One in five UK university students would not be open to house sharing with a Jewish student, new national polling by the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) has revealed.
UJS’s Time for Change report reveals rampant antisemitism in British higher education. For two and a half years, UJS said that many of the UK’s 10,000 Jewish students have faced ostracization in their friendship groups, intimidation in their lecture halls, harassment in their accommodation blocks, and violent threats on their social media feeds.
The polling was carried out on students of all backgrounds and religions.
One in four of the respondents (23%) has seen behavior that targets Jewish students for their religion/ethnicity. One in four students (26%) say they know of, or have personally experienced, friendships with Jewish students becoming more distanced or strained. The percentage rises to over a third (36%) at Russell Group universities.
In one case, an apartment of non-Jewish students shared on social media that they had “only one rule: no Zios in the flat.”
One Jewish student at Exeter University testified that, while at a party, they confronted a girl who was “telling people not to be friends with me because I’m a Zionist. She knew nothing about me but told me to ‘f*** off’ with a whole audience of students watching.
“She then became enraged, saying I support the genocide of children. I tried to explain that is wrong and not true, but by this point, she was swearing and raising her voice, and everyone was watching. I went home and cried. Somebody said they wanted to punch me in the face because I am a Zionist at a club night.”
Justification of terrorism
UJS also noted that glorification of terror is prevalent and unpunished; half of students (49%) have seen Hamas and Hezbollah glorified on campus, and 47% have seen the October 7 attacks justified. Some even saw justification for the Bondi massacre.
One in six (16%) students believe that glorifying the October 7 attacks should be protected as free speech.
An example provided of terror glorification was on October 7, 2025, when Glasgow University Justice for Palestine Society (GUJPS) advertised a protest to “honor our resistance” and “honor our martyrs,” declaring a celebration of “the glorious Al-Aqsa Flood” – Hamas’s codename for the massacre.
Protests have also been a prominent occurrence on UK campuses. A large majority (65%) of students said protests have disrupted their learning, and 40% have altered their journey on campus to avoid disruption.
Universities where protests are more frequent have seen higher levels of antisemitism, and four in 10 students (39%) who witness regular Israel-Palestine protests have seen Jewish students harassed often.
Nearly 70% of students disapprove of protests blocking access to learning, and 82% deem calls to ‘globalize the intifada’ to be antisemitic.
The rise in campus antisemitism mirrors the wider rise in Jew hatred across the country as a whole. The Community Security Trust (CST) recorded 308 antisemitic incidents per month on average in 2025, exactly double the monthly average of 154 incidents in the year preceding the October 7 massacre.
UJS recommended the following six steps: new enforceable standards for how universities investigate and punish hate crime, with mandatory reporting to the Office for Students and sanctions for non-compliance; stronger regulation of students’ unions, requiring universities and the Charity Commission to enforce proper conduct and combat extremism; delivery of a national counter-extremism strategy with a dedicated focus on campus radicalization, coordinated across government; clear public order guidance for universities and police, strengthening enforcement of new and existing powers; stepping up police, university, and government coordination, with formalized task forces to tackle criminality and extremist activity on campus; and university adoption of sector-wide best practice on Jewish inclusion, including antisemitism awareness training and initiatives to celebrate Jewish life.
Louis Danker, president of the Union of Jewish Students, said, “This report demonstrates that antisemitism on campus is not isolated but normalized. No Jewish student should have to face social ostracization, abusive language, or physical violence – there is a right to protest, but not to harass.”
On March 6, the UK government launched an independent review into how schools and colleges in England identify, respond to, and prevent antisemitism; recommendations are due in Autumn 2026.
This is in addition to £7 million already invested across all education settings, such as schools, colleges, and universities.
Of that total, £2.3 m. has been allocated to Palace Yard and the UJS to deliver resources and training for education professionals alongside a £1 m. innovation fund aimed at developing practical solutions to tackle antisemitism.
