A few days before I arrived at Cambridge University, I spoke to a fellow Jew who had just graduated. "Don't do student politics. Just keep your head down", she told me. It was something I had been told before. With a few notable exceptions, Jews at university quickly decide not to draw undue attention to themselves. Many of us hear anti-semitic slurs from our friends and sometimes even from University staff, but prefer to ignore them rather than to fight back and expose ourselves to more of the same.

My instinct to withdraw is a result of centuries of otherness. It comes from the collective memory that no matter how carefully we watch our backs or how hard we work to prove that we aren't a threat, we have no power against the whimsical hatred of the other which pervades European society. It's a fear I'm sure people of other minority groups know all too well.

This instinct is the reason why after Malia Bouattia's election it was so upsetting to be told by my peers that the best way to deal with anti-Semitism in the NUS is to confront it. I was chastised for not engaging with student politics sooner, as if anti-Semitism hadn't been spreading through the organisation for years beforehand. I was told that dialogue was the solution by the same people who, like me, would offer no platform to any other form of racism. I was also assured that the NUS's work representing other oppressed groups meant that on balance it was better to stay. The problem is that liberation politics doesn't work if we're allowed to pick and choose which groups we represent. We are not entitled to prioritise one oppression over another, either in our actions or in the institutions with which we work. Instead, we should tolerate no bigotry whatsoever.

After the NUS conference, the Jewish Society held a general meeting to decide whether we should support disaffiliation. During that discussion, many students argued that JSoc should remain apolitical, and for most of the meeting I wanted to agree with them. Somehow I'd been tricked into believing that standing up against anti-Semitism was a political statement. It was the advice of my friend from two years ago echoing in my ears. "Keep your head down". When I voted to support disaffiliation, I was afraid that J-Soc was going to become a target for anti-Zionist demonstrations, that my friends would stop me in the street and force me to recount every time I'd experienced anti-Semitism in Cambridge, or even that our 'political' stance would make it more difficult for us to book rooms in colleges for speaker events.

However, I knew that against our wishes we had already been politicised by Malia Bouattia and the NUS. We were politicised when our friends and cousins in Birmingham were highlighted as evidence of a 'Zionist outpost', and when activists described a letter signed by 57 JSoc presidents as a 'Zionist smear campaign'. In fact, the very notion that opposing anti-Semitism is political should startle us. That a society of 300 students devoted to supporting Jewish life in Cambridge should be hesitant to speak out against hatred towards its own members is a worrying sign that the student movement is failing to include and protect Jews.

In the upcoming referendum we will make what may appear to be a choice between one liberation struggle and another; between the fight against anti-Semitism, which demands disaffiliation, and the important work led by the NUS against other forms of bigotry. In reality the choice is more profound than that. To vote 'No' would mean compromising a central principle of liberation politics – solidarity between oppressed groups. That would mean that in a few years, were the volatile mood of the NUS to turn against another community, it would expect the same unwavering support from its constituents. By voting 'Yes', and demanding solidarity and representation for every minority group, we will play our part in preserving the student movement's integrity and credibility as an anti-racist, anti-fascist movement.

That credibility is important for everybody. For example, we urgently need to fight against racist government policies such as the Prevent strategy, and this requires putting prolonged and immense pressure on our politicians, drawing public attention to their Islamophobia and paternalism. We can't hold the government to account if we are undermined by our own tolerance of bigotry. We won't be able to fight against the financial barriers to further education, which have been rising at a terrifying rate since 2010, if ministers are able to write off the NUS as anti-Semitic and unrepresentative. And without a credible student voice of opposition the government will be able to introduce even more extreme measures.

We need to disaffiliate so that when we return in a couple of years the NUS is able to speak for seven million students with complete legitimacy. We need to force the NUS to deal with its anti-Semitism problem, so that we can secure its future as a powerful force against racism and every form of oppression. And, most importantly, we, as the Cambridge University Students' Union, need to distance ourselves from institutional anti-Semitism for the credibility of our own political efforts, and for the wellbeing of our Jewish members.