30 January 2026
Back in May 2023 the Warden (think Vice-Chancellor or President) of Goldsmiths University of London, launched an inquiry into antisemitism on its campus. The spark, or excuse, for this was an over the top criticism by the student union President of the long-serving Goldsmiths lecturer David Hirsh. Hirsh was a strident critic of BDS, an avid supporter of Israel and proponent of the IHRA definition. He later established the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.
The inquiry dragged on until May 2025, and cost £200,000; and its methodology was heavily criticised, including by BRICUP. The inquiry collected data on the extent and nature of campus antisemitism by putting out a call for submissions from those who had experienced it. It declined to carry out the sample survey which would have been necessary to assess the prevalence of bad experiences.
Michael Rosen is a Professor at Goldsmiths, and Jewish. He has previously been a strong critic of that inquiry. In this Facebook post he describes his experience, along with other Jewish members of staff, of trying to provide inputs to the arrangements for this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day events at Goldsmiths. Spoiler alert – the quality of Goldsmith’s performance this time round was consistent with their inquiry fiasco.
Michael Rosen January 24 at 7:11 AM ·
A few days ago, I posted a note here about Goldsmiths, University of London and Holocaust Memorial Day. In short, it said that Goldsmiths continues to ignore the fact that there is an ad hoc group of 14 Jewish members of staff with various kinds of experience, knowledge and outlooks. The university did not approach any of us – or all of us – in relation to HMD even though we have made our presence known to the university authorities.
I wrote to my department and asked them to forward a complaint from me, in particular in relation to the fact that this HMD had a booklist which took no notice of the fact that I had written books about the Holocaust in relation to my family, run workshops, done meetings with such people as the Wiener Holocaust Library, and so on.
I received a reply.
Here it is:
“Dear Professor Rosen,
Thank you for your email and for outlining your personal and professional connections to Holocaust remembrance and education. We recognise the importance of this subject and understand the strength of feeling around it.
We would like to clarify how Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) 2026 is being marked at Goldsmiths. The events and accompanying reading list have been developed in line with materials provided by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for the 2026 theme, Bridging Generations. The reading list shared on Goldmine was drawn directly from those Trust resources and was not intended to be
exhaustive. It was not curated based on staff authorship, and no individual author or colleague was intentionally excluded.
Given the breadth of scholarship and creative work produced across the institution, it is not practicable for centrally coordinated HMD activity to identify or include all relevant staff-authored publications outside of the Trust’s nationally promoted resources for the year.
As the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust determines the nationally endorsed resources associated with each annual theme, you may wish to contact the Trust directly should you wish your publications or video to be considered for inclusion in future HMD materials.
We would like to be clear that no discriminatory intent or action has taken place. The matters you raise relate to the established national and institutional approach to marking Holocaust Memorial Day, rather than to any judgement about your work, background, or identity.
Kind regards
Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Team”
END
You’ll notice that the letter doesn’t say who they are! They are the ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team’. (Excuse me for the hollow laugh at that bit of nomenclature! It’s a bit like the Holy Roman Empire, which wasn’t Holy, wasn’t Roman, and wasn’t an Empire. In relation to us this team doesn’t do equality, doesn’t do Diversity and doesn’t do Inclusion.)
So I wrote back as follows:
“Hello
Apologies for not addressing you by name, but I couldn’t see a name in the end of my email from you but I only have my phone at the moment . Perhaps I missed it. If you have left off a name, could you please be kind enough to give me one? For me to be writing to ‘Diversity’ seems a bit asymmetrical, when you’re writing to be by name.
You appear to be passing responsibility for overlooking in-house expertise, onto an external body. The responsibility for you to not approach Jewish members of staff is entirely yours. You are called ‘Diversity’. We are part of Goldsmiths diversity and we hold within our group, knowledge and experience which you have chosen to ignore. In sociological terms, using Miranda Fricker’s taxonomy, this is a classic case of ‘Testimonial injustice’. At the very moment that you appear to think you are treating the Jewish minority equally and with care and consideration, you are doing exactly the opposite. You haven’t even suggested a meeting in which our group could show you our expertise and experience.
As I am unable to get a reasonable reply from you about this matter, I will continue to make it public.
Regards
Michael Rosen”
END
Since then I’ve ‘discovered’ something.
It’s hard for me to keep up with paperwork but I have only just discovered that following the Antisemitism Inquiry (costing £450k) the university made this commitment:
’12. Holocaust Memorial Day and associated events
The inquiry recommends Goldsmiths should:
Include consultation with or consideration of Jewish students and staff at the university.”
In response Goldsmiths will:
Annual Holocaust Memorial Day – Fund and support annual Holocaust Memorial Day
event led by Jewish students and staff. ‘
What?
‘…consultation with or consideration of Jewish students and staff’
‘…event led by Jewish students and staff’!
I will write again, pointing this out.
I will keep you posted as to how they reply to this.
David Rosenberg
That’s a kinder reply than the one I would have written – “Diversity? My tukhes!”
Michael Rosen
David Rosenberg Why not ‘gey kak in yam’ ? [“Go shit in the sea”] You’re so restrained, dovid. And I daren’t repeat what Harold would have said. The mods here might translate it and ban me.
