to give a limited number of religious vetos for school trips

[mini321]

My DS's school is trying to organise a school trip to the far east to encourage the development of new language courses they have put on offer recently.

The person organising quite a complicated trip is being asked by a number of parents about not flying on certain days, not using public transport on those days when away, asking that all food follows religious rules for their children - I feel the organiser will spend more time accommodating this group to the detriment of the trip as a whole.

My memories of trips to the Far East is all about the food because it is so different, seems a shame half the group will miss out but that is their concern I guess.

AIBU to suggest we put a limit to the number of restrictions? (slightly tongue in cheek here ) but would be interested if any other parents have encountered anything similar?

Maybe the atheists should get some protection from too many restrictions foisted upon them.

IMO the term Gentile is not a helpful one in this context as it does not describe what religion people actually are other than not Jewish.

Not that difficult to organise a trip trying to take religious/dietary needs into acount. A bit of a non issue I think.

IMO all this talk of (any) religion in the 21st century is a bit depressing. However it is part of our rich cosmopolitan and multicultural society and I really value the worldliness that goes hand in hand with that.

In a community school I think religious and other preferences should be sought to be accommodated as best possible. However once an itinerary and menu had been decided upon (which best incorporated these needs), it would be up to the parents to decide whether or not they wanted their children to go.

Over 50% of the children who go to my kids' community school are Muslim and there was a minority of the Muslim parents who a few years ago wanted various changes made to the school calendar to fit in with religious celebration. Things like the school being completely closed at Eid (at the the moment the Muslim children do not have to come in to school on that day but it is open to everyone else). It is when people make requests like these that I wonder why they haven't sent their dc to a faith school. I don't think the requests the parents at the OP's school are making fall into this category however.

I also agree however, with the poster who said that religious needs are not the same as SEN.

I try to explain to people here in Los Angeles how England was the most anti-semitic place I have ever lived....I think perhaps I should just give them this thread to read.

Sophia I find that shocking. I think The UK is very, very intolerant of accommodating religion, it is a particularly secular country that has had issues with sectarianism and 'religious' violence for hundreds of years.

Is that antisemitism or is it a general lack of respect for accommodating religious observance?

I do know that when I talk to the Jewish people I know here (Canada) those that lived in London dealt with the intolerant, violent scum that beat up my friends as well. The 70s were a dark time in London. Skinheads everywhere.

It is courteous, inclusive and moral to accommodate people's requirements, especially when they either have no choice themselves or make the effort to follow these requirements themselves.

But religious requirements are not comparable to SN requirements.

Practicing religion is a choice. SN is not.

To those suggesting 'just be strict vegetarian', that wouldn't be ok. Utensils, pans etc must never have touched meat / shellfish, plates the same, plus there's a lot more rules about contamination. My Orhodox friends bring a kosher pot noodle and their own fork to my house, nothing I can provide is ok, apart from some food from the supermarket in an unopened packet on a new paper plate.

My guess is that parents asking these questions are orthodox, if they are orthodox enough to request no travelling etc on Shabbat then vegetarian food just isn't going to cut it. They will want proper supervised kosher food or they will expect the children to take long life tins and packets of permitted food to be eaten off paper plates and plastic cutlery. To be fair, this should be possible and having sent their children to a non Jewish school will not expect the other non Jewish or non religious children to eat the same way they will just want it for their children.

To be honest if the tour company can accommodate those wishes, and I'm sure they have heard it 100 times before it should make no difference to the experience of the other participants

I think it might be reasonable to offer a vegetarian option, there little chance anything will be cooked in a kosher kitchen unless it is a specialist caterer.

Is there a Jewish community where you are going? I'm thinking the Jewish children might want to have dinner with a local family or spend Sabath with them.

This is the kind of thing I would love to do, I love solving problems like this where you have people with equal but sometimes conflicting needs.

Vegetarian really won't be acceptable but there are ways of having kosher good delivered. TBH it's really the problem of the parents and the organisers and really shouldn't affect the other children. I seriously doubt that the parents will send their children so it's probably a moot point anyway

YABVVVU and quite offensive to be honest. We keep Kosher (Torah Observant Christians) and have traveled extensively! It can be done very easily and not too expensively. Gefen do pot meals (think more substantial pot noodle) they just need hot water, you could take a Koshered kettle with a travel adaptor and plastic cutlery as DH does when he travels for work. Osem do lots of snacks, the peanut puffs are tasty and filling, Rauskens do

I am Jewish, although now non-practising and an atheist

Cactus, how does that work? Do you mean you used to be Jewish but you're now an atheist. Not sure how you can be both at the same time?

Like saying "I'm a vegetarian, but non practicing and I now eat meat"

sashh--I really like your positive approach .

I don't really get the tone of the op or the responses. If it was about halal and Friday prayers nobody would mind making fun and mocking the silly people who follow a religion. The amount of hatred and venom directed to Islam which I agree does have some fairly silly rules, or the outright nastiness directed to christians is fairly unique to Mumsnet and the Guardian. I have an American cooker that has a setting for Friday's so you don't have to touch it. I think that's as ridiculous.

This thread is becoming like the subway/halal thread and others I've seen over the years. The tour company is a commercial entity - it decides whether to encourage more Jews/Muslims to sign up by making it more suitable for members of those faiths. There's no coercion involved, and no religious oppression. It is of no concern to anyone else, and unclear to me why people are getting hot under the collar.

Marmite could I ask what a "Koshered kettle" is? I must admit I've not heard of this before ... probably my ignorance, but I'd have thought a kettle was "neutral" (for want of a better word!!) in that surely it's only had plain water in it ...??

I'd love to be enlightened

I think that you probably need to discuss with the parents what they would consider "good enough" and "ideal" solutions to avoid spending ages planning what you can, perhaps irrevocably changing the trip, only to find that you haven't even met the minimum standards that the parents require.

I suppose alot will depend on the places they are going to visit. Kosher food might be easily obtained in a big city (Beijing?) but impossible if they are going somewhere smaller or more remote. Perhaps the school should have a meeting with interested parents to work out what they would need to make the trip workable e.g. if Orthodox Jewish children can stay behind when others are on a trip on Sabbath? Are there any Jewish teachers who would be able to reassure parents that someone who has a deep understanding of issues will be there. Would vegetarian food be acceptable or would it have to be Kosher.

I haven't been to China but I imagine somethings might be a bit harder to accommodate than on a trip to Europe or USA or similar.

I think Cactus has been quite rude to the OP. Why shouldn't she ask questions? I imagine it will be an expensive trip and if the benefits are likely to be restricted people are entitled to ask. My family are from a variety of religions and races and I believe in equality but I also believe in free speech. People have to make some calls themselves, e.g. my children are mixed race and when their school did a trip to Eastern Europe we had to look at how they would be treated as we had heard alot about racial prejudice in some Eastern European countries. We decided to let them go and they had no problems but it was something we had to consider. Were we being racist about East Europeans? I don't think so, it was something we had read about (quite alot about trouble at football matches for example.) When I went on a school holiday my parents wanted to know if I would be able to go to mass on Sunday and if we would be able to have fish/vegetarian food on Friday. They were reassured that a Catholic teacher was on the trip and the Catholic girls would be taken to Mass by her and that a fish meal had been arranged as an option on the Friday. If they hadn't been prepared to offer a suitable meal on the Friday we would have had to decide if I was prepared to cope with that, Mass less negotiable.

All the children need to be considered and there are likely to be a number of religions and none represented on the trip if it isn't a religious school e.g. Muslim children might want Halal food, access to Mosque. RC children might want access to Mass on Sunday etc etc etc. It could go on for ever.

CactusAnnie, Interesting reply, but Jews are not a race. There are black Jews in the USA and Africa, and blonde Jews in Sweden. Gabby Roslin and Sammy Davis Junior are not the same race.

You can look at someone's DNA and guess what religion they are likely to be, but no more than that. If both your parents had converted to Islam before you were born, you'd consider yourself Muslim but you'd still have the same DNA.

I think you probably consider yourself culturally Jewish, like many people are culturally Christian. Which is fair enough. But to be Jewish, I would have thought some belief in Judaism was a requirement?

I can see this is a minefield! If the country is China, you're going to have all sorts of issues with even everyday food preferences let alone being strictly kosher for all meals! I lived in China for many years and have food allergies and the number of times I was affected by something after they had sworn blind that it didn't contain x, y, z is amazingly high I'm afraid. There is a concept of "face" that is really important in China and they would loose face if they had to admit that you couldn't eat any of their food so a lot of the time you'll just be lied too. Luckily for me my allergies are not life threatening (don't go with a nut allergy!!) but I have several vegetarian friends who basically decided that they either had to never eat out of accept that their vegetables were likely to be cooked in meat stock and/or sprinkled with pork floss!

We were back there on holiday recently and managed our issues by only eating in trusted restaurants and having self catering accommodation - not possible for a school trip I'm sure! and kind of sad to have to avoid so many fantastic street food options because of a few kids' religious beliefs.
If it's not China, it kind of depends on the level of the jewish population!

CactusAnnie perhaps you missed the bit where I suggested the school have a meeting to discuss what was acceptable/possible?

Although I went to school in the dark ages there were Jewish, Muslim, Sikh children at the school (as well as many other religions and denominations. I assume their parents asked similar questions to my parents.) I know Jewish girls went on the same trip as a Jewish girl from my form went I don't know if she was Orthodox or what accommodations were made for her, at school we had separate assemblies for Jewish girls and another one for Catholic girls as we had Jewish/Catholic teachers who were able to run them, other religions didn't get special assemblies as there weren't teachers of their religion available although the Imam came in on Fridays. My parents were told what accommodations would be made and made their decision accordingly. I assume after a meeting the same would happen at the OPs school.

Perhaps you didn't read all of my post?

If I was paying for a school trip wherever I would be very annoyed if my childs experience was being curtailed for whatever reason.

School trips are not cheap and they are going for the experience. Their everyday life and diet is not hampered by any kind of religious restriction and I would not expect them to have to observe, eat vegetarian or be restricted in any way by other peoples religious choices on a school trip I am paying for.

If people are so religious they want to impose their restrictions on a whole group its probably better that they don't go on the trip.

Cactus You have been rude and made a personal attack but the anonimity of mumsnet allows this and I was fully aware of that before posting - I haven't replied earlier as I felt your long emails with many questions were more to cause trouble than discuss the topic.

You were very quick to call me racist - I can offer one item to you. I NC as I thought this thread could attract such bile if posters were intent on twisting things. After posting the thread, waiting for responses, I read EthnicIsolation and posted a reply as I have experienced similar behaviour (I know you are checking the timestamps! so no good saying I posted later).

I was thanked by the OP, I'm not one for many words but she understood my support in her situation - I hope that is a good example of the power of Mumsnet

Now, how are you going to twist this?

HellRunner I think the expense and experience is a point but it might be possible to accommodate everyone depending on how demanding the changes are e.g. if vegetarian food is acceptable as an option it isn't going to be a problem but if it has to be kosher it might be, fish on a Friday no problem going to Mass in a country with no Catholic church problem.