‘Rocketing’ prices are forcing Jewish students to stop eating kosher - The Jewish Chronicle

Soaring accommodation costs and food prices are deterring Jewish students from moving out of home for university and leaving some with no option but to stop eating kosher.

Jewish students who have moved away or are planning to do so are also scrambling to find jobs as they struggle to “make ends meet”.

Rebbetzin Shima Dvir, a Jewish Chaplain at the University of Nottingham — where there is not a kosher hall of residence — said that many students who keep kosher cannot afford to pay the rent for a studio flat with its own kitchenette.

Nottigham Graduates line up to enter their ceremony dde9c3

Graduates at the University of Nottingham (Alamy)

“One student who keeps kosher and shares a kitchen kept asking her flatmates not to touch her food and plates. Her flatmates didn’t understand this, so in the end, she didn’t feel she could use the kitchen. Instead she comes to our home to eat,” Dvir said.

Sophie Dunoff, the CEO of University Jewish Chaplaincy, which supports Jewish students at universities across the UK, also warned that rising costs have made it “harder and harder for students who want to keep kosher”.

Sophie Bracey, 18, from Chigwell, Essex, hopes to attend the University of Birmingham — a member of the prestigious Russell Group — in September but was “shocked” by the cost of accommodation.

“My friends in university have told me they pay a lot less than what we have been asked [to pay],” she said.

Happy students posing for a group photograph after graduating from Edinburgh University. df8txp

Students after graduating from Edinburgh University

Bracey, who has applied to study biomedical science and Spanish, said she will have to work “multiple jobs” and juggle that work with her studies to help cover costs.

Zara Ismael, also 18, from Ilford, Essex, said being able to remain living at home was “a big part” of her decision to study at Queen Mary University of London.

“It would have been hard for me to afford [student accommodation], probably even with student finance,” she said.

Jewish students, Dunoff said, are having to make difficult choices: “They will say: ‘Why don’t we just buy Tesco cheese because kosher food is so expensive?’”

The cost of living in student halls at some Russell Group universities will shoot up next year, reports indicate.

At the University of Edinburgh, rents will rocket by up to 19 per cent, to as much as £5,267, for the forthcoming academic year compared to 2022/2023, while students at UCL can expect their rental bills to rise by up to 11 per cent, The Daily Telegraph reported.

jgth13

A student eating in her room (Alamy)

Rents at private student accommodation across all Russell Group cities rose 14.5 per cent, or £95 per month on average in the four years to 2023, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield, a property consultancy.

These hikes far exceed the government’s below-inflation 2.8 per cent increase in maintenance loans for students from England next year.

Ilan, a student going into his second year at UCL who asked the JC not to use his real name, has decided to stay another year in accommodation subsidised by the organisation J-Living instead of renting privately: “I was quite close to putting down a deposit, but it was £750 a month, a lot more than I am paying now,” he said.

The Union of Jewish Students has seen “obvious signs” some students are struggling and had heard from people who have had to “take on extra work…so that they can make ends meet.”

It added: “UJS is working with community partners and philanthropists to explore the possibility of providing better information, better support and most importantly better access to financial support for those who most need it.”

The Russell Group declined to comment.

Topics:

Universities

Keeping kosher

Kosher

Editor’s picks

‘The Holocaust documentary my father made with Alfred Hitchcock’

Alfred Hitchcock (left) and Sidney Bernstein

Exclusive: Foreign Secretary confirms Hamas’ status as terror group is ‘not for changing’ amid legal challenge

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has told the JC that Hamas' designation as a proscribed terrorist group is 'not for changing' (Image: Getty)

Is Labour scared of Muslim voters?

Home Office Minister Jess Phillips (Image: Parliament TV)

Help! I’m no longer the only Jew in the village

Modern exodus: Mark and his wife traded in their Essex home for a place in a sleepy village (Image: Getty)

British law firm working for Hamas leader launches bid to de-proscribe the terror group

London-based Riverway Law has lodged an application to have Hamas removed from the UK's list of proscribed terrorist organisations (L-R lawyers Franck Magennis, Farhad Ansari and Daniel Grutters, Image: X)