Last week, The Guardian published an opinion piece written by an anonymous Jewish undergraduate student attending Oxford about his student life after Hamas's attack on southern Israel on October 7.
The student said that, since the outbreak of the war, there have been more reported antisemitic incidents on British university campuses in the first month of the war than there were in all of 2022.
"At Oxford University, where I am an undergraduate, acts of hatred, misinformation and a lack of empathy when we are vulnerable have turned student spaces into places of hostility," the student wrote.
As a result of countless incidents of pro-Palestine supporters protesting Israel's military operation in Gaza and the extreme actors spewing and propagating hatred against the Jews, the student admitted that such abuses hurled at the Jewish community took a toll on the mental health of students like him or her.
"I do not sleep well and cry often," the student admitted. "There are friends and tutors who have acknowledged my pain and their empathy has overwhelmed me."
Nonetheless, there were still those who understood what Jewish students were going through and expressed empathy and looked beyond affiliations in extending their help.
"I urge fellow students...to see us as just that - fellow citizens whose distress and pain must be taken at face value and countered with kindness, compassion and conversation in which no party experiences fear," the student concluded.
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Tour guides Devika and Oliver talk with a group of people attending an 'Uncomfortable Oxford' tour outside the College of All Souls, in Oxford, on October 20, 2023. The Guardian has published two opinion letters in response to the anonymous Jewish student at Oxford detailing student life as a Jew and his observation of the hatred the community has been receiving from pro-Palestinian supporters.
Letters to The Guardian: We Must Fight Antisemitism on British Schools
Meanwhile, two letters sent to The Guardian stressed that something must be done to combat antisemitism in British schools.
"We like to think that education inoculates us against racism, but that has never been true for anti-Jewish racism," National Holocaust Museum director of learning Mark Rusling said. "University education is not a cure for antisemitism. Might it be a cause?"
Rusling additionally deemed pro-Palestinian action against the Israeli government, such as targeting Jewish students and calling for a "global intifada," as racist slurs against British Jews.
"This is not about our views on the Middle East; this is homegrown British racism," he added. "Whatever your education, whatever your politics, racism is wrong, and we will fight it."
On the other hand, West Midlands resident Lynne Davies also observed that Jewish students were being "inexplicably punished" for the actions of the Israeli government.
"It makes no more sense than UK Muslims suffering racism because of the actions of Hamas," she added.
Davies additionally emphasized that it was perfectly possible for people to mourn for the casualties from both sides of the war, while at the same time, condemn the atrocities Hamas did.
"Surely now more than ever, we as individuals should be coming together, not spreading hate and more division," she concluded. "We cannot sadly affect the course of the conflict but we can at least try to ensure that both Jewish people and Muslims here are treated with decency and not scapegoated for things outside their control. We need to try to shed a little light on to this darkness."
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