How antisemitism became normal at British universities

I arrived at King’s College London in late 2024 to read International Management at King’s Business School. I am British with South Italian heritage and a Christian–Catholic family background. I am not ethnically Jewish nor did I grow up in a Jewish household. That matters because what follows is not a special pleading on behalf of “my community”, but a description of how a campus climate can curdle in ways that should worry every student, parent and alumnus: whatever their views on the Middle East.

The day the atmosphere changed

In the run-up to 7 October 2024, the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks, posters advertising an “October 7 Walkout” appeared across campus and online. Jewish students had planned a quiet commemoration: lighting candles, saying prayers, and calling for the return of the remaining hostages, including a British citizen understood to be among them at the time.

At lunchtime that day, hundreds of masked protesters gathered. As a small group stood in silence, chants began that many of us, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, found menacing. Some Jewish and Israeli students were then subjected to harassment in person and online. The effect was immediate. Lecture halls felt edgy; corridors felt narrower. The message was clear: certain kinds of speech, memorializing murdered civilians, voicing concern for hostages, would be met not with argument but with intimidation.

Escalation and the shrinking of debate

The weeks that followed brought more of the same. Posters showing kidnapped civilians were defaced or torn down within hours of being put up. In February, a talk on Iranian–Israeli relations did not proceed after protesters disrupted the event; the speaker and moderator left under security escort. Friends distanced themselves from peers who had marked the anniversary. Reporting incidents felt like shouting into a void.

Concerns also touched the classroom. A lecturer in Middle Eastern studies, Dr Rana Baker, was criticized over social-media posts made on 7 October 2023, coverage of which appeared in several outlets. Complaints were submitted, but no public disciplinary outcome was announced. I make no allegation of unlawful conduct. My point is simpler: when boundaries blur, confidence in the institution erodes.

Why this is not just about Jewish students

It is tempting for non-Jewish students to see this as “someone else’s” issue. It is not. Britain has learned, painfully, that violent extremism does not stay within tidy lines. Once dehumanizing rhetoric is indulged, the norms that protect all of us; free inquiry, equal access to spaces, basic civility start to fray. A university that cannot shield one minority from organized intimidation will, in time, struggle to shield anyone.

Free speech is not a synonym for disorder. The right to protest is vital; so too are rules against harassment and disruption. Masked intimidation, the heckler’s veto, and the vandalism of posters depicting kidnapped civilians are not expressions of robust debate. They are tactics designed to chill it.

The personal cost

The corrosion is social as well as institutional. I was due to move in with several friends, including a fellow South Italian student. After I spoke publicly in support of Jewish classmates and criticized longstanding antisemitism in parts of southern Italy, I was told to live elsewhere. Political litmus tests migrated from the seminar room to the shared kitchen. It is a small story, but multiplied across a cohort it hollows out campus life.

What leadership and solidarity should look like

This is fixable. Universities should enforce codes of conduct consistently; guarantee that academic events proceed without capitulation to disruption; investigate complaints promptly and transparently; and provide pastoral support to any student who feels endangered, regardless of politics. That is not censorship; it is the precondition for serious argument.

Students also need practical support to navigate rules and document incidents. External organizations, most notably StandWithUs, do provide educational materials and guidance on rights and procedures, but for students the process can feel forbiddingly legalistic and labyrinthine: logging evidence, drafting statements, collating screenshots, securing witness accounts, and chasing case numbers across shifting university policies. Their help is real, yet engaging with it resembles triage on a frontline rather than pastoral care on a campus hours spent learning protocols, not learning in seminars, underscoring how contested and combative this environment has become.

October 7, 2025: Two Years On.

In the wake of the Manchester terror attack that left two Jews dead on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, the anti-Israel crowd at King’s still chose to go ahead with their hateful march on the second anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israeli civilians. Despite pleas from the government, students refused to move their protest planned for October 7th. 

For the second time, masked protesters occupied Kings’ Strand Campus, filling the air with calls for “intifada,” as Jewish students mourned the loss of those in Israel and those in Manchester. This time, such calls felt personal for many students, as the “intifada” had now reached England. As I watched the protest unfold, I couldn’t believe that so many students – many of whom were intelligent King’s students – chose to march on the anniversary of October 7th, in clear defiance of the government’s demands, following the Manchester synagogue murders. At that moment, I felt like I was in an alternate reality. I thought, is this the beginning of the end for British Jewry?

A common stake

I write this as a university student who believes that sharp, good-faith disagreements about the Middle East belong at a British university. But there is a bright line between argument and intimidation. Cross it, and the losers are not only Jewish students. They are first-years who avoid seminars because a corridor feels hostile; speakers who decline invitations; administrators who retreat into silence; and, ultimately, a public that loses faith in the university as a place of learning rather than theatre.

Intimidation is a tactic of extremism, and extremism is a threat to everyone. If King’s, and other institutions, can reassert that basic truth with clarity and fairness, we may yet recover a campus where difficult ideas are tested in the open, without fear. That is not a partisan aim. It is a civic one.