325 antisemitic incidents in UK universities across last two years, CST reports

In the last two academic years, there have been 325 academic incidents in British universities, according to the new Community Security Trust report on campus Jew-hatred, released on Monday.

This equates to 53 incidents in the 2022/3 academic year, and 272 in 2023/4. The latter total is the highest recorded by CST for a single academic year, which CST attributes to the wave of anti-Jewish hatred following the 7 October Hamas terror attack.

CST classified an antisemitic incident as “any criminal offense which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person’s religion or perceived religion.” A university antisemitic incident is considered as such if it relates to a student, staff or academic at a UK university, both on-campus incidents and off-campus.

Over the last two academic years, 81% of university-related incidents were categorized as abusive behavior, totaling 264 incidents. This includes all forms of verbal and written antisemitism both online and offline. 24 of the incidents were perpetrated by staff.

There were also ten reported incidents of assault across the two years. One took place in Leeds in 2022/3, and the other nine in 2023/4 (two in Cambridge, and one each in Belfast, St Andrews, Exeter, Birmingham,Middlesex, Wandsworth and Hertfordshire.)

In St Andrews, eggs were thrown at a group of visibly Jewish students.

Threats and desecration

There were 23 incidents of threats, including death threats and bomb threats. For example, in April 2024, a university Jewish Society received a bomb threat via email, saying: “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."

There were 21 instances of damage and desecration of Jewish property, taking place in Nottingham, Birmingham, Leeds, Kent, Norwich, London, Sussex, Oxford, Liverpool, Canterbury, Brighton and Sheffield.

It is worth noting that none of the university-related incidents recorded by CST were in the category of extreme violence.

Nevertheless, students repeatedly reported concerns to CST about the extreme rhetoric on campuses, expressed by both students and staff, legitimising or glorifying terrorist violence and/or proscribed terror groups.