Rachel Moiselle
The JC, May 10, 2024
“This warping of Jewish identity in academic circles was directly tied with something else I noted upon my return to Trinity: a significantly increased obsession with Israel/Palestine above all other global issues and a truly astounding prevalence of ignorance about both the conflict and the region.”
One of my most treasured memories with my dad is a walk we took down the pier next to my parent’s home shortly after I got into Trinity College Dublin.
On our walk, my dad got emotional saying how proud he was that his eldest child got accepted into the best university in the country.
I studied at Trinity between 2011 and 2015, an immensely fulfilling four years at an institution that fostered my intellectual and emotional growth. During those four years, I observed no serious instances of antisemitism. When asked by classmates what my background was based on my surname or darker features, no one batted an eyelid when I disclosed my Jewish heritage.
But when I returned as a PhD student in 2021, I found the college culture unrecognisable from the inclusive, welcoming, intellectually challenging place I once knew.
This shift in college culture is the result of systemic issues within Trinity that have, for many years, stealthily fomented a hateful ideology that grips far too many of the students and faculty. As the readers of the Jewish Chronicle will be acutely aware, this ideology is not confined to Trinity, nor even to academia more broadly.… [To read the full article, click here]