LONDON — British universities must take stronger action to protect Jewish students, the government said on Saturday, after a deadly attack on a synagogue in northern England and amid concerns over antisemitism on campuses.

Young people must be equipped to spot and challenge misinformation online, the government said, urging universities to use every tool available to confront hate and division.

“One instance of antisemitic abuse is one too many,” the UK’s education minister, Bridget Phillipson, said in a statement.

“So I’m clear: the buck stops with universities when it comes to ridding their campuses of hate – and they have my full backing to use their powers to do so.”

On October 2, a British man of Syrian descent drove a car into pedestrians and then began stabbing several people on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, outside Manchester’s Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue. Two men died in the attack, one of them accidentally shot by police as he barricaded a door to prevent the terrorist entering the synagogue.

In the aftermath, Phillipson wrote to university vice-chancellors urging........

© The Times of Israel