Mick Hartley

Another Jewish student at Oxford speaks out:

Growing up, I had a strong Jewish upbringing celebrating festivals such as Passover and learning about my own family’s history of persecution in Egypt, Holland and Russia. I take great pride in my heritage (Harry Hatwell, 26, studying for a masters in civil law at St John’s College, Oxford, writes).

This week at Oxford University, one of most prestigious university in the world, I felt I have had to hide who I am.

My accommodation is two streets away from the camp. If I walk to the end of my road I can see the tents, the signs, and hear chants of “from the river to the sea” and “Israel is a terror state”. Even outside the camp, it emboldened people — I watched as my friend, who wears a kippah, was told “Zionist crazies should go back to America”.

My final exams start next week and my commute to the faculty takes me past the protesters. I cross the road before I walk past them, I’ve avoided doing my normal running route. My partner is anxious about me wearing my kippah in public. We’ve been scared. It feels like a hostile environment.

However, the protesters claim that this “liberated zone” is inclusive for all. So, on Wednesday I and a group of Jewish students attended a “teach-in” at the camp on the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

I have family in Israel and believe in the right to a Jewish homeland. This makes me a Zionist. But at the talk, a protester told me the camp’s purpose was to “defeat Zionism”. For me this was antisemitic, she was denying Israel’s legitimacy as the only Jewish state, denying the Jews alone a homeland, and calling for its destruction. That isn’t a call for peace.

Given the microphone, I told the 40-strong crowd my experience of antisemitism. But after I spoke, I was shouted at and the panel said I was mistaken. They said she’d just made a political statement and denied my experience of antisemitism. I was being gaslit.

Earlier in the talk, a speaker had said that the British Jewish community had been fed a lie by “powerful forces within British Jewry” to convince them that anti-Zionism was antisemitism. It was antisemitic trope on antisemitic trope.

For these people, their personal experience of victimhood cannot be questioned and is used to show the world what antisemitism means, whereas when I stand up to give my experience, I’m made to feel it doesn’t exist. They could easily define what antisemitism wasn’t but never what it was. It was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life.

Oxford University is allowing its space to be used to teach and instruct people on how to be antisemitic through anti-Zionism on campus. Its own academics are signing letters of support — one of them is my own tutor.

The university’s idea of what the camp is there for and what it is trying to achieve — reminding us of tolerance — is pure fantasy. By allowing the camp on its property, Oxford is implicitly endorsing it.

I emailed my college on Thursday to tell them the situation is intolerable. I’m a student at this university and I’ve been made to feel there isn’t a place for me here.