Manchester Uni ‘censored’ Shoah survivor’s talk over Israel-Nazi comparison
Title of event with survivor Marika Sherwood changed, because it compared the Holocaust to the plight of Palestinians
A Holocaust survivor’s speech that compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to Nazis treatment of Jews was censored by Manchester university.
The university censored the title of a talk in March by Holocaust survivor Marika Sherwood, the The Guardian reported on Friday. The original talk was titled: “A Holocaust survivor’s story and the Balfour declaration: You’re doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to me.”
The talk was part of Israeli Apartheid Week, a series of events organised by the university’s student committee of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS campaign.
The subhead of the title was dropped and the university said it would record the speech after a visit to the university by Mark Regev, the Israeli ambassador, and his civil affairs attaché, Michael Freeman, the newspaper reported.
Following the February 22 visit, Freeman sent an email to Manchester University’s head of student experience, Tim Westlake, which thanked him for discussing the “difficult issues that we face,” including the “offensively titled” Israeli Apartheid Week. Freeman also said in the email that the title of Sherwood’s talk violates the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, and criticised another speaker as anti-Semitic.
“Both of these events will to [sic] cause Jewish students to feel uncomfortable on campus and that they are being targeted and harassed for their identity as a people and connection to the Jewish state of Israel. I would be grateful if you could look into these events and take the appropriate action,” Freeman wrote to Westlake.
The email also said: “We welcome debate and discussion and see it as an essential part of a healthy democracy and open society. In the case of these two particular events, we feel that this is not legitimate criticism but has rather crossed the line into hate speech.”
The conditions for Sherwood’s talk were levied a day after the email.
The Guardian got access to the email after the United Kingdom Information Commissioner’s Office required the University to disclose to a student “all correspondence between the University of Manchester and the Israeli lobby” between February 1 and March 3.
The Sherwood speech went forward as planned. “I was just speaking of my experience of what the Nazis were doing to me as a Jewish child. I had to move away from where I was living, because Jews couldn’t live there. I couldn’t go to school. I would have died were it not for the Christians who baptised us and shared papers with us to save us,” Sherwood told The Guardian. “I can’t say I’m a Palestinian, but my experiences as a child are not dissimilar to what Palestinian children are experiencing now.”
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
