16 July 2024

The intolerable rabbi at Leeds University: a chronology of outrage and extremism

Zecharia Deutsch was Jewish chaplain at Leeds University (also at Leeds Beckett University, and the Universities of York, Hull, Huddersfield, Bradford and Sheffield) from 2021 to2024. In November 2023, Deutsch was called up, or perhaps volunteered, to fight in Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip[1] – a war in which  the International Court of Justice has “found it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide”.[2]  The mainstream media widely covered the unpleasant abuse Deutsch suffered after he resumed his duties at Jewish chaplain at Leeds in February 2024.[3] Less well known is the outrage among Leeds University staff and students at Deutsch’s return and Deutsch’s own extremist links.

Outrage

When Deutsch resumed his duties as Leeds University chaplain in February 2024, after fighting for the Israeli military, the outrage amongst staff and students was almost immediate. A petition demanding his dismissal as chaplain garnered more than 12,000 signatures.[4] Both staff and students wrote to the Vice Chancellor strenuously objecting to a chaplain at Leeds who had served in an army whose acts could amount to genocide – and who might himself have taken part in such acts. The University has a good number of students from Palestine including Gaza who are directly impacted by Israel’s genocidal assault. A letter of protest from the Leeds Palestine Solidarity Campaign was signed by 38 organisations, including two Jewish organisations and numerous individuals.[5] Farhat Yaqoob, the University’s Muslim chaplain for nine years, quit when Deutsch resumed his role on campus, saying her principles no longer “aligned” with the institution.[6]

On March 4, the Leeds branch of the University and College Union (UCU), the lecturers’ trades union, overwhelmingly passed a motion calling for Leeds University to “Recognise that Deutsch’s presence on campus is untenable” and noting among other things that it “Intimidates and traumatises UoL [University of Leeds] staff and students who are Palestinian, Muslim or support the Palestinian cause”.[7]

On March 8, Leeds University students occupied the main University building, the Parkinson Building, staying there for two weeks in an attempt to pressure University management to remove Deutsch.[8] On May 1, students set up an encampment along the lines of those established in 34 other universities in Britain and 174 universities worldwide, demanding an end to the University’s complicity in Israel’s slaughter, dispossession and degradation of the Palestinians.[9] They only dismantled this camp on June 16 with the approach of the end of the University term.

Extremism

Amidst the condemnation of Deutsch’s return to Leeds, Deutsch’s own extremist links have gone almost unnoticed. Deutsch studied at the Hesder Yeshiva in Ma’aleh Adumim settlement, deep inside the West Bank.[10] All such Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, and the entire settlement project constitutes a war crime.[11]

Deutsch is a member of the Ohr Torah Stone religious organisation, which founded the illegal Efrat settlement on the West Bank. Almost half of Efrat residents support the extremist Religious Zionist Party.[12] Ohr Torah Stone has publicly supported Israel’s ‘Swords of Iron’ operation in Gaza which it declared was “wiping out the Amalek” – a tribe mentioned in the Bible which God commanded the Israelites to entirely annihilate.[13] “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys” (Samuel 15:3). Binyamin Netanyahu’s use of the Amalek trope was specifically cited in the South African submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as evidence for Israeli intent to commit genocide in Gaza.[14] The Israeli legal team at the ICJ made no attempt to rebut this charge.

Just as Israel has increasingly allied itself with illiberal and Islamophobic far-right groups in the West[15], so Ohr Torah Stone accepted around 1 million dollars between 2010 and 2017 from the John Hagee Ministries[16], whose founder, John Hagee, is an anti-Catholic, homophobic, Islamophobic Christian fundamentalist.[17] He is also an antisemite[18], blaming Jews for the Holocaust.[19]  He is virulently opposed to any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, saying that any such deal would be the work of the anti-Christ.[20]

Leeds University seems not to have sought legal advice regarding Deutsch’s return to his work as University chaplain, which if true would be a clear breach of its duty to safeguard University staff and students. On June 4, Jewish News announced that Deutsch and his wife were leaving their posts at Leeds and returning to Israel “following their three years of service”. Rather contradictorily, the report also claimed that Deutsch and his wife were “hounded off Leeds campus”.[21] It seems likely that Leeds University (notwithstanding its own statement touching on the issue[22]), recognised the moral untenability of Deutsch remaining on campus, and found a means for him to leave which would cause minimum public scrutiny. It was reported that Leeds Beckett University had already removed him as its Jewish chaplain.

Here the chronology ends, but many questions remain unanswered. Among others: Since we may assume that Leeds University management would not have tolerated on campus even for a day a Palestinian or Muslim chaplain who fought and possibly killed Israeli Jews, why did management tolerate Rabbi Deutsch’s presence for so long? Why throughout this period did management display so little regard for the welfare of the Palestinian and other Muslim faculty and students at the University? And why, despite the latter’s well-founded outrage at Deutsch’s continued presence on campus, has the management continued to target pro-Palestinian faculty and students with disciplinary charges? As just one example, see the recent article on management’s treatment of Professor James Dickins.

[1].https://www.thejc.com/news/leeds-university-chaplain-accused-of-war-crimes-for-volunteering-for-idf-kpvvpv5e

[2].https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/01/gaza-icj-ruling-offers-hope-protection-civilians-enduring-apocalyptic#:~:text=The%20ICJ%20found%20it%20plausible,under%20siege%20in%20Gaza%2C%20and

[3]. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cxw7ggjyvnxo

[4] https://www.change.org/p/demand-the-dismissal-of-zecharia-deutsch-from-the-university-of-leeds-and-others

[5].https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScbc3kZrGfX2itm1G3egYb2AozTiOFEf9IGe65bm-yQTROmUw/viewform

[6]. https://www.thegryphon.co.uk/2024/02/26/we-arent-aligned-anymore-university-of-leeds-muslim-chaplain-announces-resignation/

[7]. https://www.leedsucu.org.uk/policy-university-chaplain-rabbi-zecharia-deutsch/

[8].https://www.thegryphon.co.uk/2024/03/09/pro-palestine-protesters-occupy-parkinson-building-in-protest-for-palestine/

[9]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pro-Palestinian_protests_on_university_campuses_in_2024

[10]. https://x.com/PalBint/status/1756660847718600943

[11]. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2019/01/chapter-3-israeli-settlements-and-international-law/

[12]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efrat_(Israeli_settlement)

[13].https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-students-call-jewish-chaplain-fighting-army-resign

[14]. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/south-africa-israel-amalek-netanyahu/

[15] https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/02/24/why-benjamin-netanyahu-loves-the-european-far-right-orban-kaczynski-pis-fidesz-visegrad-likud-antisemitism-hungary-poland-illiberalism/

[16]. https://religionandpolitics.org/2017/02/14/how-an-orthodox-rabbi-became-an-unlikely-ally-of-the-christian-right/

[17]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hagee

[18].https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2020-06-22/ty-article-opinion/.premium/john-hagee-is-a-hate-preaching-annexationist-extremist-hes-no-friend-of-israel/0000017f-e0ea-d804-ad7f-f1fafedf0000

[19].https://rac.org/press-room/hagee-quoted-blaming-jews-holocaust-yoffies-letter-calls-explanation; http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/3/5/105015/2167/

[20].https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/pastor-john-hagee-says-an-israel-palestinian-peace-deal-will-be-the-work-of-the-anti-christ/

[21].https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/heroic-leeds-campus-jewish-chaplains-returning-to-israel-announces-university-jewish-chaplaincy/

[22]. https://students.leeds.ac.uk/info/10100/academic-life/1922/campus-protest-update