 2023 “F**** Israel” and “f***ing dirty Jewish c***s”. Following the incident, the JSoc removed the individuals, closed the group chat, and set up a new one with tighter safeguards.

Some of the perpetrators recorded by the CST were university staff and student union officers - those entrusted with creating safe environments for students. The CST reported 23 such incidents by staff in 2023/24.

During one incident, a faculty member at a university posted on X “Hebrew propaganda reveals some very devious lies. The ease with which the Jew, whether ordinary or influential, describes the mutilations of war is indicative of a placid cruelty” and “Ethnic cleansing is their proven goal. Blood is their only guide, their master is the devil”. On the same day he also posted a Martin Luther quote invoking blood libel stating: “The Jews have been the bloodthirsty sleuths and murderers of all Christendom for over fourteen hundred years”.

The report noted 21 antisemitic incidents involving students’ union officers or student societies over the two academic years: 18 incidents in 2023/24 and three during 2022/23. The CST said, “These incidents can often leave Jewish students reluctant to engage with student union officers elected to represent them or to participate in specific student societies.”

In one incident, during a bar crawl organised by the Medical Society and Law Society, students drawing on T-shirts wrote “I [heart]Hitler”, “Jew” and a caricatured Jewish face on the back of a known Jewish student’s T-shirt.

During other incidents, student unions were plastered with posters calling for “Intifada until victory”, a union officer took to social media to glorify Hamas’s October 7 attack and a student union passed a ceasefire motion which included an article calling for the union to invest educational resources into “How to spot lies, propaganda and Zionism”. Jewish students who attempted to speak against this motion were reportedly intimidated and harassed, with one student who took the stage to speak being escorted out by security for his safety according to the CST.

There were four incidents of mass-produced antisemitic literature, compared to no reports in the previous two years. During one incident, staff members at a sociology department found copies of the newspaper “The Light” - notorious for Holocaust revisionism and explicit antisemitism - in their campus building.

In response to the alarming report, CST Chief Executive Mark Gardner said: “British universities have suffered for decades with antisemitism, but these latest figures are worse than ever before. Jewish students should be able to lead a normal life and CST’s report includes several recommendations to that end to crack down on this anti-Jewish hatred and provide Jewish students with the support and protection that they need and deserve.”

Gardner called on university authorities, the government and the police to stand up to “extremists who are permitted to harass, intimidate and disrupt on campus.”

Union of Jewish Students president, Sami Berkoff, noted that “stark picture of the challenges faced by Jewish students and staff”.

“It is clear that urgent action is needed. It is essential to recognise that antisemitism does not exist in a vacuum. The legitimisation of extremist rhetoric on campuses, including support for terror groups, emboldens protestors and further alienates Jewish students. Universities must reaffirm their commitment to being inclusive spaces by taking strong and unequivocal stances against all forms of hate.

“No student should need to choose between their faith and their education or feel unsafe expressing their identity. If universities fail to protect Jewish students, they fail in their broader mission to foster safe and inclusive communities for all,” Berkoff said.