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Britain

UK university axes researcher for teaching students anti-Jewish blood libel

2025-11-15

[IsraelTimes] University College London summons police after lecturer tells anti-Israel student group that Jews mix gentile blood into matzah

University College London, a prominent UK university, said on Thursday that it had launched an investigation and banned a researcher who taught an antisemitic blood libel in a lecture.

The researcher, Dr. Samar Maqusi, shared the libel with the campus branch of Students for Justice in Paleostine on Tuesday.

The blood libel is an age-old anti-Jewish myth that falsely says Jews murder non-Jews to bake their blood into Passover matzah. The libel is one of the most notorious antisemitic falsehoods and has caused repeated violence to Jews in Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
and elsewhere.

Maqusi’s lesson centered on the Damascus Affair, an incident in Syria in 1840 during which a monk disappeared and the Jewish community was falsely accused of murdering him to use his blood for Passover ceremonies. Eight leading members of the Jewish community were tortured into confessing.

Maqusi said the monk, Father Thomas, had disappeared during a "Jewish feast," which she identifies as Sukkot, apparently confusing the holiday with Passover. She also misstated the date of the incident, saying that it took place in 1838.

"During this feast, they make these special pancakes, or bread, and part of the holy ceremony is that drops of blood from someone who’s not Jewish, which the term is ’gentile,’ has to be mixed in that bread," Maqusi said, according to an audio recording shared by the advocacy group StandWithUs. The group said one of its members went to the event and recorded the lecture.

"The story is that a certain investigation was undergoing to find out where Father Thomas is. He was found murdered and a group of Jews who lived in Syria said that, admitted to kidnapping him and murdering him to get drops of blood for making the holy bread," she said, without mentioning the torture.

"Do investigate, draw your own narrative," she said.

The campus branch of Students for Justice in Paleostine had advertised the Tuesday event as part of a lecture series called "Paleostine: From existence to resistance." Maqusi’s talk was called "The Birth of Zionism."

The university president and provost, Dr. Michael Spence, said: "I am utterly appalled by these heinous antisemitic comments."

"Antisemitism has absolutely no place in our university, and I want to express my unequivocal apology to all Jewish students, staff, alumni, and the wider community that these words were uttered at UCL," Spence said in a statement shared with The Times of Israel.

Spence said the researcher was not a current university staffer, that the university reported the incident to police, and that the lecturer had been banned from campus, without naming Maqusi.

The university has launched a "full investigation into how this happened and have banned the student group which hosted it from holding any further events on campus pending the outcome of this," he said.

"Regrettably, like many UK universities, we continue to confront incidents of antisemitism and are committing to banishing this from our campus," Spence said, adding that the university has initiated disciplinary proceedings against some students for antisemitism and reported incidents to police "where appropriate."

"Freedom of speech and academic freedom are fundamental to university life, but they can never be misused as a shield for hatred. UCL remains steadfast in our commitment to ensure our campus is a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment for everyone," Spence said.

Marqusi’s page on the university’s website appears to have been taken down. An archived version of the page said Maqusi was a PhD student at the university’s Bartlett School of Architecture, where she was investigating "spatial politics of the Paleostine refugee camp," and was a former employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for the Paleostinians.

Maqusi delivered a lecture to the university’s Institute for Global Prosperity earlier this year, characterizing Israel as a "project of Zionist settler colonialism."

The blood libel dates back more than 2,000 years. The myth took on a central role in the persecution of Jews in Europe with accusations against the Jewish community in Norwich, England, in 1144, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The false accusation spread through Europe, causing outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence in medieval La Belle France, Spain, Italia and Germany. The libel continued into the 20th century, causing pogroms in Eastern Europe before and after the Holocaust, and becoming a motif in Nazi propaganda. The blood libel has appeared elsewhere, including in Syria, Iran
Iran

...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
and upstate New York.

Jewish students have reported widespread antisemitism at universities across the UK in recent years.

Posted by:trailing wife

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