cantfindafreenickname : there's a new Jewish school, JCoSS, opening in East Barnet - and it gives priority to Jewish children denied entry to other Jewish schools. In other words, your kids would be top of the list.

I see myself as ethnically Jewish and I go to a reform synagogoue for my children's sake and for the communal aspects. But i don't really believe in any of it.

I went to JFS and most of the kids were completely non-religious. The orthodox bit used to annoy me but apart from Jewish Studies lessons, you didn't really notice it.

The worst part of Jewish schools is that Jewish people in the UK are very homogenous and you're not mixing with any kids who don't look like you. Hardly reflects London life. For that reason, I think it's sad that there's also Sikh and Hindu state schools now.

That said, I'm completely hypocritical because I'd totally send my kids to JFS if they didn't get into any other good schools or I couldn't afford private. The education there is first class - but we better join a synagogoue jsut in case because they obviously can't rely on their luck that I happen to be Jewish to get in now (quite right too I think) [hmmm]

surely if JFS base the criteria on membership of an orthodox synagogue then that would do the job. The orthodox synagogue would do the selection process for them !!

incidentally, JFS once refused entry to someone whose mother converted to judaism in ISrael and whose conversion was recognised by the Chief Rabbi of Israel. Apparently the child wasn't jewish enough for them.

but what really pees me off, is that because my own mother converted in the reform synagogue, my children are denied access to most jewish schools. This is despite the fact that we practise the jewish faith. we only have access to one local school that recognises us as jewish yet come admission application time and all of the "orthodox recognised" jewish families join the reform synagogue to get the places.

The distinction that is being made between Jews of different synagogues in this country is tearing the religion apart. Now that this ruling has happened we need to take note and take a warning and unify as one religion.

Thunderduck I think people who convert to Judaism are Jewish. (And often more Jewish than those who are born into it!!)

In this case what defines them as Jews is their religion, as opposed to non-religious Jews who are Jewish by ethnicity or cultural identity.

And where does that leave converts to Judaism Seriouscat?

Chaya - with all respect - this country is so far removed from a christian country as its possible to be.

True Christians are raised above the bonds of culture and race, it is not important, what is important is the unity of the body of Christ - based on the truth of the Bible and not mans traditions.

Oh and the school was being ridiculous! And discriminatory.

I have an issue with faith schools on the whole - so I expect to be unimpressed with their behaviour - but this is by far the worst I've heard yet!

I think that cultural identity is a sensible way of describing being Jewish, and preferable to race or religion.

Interestingly, my father (who is a complete atheist, but obsessed with Jewish history) told me something interesting ages ago. Apparently they have found with DNA studies that all Jews: ashkenazi, sephardim, mizrahi, etc., are genetically linked and descended from common Middle Eastern ancestors. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew#Genetic_studies Despite being in Europe for thousands of years, European Jews are genetically distinct from non-Jewish Europeans. So - I suppose you could say it is an ethnicity too. (race is a loaded and provocative word)

HerBeatitudeLittleBella much like you described: My family was completely non-religious going back generations... but I still see myself as Jewish. Why? It was our family's cultural identity - if not religious one. Plus, it's in my looks, it's in my mannerisms, and importantly, it's in my family history, (particularly as a decendent of holocaust survivors). When my non-Jewish friends question why I say I'm Jewish (knowing I'm not religious), and I am often unable to articulate exactly why I feel that I am.

To add: I agree with your cultural identity terminology, eminently sensible.

onagar not quite sure what gave you the impression that I didn't "understand" the thread. I read the link with interest, then saw your comment (amongst others):

"well it would help if Jewish people called themselves Israeli or something because the same word is also used to speak of their ethnic origin."

Chaya at 16:44:20 responded to this much more eloquently than I did, but I'll take it on the chin that I have been a tad childish in my response. It got my goat at the time.

SGM I agree with the judgement FWIW, although I do think it is problematic that the judges should find that "Jews constituted a racial group defined principally by ethnic origin and additionally by conversion". Let's say you are an indigenous Papuan, you don't suddenly become part of the Jewish ethnic group because you convert to Judaism. But your children should be eligible to attend a Jewish school providing they too are following the Jewish religion, and they shouldn't be discriminated against because they aren't ethnically Jewish. Just my opinion.

I don't actually believe in categorising people by 'race'. I think once we start to identify people by race we are already working within a racial discourse that presupposes the inherent superiority or inferiority of specific groups. The word ethnic has now replaced the word race in general discourse without looking at why the word race is problematic. Ethnicity assumes a common genetic heritage as opposed to the practise of identity which is why I use cultural identity.

The prevalence of the genetic mutation of Tay-Sachs occurs in 3 specific groups : Ashkenazi, French-Canadian, and Cajun [Louisiana]. Yet, we talk about Tay-Sachs as a 'Jewish' disease when it isn't genetically. It doesn't occur in Jewish people of Sephardi descent. It isn't associated with Jewish communities in Israel who aren't descended from the Ashkenazi It is specific to people of Eastern European Jewish descent. [Since the genetic testing was developed in the 1970s, T-S has been almost eradicated especially amongst descendants of the Ashkenazi]

It's a horrid thought that my friend's children would be considered 'impure' or 'lesser' creatures by members of the same ruddy religion.

Mind you, my Catholic grandmother used to pray very hard to keep my sister and I out of hell because we'd been Christened CofE so were clearly at risk!

I'm glad someone sees the irony

Being Jewish may be a matter of cultural identity as well as religion but the JFS was clearly discriminating on grounds of racial purity with the whole 'not unless your mother was born Jewish' approach. Which is rather ironic.

Hmmm. Cunning...

oh yes, cultural identity that's useful.

This is why the words are the problem. Suppose you said that to believe in the Jewish faith is to be 'Jewist', but to be descended from Jews is to be Jewish.

Then you could say "I'm a Jew, but I'm not Jewist. He's not a Jew, but he is Jewist"

I would argue that its a cultural identity not an ethnic identity.

But it is though partly. I have a few friends who are raging atheists and/ or very secular, humanist, agnostic, woolly liberal types etc., and they are about as Jewish as I am, religiously speaking. But they would be hugely offended if you said they're not Jewish - they would describe themselves as Jewish, even though they have never been brought up in the Jewish faith, nor were their parents, and in one case, nor even her grandparents - the last time anyone lit a menorah in her family was about 4 generations ago. But she'd slap me if I said she's not really Jewish, she is. So it isn't just a faith, is it? It's also a political/ social/ ethnic identity.

And yes, they would all have been eligible to go to that school. Wrongly IMO. (But then I don't think religion is a good reason to refuse access to a school either, but that's a different discussion.)

I think the judges should reword their decision though as that is pretty messy.

chaya5738, Yes thank you. Though the whole thing is and will remain hard to discuss until we stop using the same term for a religion or a faith.

I have no sympathy for a school administration that thought it could have restrictions based on enthnic origin. Do you?

Chaya - I think this is my biggest problem with the judgment is that is using the same confused constructions of Jewish identity as appear in the Nuremberg laws especially since I really don't believe that Judaism is an ethnicity.

(Apologies for assuming that if it's wrong Milkmonitor)

Onagar, have you actually read the judgments and understand what the legal issues and context actually are?

I suspect she prefaced her post with the "I am Jewish" comment to deflect accusations of anti-semitism.

I also object to MilkMonitor prefacing her post with "I am Jewish" as though that can then protect her from saying ridiculous generalisations about JFS, Judaism and the Jewish Community.

Saying that all Jews should move to Israel if they were truly religious is total BS (not least because many religious Jews don't support the State of Israel eg: the Satmar sect).

You aren't speaking for all Jewish so please just put your views forward without having to rely on the fact that you are Jewish to give them validity.

"Chaya I disagree with you on the types of Jewish identity in WWII. The Nazis didn't care if someone wasn't practising the Jewish faith as long as 1 grandparent was Jewish, the person was Jewish. The Nazis defined a grandparent as Jewish if they practised the Jewish faith. This judgment seems to be as confused about Jewish identity as the Nazis were"

Yes, I know that. That was my point - one can be ethnically/racially Jewish (as people were considered to be by the Nazis) and not be religiously (in an Orthodox sense) Jewish.

Smultronstallet, I missed your post there. Would you like to spell out who I would be prejudiced against since I don't know if the school administration are ethnically jewish or Irish. If you try and put it into words you may then understand what the thread is about.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the police have to treat an attack as racially motivated if the victim believes it to be racially motivated. So it might not have been, but if the victim thinks it is, then it is defined as such.

Hmmm, but in your example there it really wouldn't have been a racist act would it.

A drunk idiot calls every passerby a name which to some is racist and the fifth victim fits that word so it becomes a racist attack, but it isn't for the other four. Not that the idiot deserves much sympathy, but it would be wrong in principle.

I'd like to think the police/cps exercise some common sense, but I'm not confident.

I think it could be worded to work though. People do use words which have racist meaning which they don't necessarily intend to be racist. In that case, the use of the word would make it a racist attack even if the perpetrator was an imbecile and didn't know it was racist.

A mugging in a dark alley wouldn't be unless you could prove that the perpetrator deliberately targeted a specific area because of the ethnic communities in the area.

I'd be a bit worried about 'perceived intent' since every mugging even when it was pitch dark could be perceived to be racist.

I think perceived intent would count as well.

Snap

Yes ISWYM. The only thing is, I thought they had to define racial discrimation according to whether the victim perceived it as racially motivated, rather than the perpetrator? so it's not intent as such, but perceived intent. Is that not correct?

It is racist discrimination because the intent is racist discrimination [does this make sense?]

People who were attacked because they were of Jewish descent (race not religion) would be protected under race laws. They would even be protected if it was a mistake and they were not of Jewish descent at all since it would be the motives of their attackers that would matter.

I actually think they would be covered under the racial discrimination law because I think it is the intent of the person acting which is important in racial discrimination not whether or not the victim meets some specific guideline of what is race versus religion. So targeting someone because you think they are Jewish is racist/religious discrimination because of the intent. iyswim?

chaya5738, People can call themselves what they like. You have missed the point.

It is clearly wrong and also illegal to say that 'all black/chinese/asian people are greedy/good dancers/whatever' People of a particular race can be all kinds of things good and bad. Their race doesn't define them. Therefore we made it illegal to oppose someone on account of their race.

Opposing a religion is another matter. For example I oppose religions that practice ritual mutilation as you will see on another thread. That includes Jews as well as several others. I therefore have a reason and not 'cos they are a different color or have different features'

That is why they had trouble wording a law to cover religion. Because there IS no way to define religious discrimination as it isn't a crime to disapprove of what people actually do/say/believe.

In some threads on here people tried to say that you couldn't say anything bad about the jewish faith because that is racist. They were incorrect, but this is tried sometimes and they rely on the same term meaning both race and religion. The school in question has tied itself in a knot trying to work the system in the same way.

But SGM, what would you do about people who are of Jewish descent but haven't practised for 2 or 3 generations, who then wouldn't come under race relations or religious laws if they were the subject of anti-semitic attack? I'm sure the BNP are no more enlightened than the nazis in terms of who they target, and if you don't have a clause where you can define Jewish as an ethnicity, that group would not be covered by either race or religious discrimination laws.

onagar prejudiced much? Jeez

That is my problem with the decision because Jews aren't an ethnicity. It is a religion. The Sephardi and Ashkenazi have very different cultural and linguistic practises but both are Jewish. The Sephardi are Mediterranean with communities in Spain and Greece. The Ashkenazi are north-eastern European. Both communities were nearly wiped out by the Nazis. There are Jewish communities in China [specifically Shanghai] who are ethnically Chinese.

I do think that we should have a religious hatred law similar to that of the racial hatred laws. Judaism and Islam are both religions which face huge discrimination in this country but they are not 'race'.

I think its a very weird judgment.

Chaya I disagree with you on the types of Jewish identity in WWII. The Nazis didn't care if someone wasn't practising the Jewish faith as long as 1 grandparent was Jewish, the person was Jewish. The Nazis defined a grandparent as Jewish if they practised the Jewish faith. This judgment seems to be as confused about Jewish identity as the Nazis were.

It is using the ethnic definition, not the faith one. I think the school is allowed to discriminate purely on faith grounds (as all faith schools are), but they're saying here that they weren't, they were discriminating on racial grounds

Ah yes so the court is using the ethnic definition in this case and saying the school is not allowed to? But it is allowed to use the faith definition? Is that right?

I am Jewish.

My guess is that the judgement will stand. JFS is a racist school and it promotes racism and supremacy. Most religious schools do.

I would remind JFS that Ruth, the Great Grand Mother of King David was not Jewish.

I would also remind JFS that Jacob as we all know had 12 sons who became the 12 tribes, but not all of them were by Rachel and Leah.Some were by his non Jewish maids.

Judaism is so intrinsically linked to the land of Israel. If you are a true Jew, if you call yourself Orthodox, you should move to Israel today. If you don't then your orthodoxy is a charade.

I would also say that orthodox Jewry is at odds with equality. The bible treats women (except for the odd few who have children to famous men) as second class citizens. Non Jews are third class citizens.

There is very little religion in the bible and what is in there is mostly outdated.

Makes you wonder why a non orthodox Jew would want to send their kids to an orthodox school. They'll just get bullied and treated like scum.

A better way to understand Jewish identity is more in terms of citizenship. So, for example, you could have a person who is born in the US or has a US parent, and therefore is automatically an American citizen. They may not necessarily do "american" things like celebrate the 4th of July or eat Turkey at Thanksgiving. Then, you could have someone who became an American citizen by applying for citizenship, going through the tests etc. but was actually born British. Then, you have some Americans who are born in the US to US parents and are fully involved in American activities.

Oh wait, the definition of religion as CofE may just be for the purposes of blasphemy:
"Another case[138], reaffirming that the protection of the blasphemy law extended only to the beliefs of the Church of England and that Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" book could not be prosecuted for blasphemy against Islam".
Not too sure about on discrimination grounds

onagar, your posts are so confused and bizarre. They make no sense at all. And where they do they are actually quite offensive. Why should Jewish people have to call themselves Israeli simply to help you out? Catholics don't have to call themselves Italian.

Dispproving of the Jewish faith isn't racial discrimination but saying or doing prejudicial things against Jewish people is.

You can have it both ways actually - someone can be religiously Jewish but not racially (ie: they have converted). And someone can be racially/ethnically Jewish but not be religiously Jewish because they don't practice or their mum wasn't Jewish. Or someone can be both racially and religiously Jewish. World War Two demonstrated these different types of Jewish identity sadly and clearly.

I think the reason people are struggling to get their heads around this complicated concept of Jewish identity is because they have grown up in a Christian country and therefore can only understand religious group membership in terms of Christian criteria.

so the issue was that: because the mother's Reform conversion was not recognised, and being Jewish is matrilineal, her son was not considered Jewish so could not be admitted

From the article:
"The three judges - Lords Justice Sedley and Rimer, and Lady Justice Smith - said it was clear that Jews constituted a racial group defined principally by ethnic origin and additionally by conversion."

But the court isn't treating jewishness as an ethnicity in this case, is it, it is saying the school is and it's illegal because faith schools can only discriminate on religious grounds, not racial ones?

Or have I misunderstood?

But they didn't class muslims as an ethnicity, which is why I think there has been discussion about religious discrimation.

Someone once told me that they didn't originally introduce religious discrimination laws at the same time as race discrimination laws because it would have caused lots of trouble with northern ireland which was based on religious discrimination. I don't know if that's true though.

I wonder if the court's decision to treat being Jewish as an ethnicity rather than religion is to do with the fact that in England and Wales, legally speaking, on CofE is regarded as a "religion". (this is purely legally speaking). The reason is that they started trying to define what religion is, and got into huge knots over it (for example, Jewish vs. Wicca) so decided to just stick with the state religion as the definition of "religion". For many others, they did class them as "ethnicities", so as to still have them captured for discrimination purposes. I believe, for example, that under the law if you are ultra-orthodox Jewish you are considered an ethnic minority, regardless of whether or not you are 100% "ethnically"/genetically Jewish.

As for the ruling: as the JFS website says, ""The outlook and practice of the School is Orthodox." which means that it falls under the Jurisdiction of the United Synagogue. All Orthodox Jewish organisations do not consider non-Orthodox conversions to be valid, so they do not consider the mother's conversion to be valid.

"I find it very troubling that we are still circumscribed by the discourse of Jew=race and not Judaism as a faith."

Well it's that dodgy school which is insisting on Jew=race as opposed to religion. Very dodgy indeed.

There are valid reasons why the state might sometimes define Jewish as a racial notion rather than a religious one, because a non-religious Jew is just as likely to be the victim of anti-semitic discrimination or attack as a religious Jew. I can't remember if we've got a law against religious discrimination, there's been a lot of discussion about introducing one, but I'm not sure if it's been done. However, even if we did have, it would not cover anti-semitic discrimination against non-religious Jews, so you would still need an ethnic definition of Jewish in order to protect that group. Sikh's are also described as an ethnic group under race relations law, I think because they would not have been covered by race discrimination if they were specifically targeted for their religion, but I'm not sure. But technically, anyone can become a Sikh, you don't have to be from the Punjab to convert. So it's a bit of an anomoly, but a practical one.

I know it's wicked of me, but I found this amusing because they must be frantically consulting now. "err which way around do we define it so we get to carry on doing what we want?"

Takes us back to the old argument about why taxpayers' money should be used to fund religious indoctrination, then.

(My Catholic-school-educated father says the purpose of Catholic schools is to stuff children full of fairy stories and terrify them into obeying the church. )

I think CofE schools is a different animal, edam, what with the CofE being the established church and all.

For catholic schools, educating dc in the faith will pretty much be the stated aim, assuming that they have a reasonably high proportion of catholics. And I'm guessing most non-christian schools will see their purpose similarly.

It's the not-quite-complete-overlap of judaism the religion with jewishness the ethnicity that makes this case so distinctive -- there are no parallels in any other faith, really.

c&P from teh JFS website:

"The outlook and practice of the School is Orthodox. One of our aims is to ensure that Jewish values permeate the School. Our students reflect the very wide range of the religious spectrum of British Jewry. Whilst two thirds or more of our students have attended Jewish primary schools, a significant number of our Year 7 intake has not attended Jewish schools and some enter the School with little or no Jewish education. Many come from families who are totally committed to Judaism and Israel; others are unaware of Jewish belief and practice. We welcome this diversity and embrace the opportunity to have such a broad range of young people developing Jewish values together."

Given that they're okay with taking kids with no background in Jewish practice (unlike the Hassidic schools, say), i'd have thought they'd be on very dodgy ground refusing a child on the basis that he isn't ethnically Jewish enough.

And it would appear the Appeal Court agree.

'one' i.e. a statement of purpose (tempted to say mission statement but that would be an awful pun and I am trying VERY hard to resist, honest...)

Is that the stated purpose of religious schools? Just realised I've never seen one. Back in ye olden days when I went to a CofE middle school I'm not sure there was any of the fuss you get now, it was just the local school.

It's an interesting case tho. Because most over-subscribed non-jewish faith schools do have what is essentially a test of religious practice. They can define that in different ways, eg. baptism within x months of birth, first communion by age 8, attending church x no. of weeks a year, participating in parish activities, letter from priest, or any combination of the above.

And I guess for most children wanting to be admitted to Jewish schools, there would effectively be a very large overlap between the ethnic and religious criteria. But because the school is so oversubscribed, you have secular, non-practising families wanting admission and being given priority over families who actively practise their faith but are not considered Jewish (or not Jewish enough, ethnically speaking). Which does seem wrong really, given that the stated purpose of a faith-based school is to support families who want their children educated in the practice of that faith.

I am still waiting for the day faith schools in general are declared as illegal.

Until the schools stop dividing our children along religion (and therefore so often race lines) the racism in this country is going to remain.

About time too - have seen stories about the JFS before and wondered how on earth they were getting away with this.

It is an interesting story and comes on the back of quite a lot of religious schools (of all types) in this general area of london being found to be breaking the rules about who could go and couldn't anyway. People having to pay "donations" to get in, schools asking illegal questions such as employment and education levels of parents and so on.

Personally I am against the idea of state funded schools being able to discriminate on the grounds of religion at all. So to me it makes little difference whether they are operating discrimination based on where you go to church, who your mother is, what you wear on your head or where you go to worship.

If the school accepted pupils who were christian/atheist/muslim in terms of their religious practice, on the basis that the child's mother was jewish and therefore the child would be jewish by default, it does seem that the decision is based on ethnicity rather than religious practice.

Jewish as in , carrying the blood/genes of a mother who is Jewish. Rather than Jewish as in observant of the religious practices.

Think is a very interesting situation.

Well, the Appeals Court sort of does -- after all, in more Orthodox Judaism in particular it's very difficult to convert in and so de facto there is a racial/ethnic/however you care to define it element to Judaism. IIRC you can identify the Cohenim by their Y-chromosomes, for example (although of course that is patrilineal rather than matrilineal). But by saying that a school can't discriminate in favour of Judaism as a race/ethnic group, only in favour of Judaism as a faith system divorced from questions of ethnicity, it seems to be arguing that any such racial/ethnic component ought to be disregarded by any state-sponsored enterprise. I think.

That would make more sense to me PortandLemon . I didn't read it that way which is why I was confused. It seemed to imply that the Appeals court recognised Judaism as a race rather than a religion [but am more than willing to be wrong about this]

Have to take DD to a recital. Will be back so not skipping out on debate.

Mmmm, but as I understand it (and I may be getting the wrong end of the stick) it was the school that was operating in terms of Jewishness as a race and not Judaism as a faith (i.e. child from non-practising family that was impeccably Jewish for generations was given precedence over child from devout practising family where the mother was a convert and hence not Jewish enough) and the judgement was that you can't do that -- i.e. was in favour of treating Judaism as a faith group rather than an ethnicity.

I realise not all Jewish people ARE israeli of course. It's just that the two things must be seperated and that would be as good a term as any.

I'm not Jewish, but as far as I'm concerned being jewish is a religion and .. well it would help if Jewish people called themselves Israeli or something because the same word is also used to speak of their ethnic origin.

Additionally, (even on MN) disapproving of the Jewish Faith has been claimed to be racial discrimination. To say that is to claim that it is a race not a religion.

I think it can't be had both ways.

[must preview ]

solely as an ethnicity. This buys into the discourse of racism. ...

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8118828.stm

I am in two minds about this decision. I have always thought that the Jewish school referred to in the decision was standing on very shaky ground on their admissions criteria. I understand that the Jewish faith is passed down by the mother but I have never felt this was an acceptable use of the admissions criteria. Basing admissions on the practise of faith rather than matrilineal birthright seems to be a 'fair' way of assessing admissions, although I do understand that it is difficult to assess.

I do agree that they should not be allowed to base admissions on whether or not a childs mother was born into the Jewish faith as opposed to a practising Jew, however the article states:

<It was clear that Jews constituted a racial group defined principally by ethnic origin and additionally by conversion.

To discriminate against a person on the ground that they were or were not Jewish was therefore to discriminate on racial grounds.

"The motive for the discrimination, whether benign or malign, theological or supremacist, makes it no less and no more unlawful."

They said: "The refusal of JFS to admit M was accordingly, in our judgment, less favourable treatment of him on racial grounds.>

I find this quite troubling since I don't believe Judaism is an ethnicity. It is faith practised by millions of people across the world, many of whom have very little in common in terms of language and cultural practise - such as the divisions between the Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities across Europe.

I think its only using the kind of racial theory that Informed Nazism that you can define a faith group which might have an ethnicity associated with it solely as an ethnicity buys into the discourse of racism. I find it very troubling that we are still circumscribed by the discourse of Jew=race and not Judaism as a faith.