Antisemitism on Britain’s campuses: ‘I have a sickening feeling in my stomach because I never truly feel safe’

As Rishi Sunak summons British university heads to discuss the rise of antisemitism on UK campuses, Nicole Lampert talks to Jewish students about their experiences and hears how the situation has escalated since the Pro-Palestinian demonstrations and protests against the war in Gaza have spread

Pro-Palestinian and Pro-israel face off in front of the entrance of Columbia University which is occupied by Pro-Palestinian protesters in New York on April 22, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)

It was just a few days after 7 October when Romilly Blitz experienced her first antisemitic incident on campus. “Brainwashed Zionist genocide supporter,” whispered one of her classmates after a lecture. Other students giggled. Romilly, who like most British Jews has family in Israel, and had friends at the Nova Festival where hundreds of partygoers were murdered, wasn’t to know that was just the start.

In the past six months, she has had people shouting “psychopathic” and “genocidal” as she’s walked across campus. People point and tell each other, “That’s her, that’s the Zionist”. Her photo has been taken and circulated among pro-Palestine WhatsApp groups who were concerned that she would try to infiltrate them.

She’s been made not to feel welcome in certain buildings as she was told by pro-Palestinian protesters they have become “apartheid-free zones”. Once, on a bus on the way home from a nightclub, talk turned to the war and a crowd aggressively started shouting at her, “We are anti-genocidal”. She has been told that people who compared Israel’s stance on gay rights to other countries in the Middle East were guilty of Islamophobia.