Jewish UvA community feels unsafe: rector calls this “unacceptable”
On Saturday, Jewish students, lecturers and staff told het Parool that they feel unsafe at the UvA. The rector says that steps have since been taken: reports are now dealt with more swiftly, security has been deployed and students or lecturers are being confronted over unacceptable behaviour.
Jewish students and staff tell het Parool that they feel excluded, anxious, lonely, intimidated and unsafe at the UvA. Some conceal their identity and skip lectures. They describe the protests and various incidents as a particularly difficult time.
Verbeek describes the personal testimonies of Jewish students and staff in the article as “heartbreaking”. “That students should have to hide their identity, feel too unsafe to attend lectures and feel compelled to continue their studies elsewhere is unacceptable,” he says. The university has therefore introduced concrete measures: addressing students or lecturers who engage in unacceptable behaviour, escalating reports and providing support and additional security where necessary.
In May, Folia quoted a Jewish UvA student who felt unsafe after the pro-Palestine protests at the UvA in 2024. He said he no longer felt welcome. The fact that several lecturers and professors spoke out in class and took part in the protests, he added, intensified his sense of exclusion and insecurity.
As early as 2023, there were signs at the UvA that Jewish students felt unsafe, after pro-Palestinian activists occupied the university hall in the ABC building on the Roeterseiland campus. A Jewish student who requested a meeting with the university’s diversity officers in response to the occupation told Folia that she received no reply.
