London – Faith schools across Britain are holding their breath and waiting to see if they will need to change their admissions procedures after Europe’s largest Jewish school was last week given the right to appeal a court decision saying its entry policy was racist.
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In June, the British High Court of Appeals exposed a rift within Britain’s Jewish community when it ruled that the admissions policy run by JFS School in North London was in breach of the Race Relations Act. The school’s admissions policy, which insists that a pupil’s mother must be Jewish, whether by birth or conversion, came under scrutiny in 2007 after the school refused to admit a 12-year-old boy on the grounds that his mother had converted to Judaism from Catholicism through the progressive Judaism movement, which is not recognized by the orthodox United Synagogue, Britain’s largest Jewish authority.
JFS (originally called the Jewish Free School) was at first found to be exempt from race-relations laws. But when the case was taken to appeal, judges ruled that the school was violating the law created in 1976 to end racial discrimination in the U.K. The decision rocked Britain’s faith schools and sparked a debate over the basis of religious identity as Britain’s Jewish community found itself asking, What or who defines someone as a Jew?
To try to answer that question, JFS, one of the most oversubscribed and academically successful state schools in the capital, was forced to consider giving prospective students religious tests to determine the extent of their observance and Jewish identity. Now that JFS has been granted an appeal, it’s up to Britain’s newly formed Supreme Court to tackle the issue. “We are pleased with the House of Lords’ decision to grant JFS leave to appeal and we will be seeking permission to intervene,” Simon Hochhauser, president of the United Synagogue, said in a statement. “The responsibility for educating our children is one of Judaism’s most fundamental principles.”
To help the court come to a decision, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a democratically elected representative body of Britain’s Jewish community, has stepped in to act as an official adviser. According to spokesman Mark Frazer, the board’s aim will be to make sure the court’s ruling is right for even the most orthodox of Britain’s Jews. “The board must cater for the highest watermark of religious observance in order to safeguard the rights of the entire community,” he says. “The orthodox definition of who is Jewish, taking into account someone’s parentage or lineage, is not a racist one, it is a religious one.”
However, the board’s involvement in the case has divided the Jewish community, with some questioning its neutrality. “This is the great con,” says Geoffrey Alderman, an expert on Anglo-Jewry at the University of Buckingham. Alderman points out that the board is bound by its constitution to defer to its most senior ecclesiastical authority, Sir Jonathan Sacks, on matters of religion — and Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the U.K.’s mainstream synagogues, is head of the United Synagogue, which has already spent $225,000 helping JFS defend its case.
If the Supreme Court rules in JFS’s favor, it will save the school from having to devise religious-observance tests that, according to Susan Jacobs, an expert in Jewish ethnicity at Manchester Metropolitan University, could have the unexpected result of excluding nonpracticing Jews. But if the appeal fails, it could open the way for pupils refused entry to JFS — and any other religious school — to sue the school for racial discrimination.
Whatever the result, the Supreme Court’s decision is bound to bring up more questions than answers and provoke continued debate on the issue of Jewish identity. As Kushner says, “This case just shows the impossibility of defining who a Jew is.”
If parents want to raise their children with a yiddeshe education, how dare these bureaucrats seek to place obstacles in their way!! If the rabbonim want to work with the parents to fill in gaps in the details of their conversions or gittin then do so quietly and discreetly without punishing the yinglach. What a shame for klal yisroel to convey such an image of blatant discrimination within the jewish community that already suffers from such negative perceptions throughout Europe.
about time they started to crack down
What the article fails to mention is that the school is receiving Gov’t funding, and therefor open to the racism laws. They can choose to refuse the funds, and then choose whichever child they want.
What imposibility of defining who is a Jew are you talking about? The shulchon oruch says it clear and not because a couple of years ago some people decided to change this on other aspects of our religion it became an impossibility. it is possible as it was always. look into the code of jewish law. you will also find there who is a Rabbi so you won’t have anymore questions.
Reply to 1 your right let’s take it a step furthur how dare the rabonim decide who is a Jew oops you meant the Torah couse it’s not the rabonim who decide so let’s go how dare the Torah tells us to keep shabbos how dare the Torah tells us not to steal how dare the Torah tells us to wear tziziss so on and so forth oh it’s only thouse rabbis who interpert it that way if only they would explain the torah my way / your way we wouldent have to fast yom kipur we wouldent have all this things that make us Jewish and some goy who is pretending Jewish but I’m convinct that you don’t keep the torah anyway so you don’t care who is Jewish just whoever wants
Well, a somewhat similar case in the Netherlands in 80’s (xp-ian counting), mother was a “Liberal” covert then, ended with a victory for the “old fashioned” view of halacha. OK, Dutch laws are no English laws, but it is a sort of precedent.
can someone explain why this whole issue has to do with racism? is being a non jew insulting? whats wrong with being hindu, catholic, reform consrevative etc? its just that they’re not practicing the jewish faith .And if one will go into a baseball game and want it to be played with 4 innings and sue the place, will the court pasken he has to be accomodated? racism is when one considers a group of people from certain countries or origins inferieor humans
Berel, please read my post above. Of course, you and I understand that it has nothing to do with race, but the goyim do NOT understand this. To them, religion is something you “believe” not something you “are;” it is something you “feel” not something you “do.”
Is a Jew who doesn’t believe in G-d and Torah still a Jew? Is a Jew who NEVER keeps even one single mitzvah still a Jew? They may not be very GOOD Jews but they are still Jews. If your mother was a Jew, you are a Jew. Period. The goyim don’t view it like this. A goy who doesn’t believe in yoshke is NOT a christian, regardless of how “frum” a christian their mother was.
Since being a Jew is something passed from parent to child, rather than a declaration of faith, to the goy that’s “racist.” I’m not trying to imply an anti-Semitic motive here. Remember that Esav’s brocha is gashmius, not ruchnius. They just don’t get it — in a sense, they CAN’T get it.