As university students around the world start a new academic year, antisemitism helplines have been launched in the UK and the Netherlands.
Community Security Trust (CST) in the UK has launched a 24/7 helpline to support victims of antisemitism on UK campuses. The helpline is intended to provide every student with access to immediate support, day or night.
It features a continuous support line staffed by trained professionals, a better reporting method, and a collaborative care network, in which CST will “work closely with partner organizations to triage cases and connect victims with specialist support services, including mental-health care, campus advocacy, and assistance with reporting complaints to authorities,” CST said.
“No student should be facing antisemitism alone,” it said. “This initiative aims to empower students to speak out, seek help, and feel safe in their academic environments. CST’s priority is to ensure that Jewish students can go about their day-to-day lives, free from harassment and anti-Jewish hatred.”
Many Jewish students feel unsafe, isolated, and excluded at the university, especially since the October 7 massacre, despite existing measures put in place by the university, according to L’chaim co-founder Avigail Asuss.
“A sociology student was told her paper on antisemitism wouldn’t be graded, because her lecturer didn’t consider antisemitism racism,” she told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.
Asuss said she has experienced death threats, including an incident in which she was recognized as being Jewish-Israeli while walking past a demonstration and was told, “We’re going to stab you.”
Asuss said a close friend of hers had lasted one day at the university before deciding to transfer to Reichman University in Israel because he did not feel safe.
“I don’t want to give up on the Netherlands,” she said. “I am Jewish-Israeli, but also and first and foremost Dutch. Born and raised here. The orange flows through my veins.
“I belong here. In my neighborhood in Amsterdam, where I grew up, you sometimes got a Hitler salute, but that was part of it. What my friends and I are going through now – it has never been this bad,” Asuss said.