There is a rich tradition of liberal thought that holds freedom and responsibility to be inextricably linked. Freedom must lead to responsibility, otherwise it is wasted, and soon lost. It is in this spirit that Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth Ephraim Mirvis describes his “vision for Judaism in the 21st century.”

There are five elements of responsibility, he explains, including responsibility to Israel, a topic about which I had the opportunity to speak with Mirvis prior to his speech at the Oxford Union last week. The Rabbi has recently made headlines for comments about the vilification of Jewish students at universities, claiming that bashing of Zionism on university campuses is going largely unchallenged.

There is a stark schism, especially on the political left, between those who support the state of Israel and those who claim Israel to be an oppressive, even apartheid, state. This first debate has given rise to a second – concerning the extent to which anti-Zionism reflects anti-Semitism.

To understand the issue, Mirvis says, “What we need to appreciate first of all is the centrality of Israel within Judaism, from the very dawn of the creation of our faith of Abraham and Sarah. The very first imperative given to them by God was to live in the land he would show them, which turned out to be the land of Cain and today is the land of Israel. And from that moment onwards, the entire Bible is Israel-focused and our people has been Israel-focused and Israel-rooted and Israel-centered and what one would refer to as being Zionism, Zion being Jerusalem, has always been an integral part of our Jewish psyche, of our Judaism. There is a modern Zionist movement, which originated in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and that relates to the right of the Jewish people, as is the case with any other people, for self-determination within their own land and to live in security within that land.”

This is the definition of Zionism that I uphold: the inalienable right to a secure homeland, safe from persecution. That I might support the state of Israel does not mean I consider Israel’s governments immune from criticism – nor do most Jews. Rather, Jews are often, as we must be, the first to denounce the crimes and misdeeds of the Israeli government. As Mirvis told me, “Zionism does not necessarily mean that one agrees with every single policy of every government in office in Israel. And if one wishes to criticise a particular government in Israel, it is the same as criticising any other government and you know, not every critic of Israel is an anti-Semite. In fact, the greatest number of critics of Israel are to be found inside Israel because it is part of a robust democratic system.”

But, he added, “It’s where criticism of Zionism crosses the line, where there is disproportionate focus placed on one country as opposed to other countries and one must ask oneself where is ‘this coming from?’ and ‘what is this all about?’, so I don’t call on people to exercise blind support for Israel, but I do call upon people to exercise fairness.

“Be fair: if you’re going to the region, spend the same amount of time in one place as another, expose yourself to different views, hear both sides of the story. If you’re going to be making a stand, let it be an informed stand, so that you’re fair in your assessment of the situation.”

There is abundant evidence that Israel is not treated fairly. The United Nations Human Rights Council has issued 62 specific condemnations of Israel, and only 55 on all other nations in the world combined. A global movement has sprung up calling for boycotts, divestments and sanctions of and on Israel – and has earned widespread support, especially from students. Most tellingly perhaps, ‘Zionist’ has become a derogatory term, even a slur.

Mirvis points out, “When [Zionism] is used as a term of abuse, just substitute the word Judaism, or when it’s Zio, Jew, for that term. Zionism is a philosophy, it’s a phenomenon, that I’m exceptionally proud of. It stands for the incredible achievements of the modern-day state of Israel, often the Jewish people with their hands tied behind their backs, often on the defensive, particularly immediately after the Holocaust, which is an outright attempt to destroy the Jewish people and it was successful in destroying one-third of our people. So, putting all that together, Zionism is something one can readily be proud of.”

I fervently believe it is my responsibility, as a Jew, to stand up for justice and against persecution wherever it might be found. This includes vocal and fierce opposition to human rights abuses committed by Israeli governments. But I also hope that when due criticism becomes vitriolic denigration, the transfiguration will be noticed and condemned.

We all know there’s an imbalance between degrees in humanities and degrees in sciences. You only have to count the ratio of medics to historians at Bridge on a Thursday night to appreciate the difference between the two.

Yet, although I would much rather spend my hungover afternoon reading about Soviet industrialisation in postwar Russia than I would dissecting a human body, it seems unfair that degrees which burn the same size whole in our pockets are weighted so unequally in terms of resources and contact hours.

Scientific equipment and resources are considerably more expensive than what, for most arts students, amounts to a library subscription. And if Biochemists can pay £9,000 knowing they will see a don at least four times a week, as well as benefitting from many more hours of lectures, shouldn’t a geographer be able to do the same?

But it’s not just a question of money. While scientists may get a greater return on their educational investment it’s much harder to make friends that aren’t on their course. With nine-to-fives most days, finding the time to invest energy in socialising is inevitably going to be more tricky than for someone who spends their day sitting in the Rad Cam pretending to work. Humanities and sciences are different. But are they made more different than they have to be?

Tom Brake, now the longest-serving Liberal Democrat MP, began his talk by describing himself as a “passionate European”. I was not surprised to hear this, having sat down to talk to him beforehand. He had spoken about his years at an international school in France, highlighting the benefits of a multicultural, multilingual learning environment. He had also mentioned his father’s time working in Portugal, pushing the positives of EU freedom of work for young people. He then went on to compare the free movement he had enjoyed cycling through Western Europe in 1983, with the visas he had had to apply for to visit the East, and the desire for freedom he had encountered there.

I asked him what he thought was the best way to motivate and engage with young voters ahead of the referendum. “It is a struggle, the first thing we Lib Dems tried to do to engage young people was to ensure that young people, 16 and 17 year olds, had the vote in the referendum. Unfortunately the government did not agree to that, which is a huge pity seeing as if we vote to come out it’s something that will be with them for the rest of their lives.” However, he described his campaigning as revolving around making sure those that were eligible were actually registered and pushing the benefits of the EU over social media.

Brake has always taken a strong stance on human rights; it’s one of the things he mentions as having got him into politics. Leaving the EU would enable the government to repeal the Human Rights Act. Brake was firmly against this worrying possibility, “human rights are not something that governments should be picking and choosing and that is the approach that they want to adopt. I think the Conservatives would like to see differentiation between the human rights that are granted to British citizens, as opposed to the human rights that are granted to others. I think human rights are intrinsic, they’re not negotiable.”

When Nick Clegg came to speak to Oxford Students for Europe he was quoted saying that the Conservatives loved power. I wondered whether this was something Brake agreed with. “I think if you’re a party that has historically had more than your fair share of power then you come to expect that as the norm, and are then deeply off ended when that power is taken away from you,” he said, referring to the 2010 coalition. He later mentioned the fact that many Conservatives were hostile during the coalition because they felt the Lib Dems had disrupted their sense of a natural right to rule.

But Brake contested the basis of this right to rule, “the fact is that at this parliament the government has a majority, but only secured 37 per cent of the vote. I think in certain circumstances it would be perfectly acceptable, and I think required, that the government reflected at least a majority view of how the population had voted.” Despite this, he says he doesn’t push for electoral reform, “because it’s not something the public are interested in.”

“As editor, I worked on the assumption that print would die.” So, cheerfully, began Alan Rusbridger’s talk at the Oxford Fabian Society’s panel discussion on ‘The Media and British Politics’. The former Guardian editor was joined by freelance journalist Abi Wilkinson, and Novara Media founder Aaron Bastani, both of whom agreed with Rusbridger’s terminal diagnosis for print media: in Bastani’s words, “The market model of a newspaper looks a little bit ropey.”

The content of each talk was as sombre as the last. Wilkinson’s experience of the rise of online media was that “editors have people with fi gures breathing down their necks”, while “everyone is chasing the same clickbait funding.” For Rusbridger, this short-term commercialism was a death-knell for “patient journalism”, the meticulous investigations and careful fact- finding which he felt characterised the best of print media. The logical consequence for Rusbridger was “the possibility of a society without a verifiable source of information”; Bastani’s fear was that print would shrink to serve the demographics willing to pay for it.

Anyone aspiring to be a professional journalist? The gloom sets further still. Bastani estimated that news print revenues were typically falling around 7 per cent year on year; Rusbridger argued that “the ability for millions of people to do acts of journalism online is something no news organisation can match. I don’t think we have begun to understand what this new media can do.” The Huffington Post was singled out as a threat to professional comment-writing, able to attract a range of talented writers without paying them at all.

Amid the general lamentation, a couple of current affairs points were discussed. Rusbridger and Bastani both noted the success of the BBC’s news journalism: it was pointed out it accounted for well over half of the UK’s news traffic. At the same time, all the speakers felt that there was a justified level of scrutiny which came with that prominence, and none saw the accusations of anti-Corbyn bias Laura Kuennsberg has faced in her role at the BBC as unexpected.

On the other hand, there was little sympathy on the panel for Jeremy Corbyn and his poor rapport with much of the press. Wilkinson described the difficulties that lobby journalists had because Corbyn’s press office were inconsistent with deadlines and had “a bit of a fortress mentality”. Bastani agreed that the office was erratic, recalling interviews he had arranged with the Labour press office that were repeatedly cancelled; he did argue, however, that cuts in funding had been severe, and most likely hamstrung the press office.