Like many campuses across the UK, Cardiff University has seen pro-Palestine protests in recent years and Oliver said he believed some behaviour he witnessed crossed the line from criticism of Israel into antisemitism.
Holding Jewish people responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is a form of antisemitism, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
“That first year was absolutely terrifying,” he said.
“You go home and think, ‘do I carry on? Do I try to go to the next day?'”
Oliver said he stopped speaking Hebrew outside his home, and hid his Star of David pendant when on campus.
Over the following three years, Oliver said the antisemitic abuse he experienced at university became “relentless”.
“I’ve been in clubs [or] just wandering around the uni and you hear these conversations and you see pamphlets being handed around where it’s literally saying that your belief and your history is fake,” he said.
“I’ve been at house parties where, when someone’s found out I’m Jewish they started calling me Netanyahu behind my back.
“Like you found out my religion and you’ve decided I’m a bad person.”
Oliver said when he had reported antisemitic incidents that had happened to him and others, he had felt they had been often “swept under the rug” by the university.
Although he said some positive action had been taken, he feels more needs to be done.
Cardiff University said it was sorry that “any student felt unsafe” on campus and that it adopts a “zero-tolerance approach to harassment and discrimination of all kinds”.
It said there was no place for antisemitism or hatred at the university and they have “robust procedures” in place for investigating allegations of antisemitism. Where it is found, the university said appropriate action would be taken.
It said it had reached out to the university’s Jewish Society and reminded students to report incidents to them.
