UK Jewish Academic Network
We are a group of Jewish academics, educators, and intellectuals in the United Kingdom. We are concerned about antisemitism and its weaponisation in service of attacks on free speech, academic freedom, and student safety.
About Us
We are a group of Jewish academics, educators, and intellectuals in the United Kingdom. We formed this network out of a deep concern at the failure of our communal institutions to represent the breadth and diversity of opinion within the UK Jewish community, particularly around the ongoing situation in Israel-Palestine, and at the increasing dangerous and misleading tendency of public figures and university administrators to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. We oppose both antisemitism and its weaponisation to attack free speech and political protest, a tactic that ultimately endangers both us and other minoritised groups across the UK.
Press Releases
Statements
2024-05-09
Not in our name: UK Jewish Academic Network forms to counter misuses of antisemitism
Formed in response to increasing threats against student pro-Palestine protests, the UK Jewish Academic Network aims to warn of the dangers of weaponising antisemitism, Jewish safety, and the memory of the Holocaust.
The UK Jewish Academic Network (UKJAN) unites intellectual and cultural workers from institutions across the country. They are alarmed by the weaponisation of antisemitism in ways that obscure genuine threats to Jewish people in the UK. Members refute the government’s demonisation of student encampments established in response to what the ICJ has called a ‘plausible genocide’ in Gaza, echoing the warning raised by over 800 scholars of international law and genocide as early as October 2023. They argue that the conflation of such protest with antisemitism does not protect Jewish students or staff. Indeed, it makes them less, not more, safe.As Sunak himself has argued, “university should be an environment where debate is supported, not stifled.” UKJAN is motivated by concern for the future of free speech and freedom of conscience in the universities and institutions where we work. In the words of one UKJAN member, “we as Jewish academics reject any attempt to use our experiences of antisemitism to delegitimise student free speech.” Universities cannot function with this kind of interference in freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. The weaponisation of antisemitism is further allowing the UK, the US, and the State of Israel to shut down speech that could expose their own crimes, violence that has little to nothing to do with the protection of Jews but instead serves long-standing western political and economic interests in the Middle East.The weaponisation of antisemitism paints a false picture of a Jewish community with a narrow set of opinions and beliefs about the violence in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The demand that all Jews should think the same way, which creates judgements about who is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ Jew, represents a repugnant form of antisemitic thinking that distracts from the critical and urgent situation in Gaza.UKJAN are particularly concerned by the pressure placed on universities by the British government and subsequent widespread adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. This definition conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and de-emphasises the continuing threat of antisemitic ideology, rhetoric and violence from other quarters, including the far right. Jewish history shows the far right is never an ally to Jews. Worldwide, far right forces at local and national levels remain the principal threat to Jewish safety today.Of particular concern to UKJAN is that the misuse of antisemitism and the memory of the Holocaust risks adding fuel to conspiratorial views of Jews. Using the spectre of antisemitic violence to shut down legitimate political discussion and protest while anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and violence go unchallenged makes it difficult to take legitimate threats to Jewish safety seriously. Indeed, it may lend power to conspiracy theories about disproportionate Jewish political power that have historically proved deadly for Jews.
To conclude, UKJAN makes the following demands:1. That our universities should listen to students and engage proactively with their demands;
2. That the government and media should acknowledge the breadth of thinking in Jewish communities, including significant pro-Palestinian as well as anti-Zionist sentiment; and
3. That the government and media should treat anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia with the same seriousness with which they claim to treat antisemitism.
2024-05-09
Not in our name:
Weaponising antisemitism hurts us all
The UK Jewish Academic Network launched in May 2024 to warn of the dangers of weaponising antisemitism, Jewish safety, and the memory of the Holocaust. UKJAN comprises intellectual and cultural workers from across the UK who are increasingly alarmed by the reckless misuse of these terms in ways that obscure the genuine threat of antisemitic violence. In particular, we are deeply concerned by the bellicose language with which the government is referring to student encampments recently established in response to what the ICJ has called a plausible genocide in Gaza, echoing the warning raised by over 800 scholars of international law and genocide as early as October 2023. We argue that the conflation of such protest with antisemitism does not protect Jewish students or staff. Indeed, conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and the discomfort such criticism undeniably causes some students, only makes it harder to address antisemitism when it occurs. And it ultimately risks seeding resentment against the Jewish community, making us less, not more, safe.As the UKJAN, we are concerned for the future of free speech in the universities and institutions where we work. Despite its own alleged concerns about free speech, resulting in the appointment of a ‘free speech champion’ to counter apparent “urgent threats to free speech and academic freedom”, the government has taken an aggressive stance towards pro-Palestinian speech, with Rishi Sunak threatening a police crackdown on Gaza solidarity encampments at universities due to the ‘toxic and hostile’ atmosphere they allegedly create for Jewish students. By describing pro-Palestinian speech in such a way and threatening violence against pro-Palestinian student activists, the government is attempting to intimidate political opponents into silence. However, as Sunak himself has argued, “university should be an environment where debate is supported, not stifled.” Universities cannot function with this kind of interference in freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. The weaponisation of antisemitism is further allowing the UK, the US, and the State of Israel to shut down speech that could expose their own atrocities, violence that has little or nothing to do with the protection of Jews but instead serves long-standing western political and economic interests in the Middle East.This is why we believe that we need to distinguish carefully between actual threats to Jewish safety and the discomfort that some Jewish members of our communities feel when faced with anti-Zionist rhetoric (Butler, 2024). Indeed, as Bernie Steinberg, a former executive director of Harvard University Hillel, argues, “one can disagree with any part of what these activists say, but they must be allowed to speak safely and afforded the respect their morally serious position deserves” (Steinberg 2024).The current weaponisation of antisemitism paints a false picture of a Jewish community united in its position about the violence in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In contrast to the logic of how the term “antisemitism” is currently being brandished, we know that Jewish opinion is not singular and that there is a great deal of dissent within Jewish communities, even as Sunak and his government aim to silence such voices. For instance, there is a long history of Jewish opposition to Zionism which refuses notions that the safety of Jewish people rests upon the oppression of the Palestinian people and the theft of their land.This homogenisation of Jewish opinion represents another significant threat to free speech. The expectation that all Jews should subscribe to one ideological position essentialises us. The incipient moral panic about Palestinian solidarity movements has grown so loud and frantic that we expect to be labelled “self-hating” or “fake” Jews for taking this position. We feel that we have no choice but to intervene in this extremely tense political situation because it directly threatens our wellbeing and the wellbeing of our students and our universities. The demand that all Jews should think the same way, which separates us into “good” and “bad” Jews, represents a repugnant form of antisemitic thinking. And, of course, this rhetoric serves to distract from the critical and urgent situation in Gaza.We are particularly concerned by the pressure placed on universities by the British government and subsequent widespread adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and de-emphasises the continuing threat of antisemitic ideology, rhetoric and violence from other quarters. We have seen how the broad equation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism has given space to the far right, most recently in the violent attacks on the Gaza solidarity encampment at UCLA in California. Our history shows that the far right is not an ally to Jews and we reject any definition of antisemitism that masks the principal threat to our safety.Finally, we are worried that this misuse of antisemitism and the memory of the Holocaust risks adding fuel to conspiratorial views of Jews as demanding special treatment by “crying wolf” about our history and contemporary threats against us. Instrumentalising the spectre of antisemitic violence to shut down legitimate political discussion and protest while anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim prejudice and violence go unchallenged makes it difficult to take legitimate threats to Jewish safety seriously. Indeed, it may lend power to conspiracy theories about disproportionate Jewish political power that have proved deadly for us historically. Put simply, we are alarmed to think that the current political discourse and the use of antisemitism as a political tool for a wide range of ends may create conditions that could result in Jews being targeted for future violence.
To conclude, UKJAN makes the following demands:1. That our universities should listen to students and engage proactively with their demands;
2. That the government and media should acknowledge the breadth of thinking in Jewish communities, including significant pro-Palestinian as well as anti-Zionist sentiment; and
3. That the government and media should treat anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia with the same seriousness with which they claim to treat antisemitism.
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