U.K. Jewish school appeals racial discrimination ruling
Court deemed Jews' Free School violated law by denying child admission because his mother was not Jewish.
By The Associated Press Tags: Jewish education Jewish World Israel newsA leading Jewish school in Britain asked the state's Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn a ruling that said it racially discriminated against a boy when it refused to accept him as a pupil because it did not recognize his mother as Jewish.
In June, the Court of Appeal ruled that London's JFS, or Jews' Free School, racially discriminated against a 13-year-old boy identified as M. His father is Jewish by birth, but his mother converted at a progressive synagogue not recognized by Orthodox Judaism.
The Court of Appeal ruled that because Jews are defined as an ethnic group in British law, denying a child admission because his mother is not Jewish constituted racial discrimination.
The school's lawyer, David Pannick, said the dispute was about religious law, not race. He said M would be regarded as Jewish by Reform, Masorti or Liberal Judaism, but not by Orthodox Jews.
Our case is that the refusal of the place to M was not an act of race discrimination, Pannick said.
Pannick said M was rejected because and only because of the religious criteria applied by the Chief Rabbi as to who is Jewish.
The hearing is scheduled to last three days.
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"Since when are Jews only orthodox?" When they want to go to an Orthodox school.
serves us right, there are things we can't away with dancing in 2 weddings!
Halachic law which insists on a mothers Jewish origin creates and has created a mountain of problems for Jews. The tip of the iceberg is visible with the conflict which has arisen here. The part under the surface which we cannot see is the damage caused between Jews. The conflict between families who have married non Jews and the self-perception of the children from those families is an issue that is an open sore. This is a kind of global warming for Judaism and however hard traditionalists try to maintain Halchic law as being written in stone they will find that even stone erodes with time and that the great orthodox iceberg has melted
Having attended a Catholic school in the states we had a few Jewish students. We could not refuse admission because of their religion. The drawback for them was that they had to suffer through religion class with us. So I think the UK is similar in and that it would be considered discrimination to not allow the student in.
The mother is Jewish; she had converted to Judaism and this vests her with a full Jewish identity. The halacha recognise a covered Jewish person as Jewish for all intent an purposes. the governors of the school, for reasons best known to themselves, are taking a stand hollier than the halacha. This is sheer hypocrisy.
It is lame excuse to put muslims into the equation. Muslims are not defined by birth like you do... The convert or the one born in muslim parents are the same. There is not Sheikh sitting somewhere in London and seperating who is muslim and who semi-muslim. It is only you who have diffrent catergories. A real jew, "kind" of jew and the list goes on.
In considering why this practice is considered sacrosanct, consider its root and then reflect upon its position in today's world. A Jewish Mother would ensure there was some Jewish lineage in the child. That is - some Jewish lineage ensured a person was considered Jewish. Where the mother was not Jewish, in earlier times, there could be no certainty that the seed had come from someone with Jewish lineage - hence there was doubt (and consider the judgmental times then). Reflecting upon this understanding opens up many many possibilities to include (not judgmentally exclude) people who have the lineage, have the identity (raised Jewish) and have the desire to identify. Get to the root of these practices, reflect upon their assumptions, think and respond accordingly - not blindly. I empathise with the family who experienced the discrimination.
Well you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. I thought Jews were anxious to prove that they are a race and not just a religion. If you don't want to be referred to as an ethnic minority then I guess its just a religion after all.
His mother did convert before he was born, which would make the boy Jewish. However, I agree that the government cannot force the school to recognize the conversion.
There is more than meets the eye here. See Alderman's piece in The Guardian this weekend: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/oct/24/jonathan-sacks-jews-free-school/print
if the childs mother converted before the child was born then he is Jewish... If the mother converted after the birth... then the child in question needs to convert before attending said school... I wonder if Antient Jews would not consider me to be jewish becuase i cant go to the temple mount and give burnt offerings?
THe mother and father want this chld to go to a Jewish school, The mother converted but not the way the the extreme Jew would like. You ask why we are losing our youth. Just look at the stupid things done to the kids
You just did not understand the ruling. They never said there is no jewish religion. They said the jews were an ethnic group wich is obvious since some jews are not religious at all and are still jews. The definition of who is a jew is so controversal that it is the principal reason there is no constitution in Israel. Ben Gurion for instance declared that a jew is a person who declares bona fide that he is a jew, wich of course is not coherent with the orthodox definition. Somebody can be a jew for a reform rabbi and a non jew for a conservative one. So the only objective definition of a jew is the appartenance of a people,an ethnic group. Your analogy is false. A jew can be an atheist,a catholic by definition cannot. Catholics are not an ethnic group. If a catholic stops believing in God he stops being a catholic. If a jew stops believing in God he still remains a jew.
I am not a religious Jew but I am a traditionalist who believes in Jewish law that to be Halachaly a Jew your mother has to be one. That is what determines a Jew in Judiasm and that can not be changed. It is an outrage to tell us otherwise. As a father with 2 children in a UK Jewish school this story is of great concern to me and others. I guarantee they would not dare tell an Islamic school who is a Muslim and why.
British Jews must go to court to have Judaism listed as a religion, no different from any other established religion. I doubt a catholic school would be deemed racist for refusing entry to muslim students. Why then should a Jewish school need to admit what they consider as non-Jewish students? When & why did UK decide Judaism is not a religion? This is such an outrage.