Dear Students,

I don’t know if this letter will reach you. Maybe your parents or grandparents will send it on to you, or someone will post it on social media. You might glance at it briefly and see that it is expressly addressed to you, wherever you happen to be. A letter long overdue, but necessary at a time of unprecedented and painful polarisation and turbulence on campus at universities and colleges.

I have spoken to some of you face to face or on Zoom over the past few months since October 7. I know that this is a desperately harrowing and bewildering time and many of you are searching for companionship and someone to talk to, not only about what is happening in this war between Israel and Hamas, but what is happening here in the UK – this terrific spike in thoughtless, ignorant and hurtful anti-Jewish incidents and words.

I don’t know how affected you are by the reverberations of the conflict in the Middle East. Your focus may be on your studies, on the daily assignments that have to be in by certain deadlines. You may have your own personal preoccupations with family or relationships, with other worldly concerns such as what we are doing to the environment, or the growing gap between rich and poor.

But I am deeply struck by the reports I have heard and read about concerning what is happening at universities – in the lecture theatre, on campus and on social media, in particular.

What does it feel like for someone Jewish to walk past a group of demonstrators holding banners with the words ‘Zionists off our campus’ or ’Stop the Genocide against Palestine’? How do you react when you hear the words of protesters shouting, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’? How does it feel when close friends suddenly start to question your loyalties and to blame you for the war in Gaza? How do you respond to the accusation that the bombing of Gaza is the expression of Western imperialism by Jews?

Perhaps you are keeping a low profile, tucking your Magen David underneath your clothes, refusing to share with fellow students or friends your Jewish identity. You may be nervous about ‘coming out’ as Jewish with the huge increase of anti-Jewish incidents on campus and on the streets. And this is understandable – it may be too scary to confront the slogans carried and proclaimed by protesters week after week through city centres.

I wonder if you are someone who wants to – or needs to – speak to friends and fellow students about family or friends in Israel and the terrible trauma of October 7? And why shouldn’t you? A first-year student at UCL, a member of a Liberal synagogue, said that she was labelled a ‘brainwashed Zionist’ by fellow classmates after she had spoken about friends who had narrowly escaped from the music festival in Israel. The language used against her on social media was so full of hatred that it drove her out of her classes.

Such conduct is unspeakable, as are the death and rape threats against the Jewish chaplain and his wife in Leeds who have been forced to go into hiding with their two very young children.

Where is civility? Where is kindness? Where is understanding and intelligent listening and conversation? Where is humility and empathy?

It is a long time since I was at university. Being Jewish wasn’t always comfortable. Students who had never encountered a Jewish person brought their curiosity, but also their prejudices about Judaism, about Jewish history and identity. Few people spoke about the Shoah thirty years after the liberation of Auschwitz. Few books had been published, compared with the plethora on the subject today. There were none of the scores of films and documentaries that emerged in the late nineties and in the years that followed. History stopped with the Russian Revolution.

We have learnt so much more and know so much more. So why are we still so ignorant about each other? Why can’t we learn from history?

My heart goes out to each one of you. If you have read this far and if you would like to find a gentle forum online where members of our congregation on campus can speak to each other, please get in touch with the Rabbi of your home synagogue or a Rabbi near where you are studying. You are welcome to reach out. We would love to hear from you.

We don’t have the answers to the intractable conflict in the Middle East. But we do know that the only way forward is for Israelis and Palestinians to be helped towards a peaceful solution – through political and not military means. We can model that conversation with those out in the streets or on campus by helping them learn something about what it means to be Jewish in today’s world.

I wish you success in your studies and strength as we navigate this difficult time together.

Shabbat Shalom,

Alexandra Wright

• Rabbi Alexandra Wright is Senior Rabbi of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue and President of Liberal Judaism