Tsar to tackle anti-semitism on campus after death threats
A UNIVERSITY anti-semitism tsar is set to be appointed after Jewish students faced death threats on campus.
The Government now plans a crackdown on universities which “appease” anti-semitism, after a string of incidents across the UK which left Jewish students and chaplains fearing for their safety.
Robert Halfon, the higher education minister, said: “I am worried t some universities are not safe for Jewish students,” adding that the Government will create a post of Expert Adviser on Antisemitism in Higher Education because vice-chancellors are failing to be “pro-active” in tackling hatred on campus.
He made the comments after universi t i es have f aced accusations of anti-semitism in a string of recent incidents including that of a Jewish chaplain at Leeds University being forced into hiding last week after he was targeted with death threats and anti-semitic protests.
The incident prompted an open letter from 500 former students calling for action from the vice-chancellor. Furthermore, a week earlier, students at the University of Birmingham chanted “death to Zionists” during a rally, prompting Jewish student groups to later issue a statement saying that safety on campus had been “broken”.
The new announcement also comes after the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity which monitors anti-semitic incidents in the UK, published its annual report earlier this week and concluded that there had been a “hate explosion” since the Hamas terror attack in Israel on October 7.
According to the latest figures from the CST, there has been a 589 per cent increase in the number of incidents compared with the same period in 2022. The charity described the unprecedented rise as a “watershed moment for antisemitism in the UK”.
Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle, Mr Halfon said that he had listened to recordings of the threats faced by the Leeds rabbi that made him “weep” as he criticised universities for “at best the turning of a blind eye to anti-semitism, and at worst, appeasing it ”, adding: “That’s not acceptable.”