Sunday, May 25, 2025
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Union president Michael-Akolade Ayodeji facing resignation calls after bullying complaints

Isaac Ettinghausen
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Union president Michael-Akolade Ayodeji facing resignation calls after bullying complaints

Members of the Oxford Union, including librarian Charlie Mackintosh, made official complaints accusing Trinity Term President Michael-Akolade Ayodeji of bullying and sexism, following a week of controversies over a debate and a fashion show. Ayodeji is currently also president-elect of the Oxford Student Union.

Issues were raised in the chamber following the President’s rescindment of a speech on the debate “This House Believes The Raj Lives On”. Disha Hegde, a member of the Standing Committee, made a Facebook post on Thursday morning saying that Ayodeji had visited her the night before to tell her that she would not be speaking in the debate, with no reason given.

Hegde wrote: “This debate meant a lot to me, as an opportunity to talk about my country and my culture in such a historic debate. Before she passed away, my grandma and I used to watch videos of the Oxford Union debates together. I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to tell my mum who was coming down to Oxford with my Grandma’s sari for me to wear.”

Hegde continued: “While I do think the way I’ve been treated is symptomatic of a larger problem of the culture at the Union, I won’t get on to that right now.” 

Two members, Librarian Charlie Mackintosh and Secretary’s Committee member Joe Murray announced their intention to raise questions over Ayodeji’s conduct at the Public Business Meeting (PBM), scheduled to take place before the debate. 

This follows a schism within the Union over a planned fashion show; several members of the committee, including the Chief of Staff, Chloe Glynn, and the Chair of the Consultative Committee, Alex Fish, registered complaints over the event. They cited some committee members’ discomfort at being expected to work at the show, as they believed the Union was “not a safe space for women”. Though these concerns were expressed to Ayodeji and Secretary Anvee Bhutani, the event will still go on this Saturday.

There was commotion after Ayodeji made the decision to postpone the PBM to after the debate – a move which is conventionally followed by a public vote. Murray stood to ask “on what ground?” after which the president continued without acknowledging the opposition. 

After this, Hegde stood, saying “‘You are suppressing a member’s right to speak”. Ayodeji appeared unfazed, after which Dhruv Sengupta, another member present, stood to say “‘you can laugh all you want, you can either take it to a vote or ignore the rules of democracy.”

Following this fracas, about 40 members in the chamber stood and left. A member of the Union’s committee described it as a “shitshow”. Another member in attendance told Cherwell that “I’m sickened to have voted for a president of a debating society who doesn’t want to facilitate good debate. He’s a twat.”

Once the debate ended and the PBM started, the atmosphere in the chamber quickly became hostile. Mackintosh, the librarian – the second most senior post in the organisation – rose to stand opposite Ayodeji at the dispatch box. He began his questioning by asking the president to explain the postponement of the PBM. Ayodeji initially refused to answer, but when pressed – with Mackintosh citing how two other notices had been read out – he explained it as a matter of courtesy to the invited guests.

Ayodeji denied Mackintosh’s claim that three separate individuals had had opportunities to speak rescinded. Mackintosh then asked whether the rescindment of Hegde’s invitation was fair, given that it took place fewer than 24 hours before the debate, to which members of her family intended to travel. Ayodeji responded that he had offered her an opportunity to take part in a floor speech,a privilege open to all members.

Mackintosh asked whether it was true that he had “reduced female members of committee to tears on several occasions”. Ayodeji responded: “As we both know, I work very hard to make the Union and the University an inclusive space.” Mackintosh didn’t accept this, asking: “Then why did I have to sit at 1AM today comforting a crying member of committee due to the manner in which you spoke to them?”. Ayodeji simply replied “I don’t know.”

Mackintosh ended his questioning by addressing the audience, saying “I think the questions and the answers this evening speak for themselves.”

Joe Murray, a member of the Secretary’s Committee, continued Mackintosh’s line of questioning, asking whether it was true that multiple people have threatened to resign over Ayodeji’s treatment of them. Ayodeji refused to comment on the “various reasons as to why people want to step away from the Union.”

Murray asked “In light of the events that have unfolded, which are a great embarrassment, do you think that you should resign?” Ayodeji retorted, “I do not.”

Joe Murray told Cherwell that he brought his questions to the chamber “as a public business meeting, because too many in the Union do not feel heard. I am doing this on behalf of them. Accountability is crucial in any student society, and I seek to uphold that in the Union.”

As events came to a close, with members in the chamber well after midnight following over two hours of infighting and hostility, the Deputy Returning Officer addressed Mackintosh, asking a question sure to cut to the core of the Union’s internal politics: “are there more members here to watch the Public Business Meeting than the debate which just happened?”

Michael-Akolade Ayodeji, Anvee Bhutani, Disha Hegde, and Charlie Mackintosh have been approached for comment. This article will be updated to reflect their responses. 

Image Credit: Nato via flickr.com

This article amended an issue pertaining to the fashion show at 13:46 03/06/22

‘Rescheduled’ speaker launches Union lawsuit

Isaac Ettinghausen
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‘Rescheduled’ speaker launches Union lawsuit

A controversial Indian filmmaker, whose talk at the Oxford Union was rescheduled following a planned protest by the India and South Asian Societies, has said he has filed a lawsuit against the Union, taking to Twitter to bemoan his “cancellation”.

The invitation of Vivek Agnihotri brought criticism from the two societies, who called him “a known Islamophobe, casteist, and misogynist”. Agnihotri’s most recent film “The Kashmir Files”, released earlier this year, depicted the mass migration of Kashmiri Pandits, a Hindu ethnic group, from the area in the late 90s. It has been criticised for its portrayal of the exodus as a genocide, which has been called a conspiracy theory. A reviewer for The Wire referred to it as “mythmaking” and a “terrifying peek into the Hindutva mindset with respect to Kashmir”, referring to the right-wing programme of Hindu nationalism.

The talk was originally scheduled for last night but has been moved to July 1st. The Union describing Agnihotri as “a highly-acclaimed Bollywood film director, screenwriter and author.”, with no reference to any controversy over his films. In 2018, he was accused of sexual assault by actress Tanushree Dutta.

Yesterday, after news of the last-minute cancellation – which the Union said was because of a double booking – broke, Agnihotri issued a video message claiming the Union was “Hinduphobic”. Alongside the video, he wrote: “They have cancelled me. In reality, they cancelled Hindu Genocide & Hindu students who are a minority at Oxford Univ [sic]. The president elect is a Paksitani [sic]”, referring to president-elect Ahmad Nawaz’s Pakistani origins.

In the video, he referenced a similar protest at Cambridge, describing “a few Pakistani and Kashmiri Muslims protesting against [his talk]” and calling them “genocide deniers and fascists” claiming this was “because I support a democratically elected Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi”, referencing the far-right nationalist who has been leader of India since 2014. His BJP party has been accused of stoking rising Islamophobia through discriminatory laws and hateful rhetoric. 

Rashmi Samant, the Student Union president-elect who stepped down from her role last year following Cherwell’s revelation of past transphobic, antisemitic, and anti-Asian social media posts, published this tweet.

The President of the Oxford Hindu Society told Cherwell: “The aforementioned protest against the event by the executive committees of the concerned societies was not targeting a person, but it was a colourable action targeting the cause of the persecuted Kashmiri Hindu community. This protest is tantamount to an attempt to distract the attention from the genocide of the minority Kashmiri Hindu community, and indulgence in historical revisionism by denying and trivializing the sufferings of genocide victims and curbing the expression of the minority Kashmiri Hindus.”

The full statement can be found here:

Vivek Agnihotri, The Oxford Union, India Society, South Asian Society, Pakistan Society, Islamic Society, and the Oxford Union’s president-elect have been approached for comment

Image Credit: Priyankaabhishek / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Tales from the Archives: the Secret History of Oxford Punting

Cherwell Punting Cuppers Team
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Tales from the Archives: the Secret History of Oxford Punting

With the Final Seed of Punting Cuppers just around the corner, we share three of the more intriguing anecdotes from the records of the competition, dwelling upon the more subversive and revolutionist undercurrents that swept along some of our Oxford punts. Though Punting Cuppers is often considered a “stuffy bastion of flat Englishness,” one can easily determine, from nought but a perusal of the ensuing yarns, that the history of this quintessentially Oxonian sport is only too chequered.   

For those interested, this year’s Grand Final Seed can be both attended and spectated on 18 June, 12 sharp, at the Victoria Arms. Facebook: Oxford_Punting_Cuppers_2019. 

A Phantom Puntsman: 

The first legible entry in the annals of Oxford punting is – perhaps predictably – a good old-fashioned ghost story. Veteran punters will no doubt be aware of Percie Punting, the patron saint of competition punting, who, as legend has it, spent thirty years punting the length and breadth of England to escape the reproaches of his “Shrewishe and Nagginge Wyfe”. In the years after his death (c. 1840), the so-called Phantom Puntsman morphed into a popular mascot for students boating on Cherwell, becoming the subject of ballads and drinking-songs. 

One still May night in 1913, the officials of the newly founded Punting Cup were making their way up to Parson’s Pleasure to clear the course for the next morning’s race, when they spied a peculiar light in the distance:

“P.P. – coming down the Piste as we were putting away the fallen branches – what a joy! He waved at us and bade us sing of him on the morrow. P.P., P.P. – what a sheer joy!”

Was it in fact an epiphany of the Ghostly Boatsman that the proctors (among whom was none other than Aldous Huxley) spied? Or just a phantasm borne of too much late-night port? Unfortunately, the true facts are lost to time.

The Suffragettes Storm the Cherwell:

Protesting social issues by jumping in front of races has a long and illustrious history in this country. From Emily Wilding Davison to Trenton Oldfield, countless activists have seized the limelight of high-stakes sport to draw the eyes of the nation to vital and important issues. 

The 1921 final seed of the Oxford Punting Cup was to be a grand affair: in the twenty or so years since the competition’s inception, the number of competing boats had swelled to the point where most colleges fielded a main and a reserve team (at least). And that year, there were some big names: the future novelist Graham Greene was to captain Balliol’s 1st, and no less an international celebrity than Prince Paul of Yugoslavia stood at the helm of Christchurch’s 1st. 

By all accounts, it was a race hard-fought and hotly contested; but by the second-to-last bridge, the royal punt had opened a decisive lead. That was when Mary Ellen Elin, a student of Lady Margaret Hall and a committed suffragist, leapt in front of the Christchurch boat, wrapped in a banner reading “DEEDS NOT WORDS”. The race, now disrupted, was put off to another time; but for that day, it was the subversive message of votes for women that took the biscuit, if not the Golden Punt.  

Punts for World Peace:

Fast forward a few decades to the “groovy” era of the 1960s, and punt activism had become rife amongst the hipper undergraduates of the university. According to Dr Ffrench, renowned punter and ornithologist, one particularly “saucy” outcome of this development occurred in a Trinity term near the close of the decade. Writing in the ’68-70 Punting Cuppers Annal, French relates that students of Wadham College, overcome with the zeal of May ’68, decorated a punt with flowers and “sailed” down Broad Street, singing anti-war protest songs and, in general, carousing in the manner typical to that set at that time. Finally, after some invigoration at the KA, and no doubt part-ameliorated by marijuana, they attempted to secure entry at the very doors of their college. 

Though the infamous ’68 “peace punt” was equipped with wheels that had been screwed on for the purpose of land manoeuvring, it was unfortunately unequipped with brakes, and the ensuing collision between porters, students, and 17th-century oaken door, resulted in more than a half-dozen bone fractures. The incident began to sour when the Warden, Maurice Bowra – renowned, at that time, for his acerbic wit – attacked the “peace punters” with the following couplet:

The blossom of ’68, sailing for peace in their punts,

Crashed on the sturdy gate, the moronic, ambisinistrous c –. 

So potent was the reputed force of his lashing tongue that some undergraduates collapsed at the spot. 

Dr Ffrench: Ornithologist and Puntsman

Postlude: 

In these months of predictably large and unexpected change, who knows with which verge or gurge the barge of Punting Cuppers shall merge in the coming weeks? Already, the competition of this academic year has seen, if we are to believe Kee’s Exeter First boat, the re-emergence of Percie Punting himself onto the esteemed waters. Though the times be difficult, and the threat of Monkeypox squares itself ever more heavily upon our bosom, the punters of this year remain, as ever, “hot-blooded by temperament, risk-takers by disposition.” We wish best of luck to the colleges and boats in the “Final Eight” Seed, and competing in private engagements this week: Wolfson (1), Exeter (1), St. Hugh’s (2), Oriel (4), Christ Church (3), Oriel (5), St. Hilda’s (1), and St. Hugh’s (3). 

The Oxford Punting Cuppers 2022 Team 

For queries, or for more on the history of the sport, please find: [email protected].

Love and patriotism: A critical reflection on the Jubilee

Sam Cherry
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Love and patriotism: A critical reflection on the Jubilee

As Jubilee weekend approaches I am conflicted. Many on Sunday will be celebrating their affection for our nation, and I should make it clear that this is something I am not at all opposed to. I think our country has many excellent qualities that deserve to be celebrated, and, by and large, I think Elizabeth has done a reasonably good job as a modern monarch: remaining (largely, but not totally) impartial in matters of politics and providing a great deal of constitutional stability to the state throughout her long reign. This much should be recognised, particularly through the past decade or so of national and international turmoil.

My problem with the narrative around events like the Jubilee – and with displays of patriotism more generally – is their lack of critical reflection on what it genuinely means to love one’s nation (to say nothing of the brutish jingoism they sometimes also induce). There will be all the normal trappings of street parties, flag waving, and singing of the national anthem. I begrudge none of this if it appeals to you. But please note that none of these behaviours are behaviours of love: they are simply demonstrations of affection.

At the same time as these parties occur, countless citizens will be living in a state of anxiety. They will be worried about whether they have enough money to make it to the end of yet another week of increasing food and energy prices. Others will be worried about the yet unfinished turmoil of Brexit and the pandemic – not to mention the wars in Europe and our ongoing climate crisis. Patriotic celebrations may provide a brief escape to some from these concerns, if only for a day, but nothing of any tangible significance will come of it. “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt”, Juvenal wrote; what is so egregious about this upcoming circus is that, at the same time, the government can’t even give us bread.

What could be more patriotic then – if patriotism really means love of one’s nation, of one’s fellow countrymen – than to address the suffering felt in so many communities at this time? Our treasury of patriotic imagination is full of examples of service which we rightly celebrate, from those who gave their lives in past wars against fascist atrocities to the tireless work of those in the NHS, yet when we come to a period of national celebration we so quickly forget that love in its most sincere form means service, sacrifice and compassion. If you want to celebrate the Jubilee, please do by all means, but do not let this jubilation allow you to slip uncritically into the fantasy that all is well in our country. Pick up the flag, but do not put down the duty of charity, or the banner of protest against a society that continually privileges the few at the expense of the suffering of so many.

Special Report: Merton tops 2021 Norrington Table but rankings show link between college wealth and academic performance

Meg Lintern
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Special Report: Merton tops 2021 Norrington Table but rankings show link between college wealth and academic performance

Merton College, described by students as “where fun goes to die”, has lived up to its reputation for high academic attainment by topping this year’s Norrington Table, with 45 of 77 students scoring a first in their finals. LMH is the college with the lowest score, with only 36 of 118 students achieving a first-class degree.

Regent’s Park had the lowest score of any PPH or college with more than one exam-sitting student, with a Norrington score of 69.7%. LMH narrowly missed out on the bottom spot with a score of 69.8%.

The overall lowest score on the table was earnt by Ripon Cuddesdon. This widely unheard-of college is situated 7 miles out of the centre of Oxford, nestled in the Cotswold countryside. A Church of England theological college, Ripon Cuddesdon trains men and women for ministry, with alumni including David Hand, Archbishop of Papau New Guinea 1977-83, and Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury 1928-42. It had just one student who sat an exam in 2020-1, and because that student earnt a 2:1, the college scored just 60% on the Norrington table.

With the exception of St Stephen’s House, whose single exam entrant scored a first and earnt the House a score of 80%, most PPH’s scored lower than colleges. Indeed, the mean Norrington score for PPHs was just 70.4% compared to a mean score of 76.1% for colleges.

A Cherwell investigation in 2018 revealed that the wealth of colleges could have a substantial bearing on their performance in the Norrington Table. Looking at the data for this year, this finding seems to have held true.

The five colleges to top the Norrington Table are all among the oldest and wealthiest Oxford colleges. Merton, St John’s, Lincoln, Brasenose, and New College were all founded before 1510. Financial reports published in 2017 show that all of these colleges were in the top half of Oxford colleges and PPHs as ranked by wealth. Lincoln, the college with the lowest net assets of the five, still ranked 15th out of 36 according to wealth.

In contrast, the colleges at the bottom of the table are generally considered to be some of the poorer colleges at Oxford. Hertford, Pembroke, St Hilda’s and LMH are all in the bottom half of colleges as ranked by wealth, placing 24th, 23rd, 20th, and 31st respectively.

However, there does not seem to be a consistent correlation between the wealth of colleges and their performance on the Norrington Table. Christ Church, the second wealthiest college, was ranked 21st out of all colleges on the Table, whilst Harris Manchester, the poorest college, ranked 10th.

The relationship between the wealth of colleges and their academic attainment is not a new phenomenon. In 2002, the Oxford Student Union released a report stating that disparities in college wealth meant that students “are far from guaranteed a common educational experience, with detriment not only to their academic performance but also to their general welfare and financial condition”. The report found that poorer colleges had smaller libraries – with 160,000 volumes at Christ Church compared to 40,000 at Wadham – and generally paid their fellows less, making it harder to attract the best tutors.

Nonetheless, the significance of the Norrington Table as a metric of college’s academic performance has been widely criticised, since the differences between college’s scores are generally small, and a single student being awarded a 1st instead of a 2:1 could improve a college’s rank by four or five positions.

The Norrington score was developed by Sir Arthur Norrington, former President of Trinity college, in the 1960s, as a way of measuring the performance of students in finals. The score is based on the classifications of undergraduate degrees awarded and expressed as a percentage.

The Norrington calculations attach a score of 5 to a 1st class degree, 3 to a 2:1 degree, 2 to a 2:2 degree, 1 to a 3rd and 0 to a pass and Honours Pass. The percentage is then calculated by dividing the total college score by the total possible score the college could attain (ie the number of degrees awarded per college multiplied by a score of 5).

The Norrington Table for 2020-21 can be found here.

Image Credits: Meg Lintern

Hertford College launches John Porter Diplomacy Centre

Humza Jilani
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This year, Hertford College inaugurated its John Porter Diplomacy Centre, a key part of the Hertford 2030 aspiration to prepare students for “life, work, and citizenship, and to be on the frontline for a better society.”

The Centre emerged out of conversations between Hertford College Principal Tom Fletcher, a former British Ambassador to Lebanon and foreign policy advisor at No. 10, and John Porter, an alumnus of Hertford who matriculated in 1971 and was the namesake of the John Porter Charitable Foundation. Porter passed away in 2021.

The John Porter Diplomacy Centre, a unique effort among Oxford’s colleges, will train students in diplomatic skills, connect different parts of the Oxford ecosystem working in diplomacy, encourage people-to-people partnership-building, and support the creation of scholarships for refugee leaders to come to the University of Oxford.

Two particular notes from the conversations between Fletcher and Porter animate the current vision for the John Porter Diplomacy Centre: approaches to the peace processes of the future and supporting the development of young peoples’ diplomatic skills.

“When it comes to the peace processes of the future, we want to know where we need to invest time and energy now to prepare for moments of tension and friction in the world,” Fletcher told Cherwell.

John Porter’s desire to support a Diplomatic Centre stemmed, in part, from his experience watching a 1988 BBC clip of Nicholas Winston reuniting with dozens of children he had helped rescue from Nazi Germany. In total, Winston assisted in the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II.

“He was just struck by seeing an example of such an extraordinary effort to transform peoples’ lives and wanted to support something that would continue that legacy,” Fletcher said of Porter.

They are partnering with the Oxford Refugee Centre, headed by Professor Alexander Betts, to support refugee scholarships. They are also studying different points of “intervention” on a refugee’s life journey that can ultimately help them come to Oxford and succeed.

Fletcher also strives to use the Centre as a platform to discuss what “peace” means in a world where that term has become highly contested.

“We are looking at peace with our planet, with climate change. We are looking at peace between the government and Big Tech, and peace with tech itself. We are looking at peace between migrants and host communities. We also look at peace between generations, to heal the wounds of history and ensure that we do not pass on inherited conflict and inequality,” Fletcher told Cherwell.

“We are a Big Tent, but not a big building. We are not trying to duplicate or replace what is already going on at Oxford, but instead we want to connect the dots between different parts of the Oxford ecosystem,” added Fletcher.

With such a wide-range of topics and interests within the Centre’s wheelhouse, Fletcher naturally envisions that they will take an expansive view of what constitutes success.

“I look at 2030, and I think that if we can get together a sort of reunion of everyone involved in this project up to that point, from senior ambassadors to ministers to military people to humanitarians to students, and that we can say that we directly contributed practical ideas and time and energy to some really important peace processes, I would consider that a success,” said Fletcher.

“We cannot write the script of where people will go, but we can give them the tools to apply themselves to amazing things,” he added.  

Image Credit: Hertford College

Once Long Ago

Jennifer Robinson
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Once Long Ago

In Once Long Ago, Jenny Robinson invites us to listen to the “dead tales of old gods long gone” struggling to find their place in a new world, where they are “only folklore”. The resultant effect of her aural images and enjambed lines is one of limping — each line unfolds hesitantly, like the shifting of tired feet.

The dead tales of old gods long gone 

Far off from slumber,

In dreams they shall wake

As their backs break,

Cracking to conform to a new world, 

Their stories, only folklore,

All that’s left of them lives on.

To breathe and to die, to slowly be consumed

Back into the worlds from whence they came,

An always cycle, eternal wail, never finished,

Like a snake eating its own tail,

Wrapped around the world

Patiently waiting to be one

Again.

“I am a proud convert”: My conversion to Judaism

Jessica DeMarco-Jacobson
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“I am a proud convert”: My conversion to Judaism

   I am a proud convert. My interest in Judaism began with my family background, and I cannot explain my conversion without first explaining that.

   My mother’s side of the family, while interesting in its own way, is Friulan (Friuli is a northeastern Italian province) going back to the 16th century. I have no Jewish ancestry through her. Instead, my Jewish ancestry comes from my father’s side, from my paternal great-grandfather, Benjamin Itzhakin.

   Benjamin was born to a Jewish family in Babruysk, modern-day Belarus, on 15th April 1888. As he reached his teen years, antisemitism grew increasingly violent in revolutionary Russia. So, Benjamin left on a ship to Chicago, Illinois, America. Immigration officers changed his last name from Izhakin (meaning son of Isaac) to Jacobson. He married and had several children, one of them being my grandfather Howard.

    In his letters to me, Howard gave me the impression of being a “self-hating Jew,” a loaded phrase, which I’m using here to mean a Jew who internalises their marginalisation, resents their Jewish identity, and wishes to distance themselves from “all things Jewish”. In other words, Howard did not want to be Jewish. So much so that he decided to convert to Christianity and create his own Christian denomination.

   Years later, Howard had a son, who would later become my father. Whenever my dad would ask Howard about his family background, Howard would respond that they were American, without further detail. As a result, my father grew up not knowing about his Jewish heritage and was not raised, according to any definition, Jewishly. It wasn’t until his adulthood that my father learned about his Jewish ancestry.

    I grew up with knowledge of this ancestry, and Judaism always fascinated me. I was born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, a place that actually has a sizeable Jewish population compared to most places in Georgia. Columbus has two synagogues, one Conservative and one Reform. But the Jewish population and two synagogues are outweighed by the existence of over 200 churches in the area. Public education in the Bible Belt taught me very little about Judaism, and what it did teach was mostly incorrect and simplified to the point of being borderline offensive. I was drawn to Judaism because it felt like a lost puzzle piece to my own identity.

“It wasn’t until his adulthood that my father learned about his Jewish ancestry.”

   I began a more serious interest in Judaism when I was in high school. My high school was located in a historically Jewish area of Columbus, and so there were several Jewish students and one Jewish teacher (who just so happened to be my homeroom teacher). I can’t explain why, but I felt very compelled to learn about Judaism. I didn’t have many Jewish resources, though, so I started by reading a used, pink pocket edition of the Jewish Publication Society translation of the Torah from cover to cover. I didn’t know what to do after that, and so my interest in Judaism lay mostly dormant for the next couple of years, until the pandemic.

   Like many other Americans, I found my work hours cut. Actually, I was making more money off of Georgia’s unemployment pay-outs than at my less-than-mediocre retail job. School moved to Zoom, and I found myself at home for most hours of the day, and so I had a lot of time for thinking. I began thinking about Judaism again, and I took an online edX course called “Judaism and its Scriptures.” I read a lot of articles, and I found that my existing values tended to align with Jewish values.

   Near Rosh Hashanah of 2020, I got into contact with the Reform temple, thanks to my old homeroom teacher and his very kind wife. I learned about the possibility of converting and then began a conversion process with the rabbi there, who was planning to retire the following summer. Although the temple was conveniently located within walking distance, it was currently closed to the public due to the pandemic, so the rabbi and I held our classes once a month on the phone. We later moved to Zoom.

   It was a very unconventional conversion, but my rabbi would basically assign me different books to read or different tasks to do at home, such as observing Shabbat, baking challah, and practising prayers. I would attend services on Zoom, and I was always the youngest person to attend. Out of all of the services, I loved Torah study the most—I found analysing and discussing the parshahs (weekly Torah portions) to be the most invigorating. I found it a little difficult to find parts of my identity in the holidays at first, but the first holiday I found myself in was Purim. No, it wasn’t because it’s a mitzvah to get absolutely pissed drunk, but because it was very similar to the Italian holiday of Carnevale and because I loved the Book of Esther. At some points during the year, my conversion became quite difficult because I was a full-time university student who was juggling two, sometimes three, part-time jobs.

“I was drawn to Judaism because it felt like a lost puzzle piece to my own identity.”

   As summertime approached, my rabbi told me to start considering a Jewish name. She wanted to be the one to see out the end of my conversion—maybe for her it was a last hurrah before retirement—and she felt that I would be ready to convert by June. I felt slightly unprepared to dive into the mikveh (a ritual bath involved in the conversion process) and officially become a Jew. Most conversions to Judaism take a full year or two, or sometimes even longer. My mikveh ceremony was to take place just nine months after I began my conversion back in Rosh Hashanah.

   I struggled to choose a name; it actually wasn’t until the week before my conversion that I settled on “Naftala,” a name I found in a book my rabbi let me borrow. According to that book, “Naftala” means to “wrestle with God,” but it more commonly means “my struggle.” I felt this name was apt because I had always struggled with religiosity, and my conversion was made more difficult by the situations the Wheel of Fate threw at me.

” Because of the nature of my conversion—or simply because I converted, some people don’t consider me a Jew. “

   My conversion took place in a swimming pool at a temple member’s house. I said a prayer, then immersed myself in the water, and repeated that process two more times. The cynical side of me wondered how my dipping in the pool really changed me from being a non-Jew to a Jew. My rabbi gave me the theological explanation behind the mikveh, but I found the answer in something else.

   As I began to live my life as a fully-fledged Jew, I looked back to my mikveh ceremony and felt that it held more meaning. And perhaps this is a sacrilegious thought, but I felt that the conversion was simply a formality, a ceremony to mark my once-lost Jewish soul finally returning to its proper home. I thought about it as if the Jewish soul which was supposed to travel through my lineage—and stopped at my grandfather Howard—had finally returned to me from its long hibernation. When I bake challah, when I light the Shabbat candles, when I read the Torah, when I eat the “Shabbat dinner” I cooked among my non-Jewish friends, when I observe Tu B’Shevat by drinking prosecco and eating strawberries in Port Meadow with my self-proclaimed Aristotelian philosopher friend, when I make weird “calzone” hamantaschen with my partner—that is when I feel that returned Jewish soul kindling within me.   Because of the nature of my conversion—or simply because I converted, some people don’t consider me a Jew. Some people have even told me I am “un-Jewish” because of my views on Israel and Palestine (as if that is the issue that determines my Jewishness). Some people have thought of me as less-than because I can’t and don’t observe holidays and ceremonies properly. Those words hurt, especially when they come from other Jews. But my Jewishness—although admittedly a result of an odd conversion—is my Jewishness nonetheless, and no one can ever take that away from me. I am a proud convert, and I am proud to be a Jew.

Free speech and genuine questioning: Is the Oxford Union failing us?

Jonathan Tiley
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Free speech and genuine questioning: Is the Oxford Union failing us?

Engaging in discussion, challenging ideas, and hopefully in the end creating a better society is a worthy goal that we should all aspire to. However, it seems to me that a large and important section of our society is being left out of the conversation and conveniently ignored.

On Tuesday I attended a talk at the Oxford Union by the moral philosopher Peter Singer, and left feeling frustrated and angry and asking the question “Surely, we can and must do better?”

In the 1970s Peter Singer wrote that it would be ‘‘right to kill’’ a disabled infant, because their death “will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life’’. He has proclaimed that the effects of Down’s syndrome on his own child would “greatly reduce my joy in raising [them]”. He also argues that someone with a cognitive impairment would be incapable of “withholding informed consent to sexual relations”. Singer has since stood by these degrading views, saying to The New Yorker in 2021 that his opinions regarding disability “haven’t fundamentally changed”.

You may feel repulsed by these views, or you may agree with them; you may feel both at once. In any case, I hope you would agree that they should be challenged. The obligation to challenge these views is even stronger when their representative speaks at the Oxford Union, a self-proclaimed bastion of free speech and rigorous debate. The same principles which protect his expression of such views require the Union to challenge them.

Representatives of the Union woefully failed to meet this duty. On the night, I was given a taste of what was to come when a packed-out chamber enthusiastically welcomed Singer and, to my surprise, I received quizzical looks for not joining in on the applause. These quizzical looks intensified after, being denied the opportunity to ask a question, I heckled Singer with disgust over the ‘soft-ball questions’. Singer was asked a series of important and well-researched questions on other fields he is known for, such as animal rights and effective altruism. However, his views on disability were left entirely untouched.

The Oxford Union failed to uphold its reputation for asking the difficult questions, and in doing so, it failed the disabled community. Like myself, many would have left the talk horrified that an institution such as the Oxford Union allowed this man, who openly holds what are in my opinion abhorrent views, to speak without having his position on the rights of disabled people challenged. It was shameful that Singer’s advocacy for ‘replacing’ disabled children with able-bodied children and its eugenicist connotations was not examined.

When other speakers with controversial views on minorities have attended, they have faced fierce dispute. Tommy Robinson and Jordan Peterson were made to fight for their intellectual lives over past comments on Muslims and women respectively. What is different about the disabled community that makes our voices less important to the Union than other minorities?

So, answering my question “Is the Union failing us?”, on Tuesday night, I left the Oxford Union as a disabled student with the feeling it sadly is. We must strive to make sure that this isn’t a reflection of the wider student body and public debate regarding the status and rights of disabled people.

Image credit: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 (NATO Multimedia Library/NIDS)

A Global League: How the NBA finally conquered the world

Oliver Hall
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A Global League: How the NBA finally conquered the world

For the first time ever this season all three of the contenders for the NBA’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award were born outside the United States.  Easy to brush aside as coincidence on the surface, it in fact marks a hugely significant moment for the league’s governing body and is the culmination of years of work behind the scenes.  

All of the top three sports leagues in the United States have been trying their best to crack the global market over the last few years.  For a number of reasons though, basketball has very much been leading the way.  For decades now it has been investing in overseas markets, differing from the NFL and MLB by offering not just increased media coverage but also support and routes for aspiring foreign players years ahead of its rivals.  That came to a head with the foundation of the Basketball Without Borders programme in 2001.  In association with FIBA, the sports global governing body, the annual training camp brings the best prospects from around the world together to train and show their talents off to prospective NBA teams.  It was here that one of this year’s final three MVP contenders, Joel Embiid, got his big break.  The Cameroonian attended in 2011 before being drafted in 2014 and his success has seen an extraordinary year-on-year 40% increase in subscriptions to watch the league in Africa.

There are of course other reasons that basketball has been able to break into foreign markets far more easily than the NFL and MLB.  The first team to play overseas was the Washington Bullets way back in 1978, 27 years ahead of the NFL and 18 before the MLB made its first trip to Mexico.  This was arguably only possible thanks to basketball’s global reach as a sport in general.  By the 1930s it was already hugely popular in China and its first foreign-born player was playing in 1946.  Similarly, across Europe and in France and Spain in particular, the EuroBasket Championship tournament is hugely popular in its own right.  Its place in the Olympics has undoubtedly done it favours too and the aura that Michael Jordan’s ‘dream team’ created in Barcelona in 1992 saw international viewership numbers surge.

The result of all this has not just been foreign players flourishing stateside.  Overseas markets now make up 10% of the NBA’s estimated $10bn revenue and after a brief hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, the league will return to Japan for a mini-tournament next pre-season.  Giannis Antetokounmpo will also lead his Milwaukee Bucks in the first-ever NBA game to be held in the Gulf against the Atlanta Hawks this October, just one more demonstration of how his popularity has revitalised a franchise that was once trapped by its isolated market.

Major League Baseball has announced that they will resume their London Series for five years more at least.  Jim Snall is the senior vice-president of MLB International and he has defended their comparatively sluggish expansion by highlighting its vastly differing rules, “With soccer or basketball, the concept is fairly simple: there’s a rectangle, and you get the ball in the goal or in the hoop. Baseball is a bit more nuanced”.  That much hasn’t held back the NFL though and they have recently announced that their global games will make trips to Germany and Canada next season in addition to their overwhelmingly successful annual clashes in London and Mexico.

So, only time will tell as to whether or not America’s other major sports can follow suit but for now at least the NBA can revel in its success.  Things are great as they are but the future is even brighter for America’s most marketable, fastest-paced, and most popular sport.

Kenneth Lu, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr

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