UK: Student union pays £1,000 and offers public apology to Jewish graduate who suffered anti-semitism

The Daily Mail reports: 

A student union will become the first in the country to make a public apology and pay compensation to a Jewish graduate who suffered anti-semitism.

Zachary Confino, 21, experienced stress and narrowly missed out on a first-class law degree after two years battling with anti-Israeli students at York University. He will this week accept a written apology – set to be published online – and £1,000 from York’s student union over his treatment.

Universities minister Jo Johnson is understood to have helped broker the agreement.

Mr Confino was abused on social media app Yik Yak, where one anonymous user claimed ‘Hitler was on to something’. He was called an ‘Israeli t***’ and a ‘Jewish p****’.

After opposing a union motion to boycott Israeli goods, he was told it was his own fault he was getting anti-semitic abuse. 

Mr Confino also leafleted against a staging of the play Seven Jewish Children – written in response to strikes on Gaza – at the university by the Palestinian Solidarity Society.

He claimed he was confronted by three society members including Tom Corbyn, son of the Labour leader. Engineering student Mr Corbyn has not commented. Mr Confino, from Lewisham, south-east London, told the Sunday Times: ‘The number of anti-semitic incidents I was subject to went from zero in my first year to about 20 in my second and third years. The university did not do much.

‘The far-Left say racism is a black/white issue. They seem to think Jews are fair game.’

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis warned earlier this year that British universities were ‘turning a blind eye to Jew hatred’. He said he hoped the apology by York’s union would send a message to other institutions, including Oxbridge, where Jewish students have allegedly been made to feel uncomfortable.

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