A Danish-Jewish student studying in Israel is filing for a document disclosure from a government agency in Denmark that has suspended his state-funded scholarship, citing his Israeli university’s Zionist affiliation, the student said Monday.
Jonas Blüdnikow, 30, told JNS he is owed at least $8,000 from the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science, since it decided last year to suspend his scholarship to attend Reichman University in Israel—a grant that had been approved just two months earlier.
The Agency, which belongs to the Danish Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Digital Affairs, has since said it would reverse its ban on Blüdnikow’s scholarship, Blüdnikow
said, but “getting to the bottom of the affair is important, because it reflects how anti-Israel sentiment, anti-Zionism and perhaps antisemitism have seeped deep into Danish academia.”
Blüdnikow applied last year to the Agency’s scholarship, the State Educational Grant and Loan Scheme (S.U.), which gives qualifying Danish students who are studying at accredited institutions abroad a monthly stipend of about $900. His first application was declined “on a technicality,” he said, but he reapplied and was accepted.
However, he told JNS, two months later, ”I received a letter telling me to ignore the approval and that I was taken off the program because of Reichman University’s stated commitment, on its website, to Zionism. It was deemed incompatible with S.U.’s criteria,” Blüdnikow said.
Earlier this month, Blüdnikow was informed that his scholarship would be approved, after all. Earlier this week, the Berlingske newspaper, where Blüdnikow’s father, Bent, works as a journalist, published an article about the S.U.’s handling of the application. Jonas Blüdnikow estimates that “there was too much noise around this issue to allow the ban to pass.”
Yet, he said, although the affair demonstrated the limits of the Agency’s ability to justify an anti-Israel policy, “it shows the underlying sentiment, which the decision to reinstate my scholarship does nothing to dispel,” Jonas Blüdnikow said.
The fact that the application was declined, approved, declined and approved again suggests “an effort by someone at the Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Digital Affairs to stop scholarships for Israel. It looks like a vendetta,” Jonas said, adding that he is applying under Denmark’s transparency laws for a disclosure of the correspondence within the Agency about his applications.
Jonathan Fischer, the head of Denmark’s Weinberger Institute, which analyzes and combats antisemitic hate crimes, called the affair “very worrisome,” adding that his organization will be looking into potential violations of Danish laws on equality and against discrimination involving the case.
Bent Blüdnikow said the affair is part of a broader slide within Danish academia and the political establishment.
“It comes on the heels of the ‘death to Israel’ slide at the University of Copenhagen,” he said, recounting the inclusion of a slide showing this slogan at a Faculty of Law lecture earlier this month. The university distanced itself from the slide, displayed by lecturer Lino Vogt, but would not say whether any disciplinary action would be taken against him.
The Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science agreed to reinstate Blüdnikow’s scholarship after commissioning an independent report about Reichman University in Herzliya, written by a scholar from the University of Copenhagen, Jonas Blüdnikow said. The report confirmed that Reichman University was an accredited academic institution, he said.
Reichman University said in a statement to Berlingske that the Agency’s conduct was “Deeply worrying,” adding: “We hereby declare our open opposition to the position expressed by the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science by questioning Reichman University’s academic integrity and values.”
The University “proudly describes itself as a Zionist university, declaring its adherence to the fundamental principles of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, including full equality for all regardless of ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religious beliefs,” the statement concluded.
The Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science confirmed receipt of JNS’s query and request for comment on its decision concerning Reichman University. It did not provide a response in time for publication of this article.
