According to a report in The Telegraph News, three Jewish students at Christ’s College in Cambridge, Britain were subjected to vile anti-Semitic abuse and physically attacked by members of the Cambridge University drinking society.
One of the victims has accused the university authorities of failing to investigate the incident properly and punish the perpetrators. Two members of Christ’s College were disciplined for their role in the attack but were cleared of charges of anti-Semitism.
According to the report, the students were attacked by a mob after they entered the graduate union building at the end of last month. The bar area had been rented for a party by the sporting societies of Christ’s College.
One of the victims, Shlomo Roiter-Jesner, 25, told The Telegraph: “It was a closed party so we walked out but as we did so these individuals started getting more physical and more vocal and they noticed our kippot. All of a sudden they were shouting: ‘Jew, get ——- out of here’. We tried to leave but they were yelling at us.”
Another of the victims wrote an email to the head of Christ’s College, Professor Jane Stapleton, stating “We, and other bystanders, heard a number of vicious anti-Semitic slurs including ‘——- Jew, you don’t belong here’, ‘dirty Jew’ and to myself, ‘—- off, darkie’.
“They then proceeded to try and choke my friend with his scarf, leaving him gasping for oxygen, and to push me and the third friend around, despite our attempts to de-escalate the situation. They eventually went back in after threatening to ‘smash our faces in’.”
There were witnesses to the incident, and a closed circuit security video of the incident, which did not include a sound recording, according to the Telegraph.
Following a university inquiry, Roiter-Jesner last week received a response from Professor Jane Stapleton, master of Christ’s College at Cambridge: “The internal disciplinary process of the tutors is now concluded and two students have been disciplined. Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention,” she wrote.
The students were not found to have acted out of anti-Semitism.
Stapleton said in a statement to the Telegraph: “The internal investigation did succeed in identifying two Christ’s students who admitted using foul language and participating in a scuffle but they denied initiating the physical hostility and denied using any anti-Semitic or racist language. In relation to the former they were disciplined.”
She added: “I reject categorically that Christ’s has engaged in a cover-up on this matter.”
The Union of Jewish Students responded by saying that “No Jewish student should have to experience what these students have described, and the fact that this disgraceful incident happened at the University of Cambridge only proves that anti-Semitism can rear its ugly head on any campus.”
Calling for “zero tolerance” on abuse, they said the incident was “another example of anti-Semitism not being taken as seriously as it should be taken.”
Sources: Arutz Sheva / Jewish News