Dozens of protestors here at Lincoln’s Inn Fields covering their faces with masks and no arrests from the police…

There are no words that can truly capture how the world has changed for Jewish people since October 7th. And there is nothing I can say today that hasn't already been said, more powerfully, by others. So I'll just share one of the many moments from that day, and the days that followed, that I will never forget. On the morning of October 7th, I was in synagogue when the news began to reach us. My brother lives in Israel - and we knew he was in the Gaza Envelope in the south, celebrating the Jewish festival of Simchat Torah with friends from the area. But even as the news came in of what was happening there, it never crossed our minds that he might be in danger. A few hours later, when we had returned home from synagogue, still hearing rumours of what was happening, a phone rang in our home. We are religious Jews. On Shabbat and festivals, we don't use our phones. But my great-grandmother, Lily, a survivor of Auschwitz, was unwell, and the hospital had asked my mother to keep hers switched on. My brother knew that. He was calling under instruction from the community's rabbi. He told us that terrorists had surrounded the area. Only a handful of local residents were armed, standing between the community and dozens of heavily armed terrorists. No one knew what would happen next, or whether Hamas would manage to break in and murder them. He was, in essence, calling to say goodbye. My sister took the phone and told him she was pregnant. None of us knew. She told him then because we didn't know if we would ever get the chance to speak to him again. Then the call ended. And we carried on with Shabbat and Simchat Torah, not knowing what would happen where my brother was. Knowing that some of his friends, who had gone outside the gates to see what was happening, had been shot at. Some of them were murdered. We didn't hear from him again until the next day. I have never shared this before. Because our story ended with another phone call, the next day. So many families' stories ended so differently. You will struggle to find a single Jewish person who doesn't have a friend, a friend of a friend, or a family member who was affected that day. Three years on, I think about that phone call often. About what it means to call your family knowing that, on the road outside, there are terrorists trying to get into your community to murder, rape, pillage and destroy as much as they possibly can. And about what these three years have meant for Jewish people and Israelis everywhere. We will never forget. We could not, even if we tried. The trauma of that day runs too deep, through almost every Jewish family around the world.

At my @ucl graduation, a fellow graduate crossed the stage with a sign reading “UCL funds genocide.” Much of the room cheered this false accusation. The vice-provost could have stopped clapping for 2 seconds. Unless of course he agrees that his employer, UCL, “funds genocide”?