Jewish students hiding faith at Sydney University since October 7

A Jewish student at the University of Sydney campus, one of many who spoke to The Australian. Picture: John Feder

• Exclusive

  By Alexi Demetriadi

• 11:16 PM March 15, 2024

Jewish students at the nation’s oldest and richest university are faced with a terrible choice – hide their faith or “watch their back”.

Anyone roaming through the sandstone passageways and halls of the University of Sydney can be in no doubt that the overwhelming feeling on campus is anti-Israel.

There are posters everywhere accusing Israelis of being “colonial settlers” and asking “who are Hamas” – a listed terror group. There are articles in the student newspaper accusing a Jewish students’ group of harbouring “Zionists” who exert control over academics, and the student council is running an “Israeli Apartheid Week.”

A broad section of students and staff at the University of Sydney – many of whom wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution – say they are hiding their faith as the anti-Israel climate gets hotter.

“I’m still making sure I’m a functioning part of university ­society, but I hide that side ­(religion) away now,” one Jewish university student told The Weekend Australian. “I’ve never felt this vulnerable. I wouldn’t wear my kippah now (on campus).

“My brother wears his. I’ve told him to watch his back.”

Others also spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying “inescapable anti-Zionism” had engulfed campus and concerned staff had raised their fears with the university's executive team.

One student who spoke to The Weekend Australian had worn his kippah on campus prior to the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, and a necklace of the Star of David. Since, however, he’s felt forced to “hide that away”.

“The system isn’t protecting us as it should be,” he said.

The student now wears a more discreet necklace with the Hebrew words for “bring them home”. A friend of the student, who is a ­descendant of Holocaust survivors, is being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

The University of Sydney is a microcosm of Australian society’s division and fracturing since Hamas’ attacks.

The University of Sydney is the city’s largest and oldest. Picture: Damian Shaw

This week, the university student paper, Honi Soit, ran a multiple-page story penned by an anonymous author alleging the Australian Union for Jewish Students “lobbied for Zionism”. It was based on decade-old leaked documents. It also drew on anti-Semitic tropes by alleging the 75-year-old union “exerted significant influence in academic spaces” through political networking.

A campus source said – like many universities – almost 85 per cent of the student body was non-political. But there is a loud left, of about 10 per cent of the University of Sydney campus, that is firmly anti-Israel, illustrated by posters advertising protests or seminars on Palestinian liberation, that the Jewish homeland was created by the “colonist West” and asking “what is Hamas”.

It’s here where the small but tight-knit Jewish student cohort is met with a barrage of pro-Palestine and anti-Israel sentiment – sometimes blurring the border into anti-Semitism – to the extent many have felt forced to hide their faith and isolate themselves.

“I don’t feel like they (the university) are doing enough,” one Jewish student said. “Because they aren’t.”

The university in October ­issued a statement saying that while it “strongly supports free speech” it would not tolerate hate speech, threats, bullying, or anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, or “pro-terrorist statements or commentary”.

The university’s student representative council is running an “Israeli Apartheid Week” throughout March, which includes seminars with Greens MPs on Australia’s ties to Israel, a protest outside NSW Labor’s CBD headquarters, and virtual tours of Jerusalem.

Students said of the “polarising” council that it did not represent the Jewish student body.

“But we have to pay money to help fund it,” they said.

The student now wears a “bring them home” necklace, commonly worn across the Jewish community.

“Posters, rallies, signs – you name it,” the fourth-year student said, calling it “indiscriminate” and “unbalanced”.

The student said, however, most would be categorised as “politically motivated” as opposed to “prejudiced”.

A story, however, that ran this week in Honi Soit he said “crossed the line from politics to prejudice”.

The story, with an “anonymous reporter” byline, takes aim at the Australian Union of Jewish Students, saying that the organisation is “lobbying for Zionism … on ­behalf of the Israeli government”.

The story also criticised the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism – saying it “silenced Palestinian advocacy” – and that the union’s “claim” to be a representative body for Jewish students was “dubious”, citing documents from almost a decade ago that alleged the organisation was “politically networking”.

“The leaked minutes disclose plans for networking ‘cocktail/panel/mingling’ events with the Young Liberals, Labor and Greens, as well as the long-term goal of having ‘at least one AUJS related/trained person on student representative bodies’,” the article alleged.

“This folder of leaked documents also reveals that AUJS’ ­explicit ties to political parties on and off campus, its strong anti-BDS position and explicitly Zionist affiliations, exert significant influence in academic spaces.”

The student said it could incite against the university’s Jewish student body.

“I’m much more readily inclined to say it (the story) is anti-Semitic rather than just a political stance,” he said, adding that the sentiment was not a “nuanced political argument” but instead one of “oh, it’s the Jews” and the AUJS.

“By extension it doesn’t take a leap for people to (project) that negative sentiment onto Jewish students themselves.”

The university is trying to safeguard free speech but clamp down on hate speech. Picture: Damian Shaw

Another student, Beau Glass, told The Weekend Australian that “Jewish students were arriving on campus feeling isolated and afraid to express their Jewish identity”, also saying he was concerned with the newspaper’s article.

“The student publication’s recent vilification of AUJS as the principal representative body of Jewish students only augments these fears,” he said.

“Reading the article made me feel personally threatened and unsafe on campus.”

Another Jewish student described the University of Sydney as a “problem child” among the state’s universities for anti-Israel activity and alleged anti-Semitism, saying a “profound sense of alienation” and “isolation” had fallen upon the Jewish student body.

One complaint, officially filed to the university in December by a former Jewish student who would wear his kippah on campus, ­alleged fruit had been thrown at him after the October 7 attacks.

Student Michael Grenier, who has deferred his studies this academic year, said there was “no ­escape” for Jewish students.

“When you go to campus and there’s posters calling your family and friends settlers and colonisers, repeating calls for a global intifada, there’s no way to escape it,” he said. “Their argument is that they say they don’t hate Jews, they hate Zionists.”

In response to growing anti-Semitism across Australian campuses, the Australian Academic Alliance Against Anti-Semitism was established by Jewish academics – although not exclusively made up of them – to create dialogue channels among peers and institutions. A University of Sydney academic said a number of staff at the university had become “very concerned” with what they had seen.

“Management are nice, concerned and spend time (engaging with Jewish students and staff), but there’s no action,” the academic said, fearing management was “intimidated” by the “extreme left”.

“It (pro-Palestine activism) is all so destructive, fosters anti-Semitism – but does nothing to help the conflict.”

A senior university source said management had a “tough line to walk”, and commended the university’s approach that allowed free speech but vowed “consequences” for public support of terrorist groups or anti-Semitism.

“They’ve got a tightrope to walk,” he said.

“It’s a university, it’s an exchange of ideas, students are entitled to think what they like, but there is a boundary (supporting terrorism) – that’s where the university draws one red line.

“If you’re a Jewish student, posters with ‘globalise the intifada’ is something that would make them feel uncomfortable.

“But how do you implement (stopping) that? You can’t have staff non-stop pulling down posters (that will just get put back up).”

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip said academic freedom was “not a one-way street”. “University administrators cannot allow a situation where radicals are permitted to run riot on campus while Jewish students are unable to engage in the university’s academic or cultural life due to persistent threats, intimidation and harassment,” he said.

However, a University of Sydney spokeswoman said it was aware that it was essential for the campus to “be welcoming and safe for our community”.

“As a university, we must also be a place where ideas can be freely discussed, including those that some may view as controversial as long as it is done safely and in ­accordance with the law,” she said.

“We have zero tolerance for any form of racism, threats to ­safety, hate speech, intimidation, threatening speech, bullying or harassment, including any form of anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim language or behaviour. If any of our community experiences or witnesses such behaviour we have a support network in place so they can alert us and we can take ­action.”

Vice-chancellor Mark Scott wrote to students and staff before this semester on expectations about respect, and while allowing posters in “designed spots” security do remove those that breach the law or the university's code of conduct.

The SRC and Honi Soit are student-led and independent to the university and its views.