The student union at University of York in the United Kingdom will pay £1,000 ($1,370) in compensation and issue a public apology to a York law student who experienced anti-Semitic abuse.
Zachary Confino accused the university of failing to deal with two years of anti-Semitic attacks, including 20 incidents in his second and third years at York. Confino said he was called a “Jewish prick” and an “Israeli twat.”
“The experience has been so depressing,” Confino told The Sunday Times. “It ruined my experience at university. I can never get that time back.”
The compensation for Confino is reportedly the first time a British university has ever made a payment of this kind. A university spokesman said the “token payment” and apology came as a result of mediation between Confino and the student union.
“The university is committed to preserving the right to freedom of expression while also combating anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and any other form of race hate. To this end, we have signed joint statements with both the Jewish Society and the Islamic Society on campus. We welcome students from all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities in our diverse community,” the spokesman said.
Former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams intervened in the Confino matter by writing to U.K. Minister of State for Universities and Science Jo Johnson about his concerns over the British government’s “muted” response to complaints of rising anti-Semitism at British universities. Williams also wrote to Confino, calling anti-Semitism “one of the most ancient and poisonous” forms of hate speech.
“It (anti-Semitism) is truly appalling stuff, but sadly seems not to be that unusual at the moment,” Williams wrote.
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{Matzav.com}
Universities are among the worst of all places for blatent antisemitism in our nation and seemingly here abroad.
The worst of the wicked want their easy chance to beat the jew away in college and make him face all of their hate ideas against the reason of human reaction.
I was in college over 20 years ago. I was called a Jew boy by my hick-town roommate. (we did manage to have a somewhat friendly relationship as I was likely first jew met ever by the hick). I was told by the same guy (friendly perhaps) that another son of a preacher was rumored to have mentioned that I was going to —- because I was a Jew. The muslim in my program sat down with me for a meal and explained explicitly how horrible that the jews in Israel are to the great men called palestinians who are just trying to educate their children in a land where there is just too much Israeli interference in even the safety and right of the palestinian to have hate for the world he is trying to corrupt.
I guess with only 3 big noted incidents I got lucky. The BDS movement today is every sacrificed mention for itself.
True this is ignorant. There were others who made me feel very unlikely to make friends as a jew and others who were just not friendly.
Still, I got my education and continue my progress in liberty and free speech. It was not the expectation after 4 years of public education and more in grade school to enter an environment where hate of my own family and feelings was so prevalent.
But the sad thing is that I rarely noticed I was the “pariah” of the day since I think Hashem kept my education sacred.
Trust in G-d. We must go to college and we must prepare our minds for the future. If the hate debate starts in College, we will realize we must Defend Torah and defend our rights to live in Israel and America and else as we continue in the hate years we will likely see.
An Israelite is the most popular man on campus. The enemy knows his education which is sacred is more scary to the enemy than anything else that the jew will put in his mood.
The world continues. BDS is the trash pit of the day. And we will have a right as Jews to live because Humanity must have good faith in G-d.
So it goes.
Do we get up? Yes we do.