To stop my son from presenting as Jewish at school

[Wonderberry]

I really wish this wasn't the case.

My son wants to wear his kippah (skullcap) at school. This is entirely his choice, and something that he has chosen to start wearing recently. He just wants to express his religious and cultural background.

Unfortunately, I don't feel like he would be safe to do so. I hate that this is where we are at currently in the UK, but I know it is the reality. He goes to a community school in London, and doesn't understand why he cannot wear his kippah at school. On cultural days, he also cannot share his culture either.

After 4 decades you change ethnicity? Or did you misread and think I said generations?

So after 4 decades / generations - that's when everyone changes ethnicity?

That's good news for those who moved to Israel in 1948 then - soon people will stop being able to tell them to go back to where they came from 🙌🏻

It would be like you speaking about being Jamaican, which was established before you started talking about most Jews not having links to Israel. It was almost like you just couldn't help yourself and just had to make that specific unsubstantiated claim.

I'm not sure that's the case. The OP would have to confirm.

I misunderstood your question, we've never changed ethnicity, we are still Black Jamaicans of West African descent. Culturally, we became Jamaicans probably around the end of slavery. It's hard to say for sure without knowing the specific history of your family such as how long your ancestors were in Jamaica before slavery was abolished and if you had any ancestors that were later immigrants to Jamaica. Indentured servants and the like. My specific line have only married other Black Jamaicans with similar lineage for a long time though, and we haven't moved much in that time so our DNA consistently shows us to be of majority Black African descent.

My great grandmother was born in Safed, from a long line of people who had lived in the area, and my grandmother was born elsewhere in Palestine, pre-establishment of the state.
My other grandparents/great grandparents came from all over Europe.
I wouldn't describe myself as having ethnic links to the various countries in Europe that my grandparents/great grandparents were driven out of/fled from. My grandmother fled Vienna with relatives after Kristallnacht, as a young girl. I don't feel comfortable claiming Austria as part of my ethnic background, when my Grandmother was quite clearly shown how much they did not see her as Austrian.
The only cultural background I'd claim from Europe would be the influence the various places had on my familial Jewish traditions.

That's a stereotype of Jewish people. Half the Jewish population of the Israel have brown skin. But that doesn't sit comfortably with the narrative of the left wing.

She did, by saying Israel was only established in 1948 so someone in her child's family born since then is Israeli. So not quite 4 generations but possibly more than 4 decades. Still unsure when you decided ethnicity changes as you didn't clarify so not sure if that means it's acceptable to you or not?

I'm using ethnicity in this context as what your DNA would say. Therefore, if you had a grandparent from country X, you'd show genetic links to that country.

Separately, you can have a cultural affinity with a country because you were born and/or raised there, or have strong family ties with people who were. This may or may not be a country that you have ethnic links to.

I don't have any ethnic links to England, but it's sure as hell my country.

Bloody hell I have just googled his new song. Horrific.

So @MyOliveHelper where is the evidence for your earlier statement that the majority of Jews don't have DNA linked to Israel? Now that you've clarified that's what you mean to another poster. And how did they select which Jews to send the DNA tests to to prove this point? As my family have never been asked to do one.

I'm really not being confrontational here. But I do think it depends on the who.

I have an Uncle who was in the army. Dad's brother. He settled in Germany. Has kids and grand kids there. Those kids are German and of Afro-Caribbean descent. We still have a fair amount of contact back and forth as a family. How German does that make me?

I have a friend whose dad lives in Italy with his current Italian wife and their youngish kids. They live near her family and are definitely have more of an average modern Italian lifestyle than ex-pat or British. That means when my friend and her kids (the focus to my point) visit several times a year, they live an Italian lifestyle through their grandfather. Does that make those grandkids of Italian descent?

A school has to have higher levels of security to it's site.
You should be ashamed of yourself comparing the idea that someone may have uncomfortable things said to them with three little girls being stabbed in cold blood by a madman who had no idea about their cultural or religious backgrounds.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2017.00101/full

@Jewishbookworm

' On my side of the family we have family trees going back to King David.'

wow that's fantastic !

I would have ' reacted ' by ' liking ' or ' agreeing ' or ' loving ' but didn't feel any of them were appropriate.

so again

wow, that is fantastic, and impressive. and wonderful.

Oh do please run along with your faux naivety. I'm not buying it. There's only one person who should be ashamed here.

Wonder how well it would go down with other religions and their ethnicity being gaslit. I'm sure these desperate attempts to get a thread closed, which contains uncomfortable truths, will happen. I'm out.

Um, using this as a basis for political claims is another matter, but Jewish genetics are very well studied. Yes, we are Middle Eastern. Ashkenazi Jews are a mixture of middle eastern and southern European (possibly Italian). And we’re closely related, genetically, to Sephardi/mizrahi Jews and to Palestinians. There really isn’t any question here from a genetic standpoint. There are Jews who married out and faded into the general population, but the survivors were largely endogamous, which is why there’s such consistency on the tests. The genetics for the Y chromosome are particularly well studied and the same genes appear for both Ashkenazim and Sephardim.

ashkenazi Jews are one of the most closely studied ethnic groups. We underwent a population bottleneck that means we’re all descended from as few as 400 people.

How many DNA samples were tested? Why was only Ashkenazi DNA included?

Obviously I'm not actually expecting you to have answers to these questions because I don't actually think you've read the 'research' but rather just googled until you found a pretty picture that vaguely matched the point you were trying to make that Jewish people don't belong in Israel.

I knew that was going to be Elhaik. You might want to google him.

I’ll save people the trouble. It’s bad science and recycled Khazar theory, which is an antisemitic conspiracy.
https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/802/are-we-all-khazars-now/#

Not to mention the controversial journal it is in.

But sometimes, a point just has to be made no matter how offensive or bad the 'science' behind it is. Specially on a thread about a mum worrying about antisemitism in the UK where it obviously becomes even more important to try and prove that Jews don't belong in Israel.

Must be City of London School for Boys :)

To be honest, "if there's a doubt there's no doubt". I would oppose my child wearing kippa if I doubted his safety for a second. Yes, It shouldn't be that way. Yes, there should be a conversation and steps to change this situation.
But, your fears are clearly based on smth...

So it's like me being descended from West Africa? The only difference being that there isn't a West African country that offers people from the African diaspora automatic national identity so nobody from my family have "moved back", as it were.

I disagree. Obviously, 7yos are not mature enough to be involved in political discussions about Israel/Palestine, but I actually think it would be very healthy for them to know that their classmates may have Israeli or Palestinian heritage, particularly if both are represented in the same class. Let them play together, learn about each other's cultures and see that they are each just human beings. If anything inappropriate is said, the school should be able to deal with that... they're 7!

But even if we accept the premise that it would be too dangerous to let them talk about their Israeli or Palestinian heritage, the school still has questions to answer in my opinion. I mean, who the bloody hell thinks it is a good idea to hold a culture day in school if you're then going to prohibit certain children from sharing their cultures?

As a Jewish person, of continuous Jewish descent, that's the point. It doesn't matter which countries my ancestors lived in for a few generations at a time, my genetic history doesn't show ethnic links to these countries. Just because they lived there for a generation or two before the next progrom or whatever drove them out, doesn't mean my genetics are suddenly going to show ethnic links to these places. It would show genetic links to other Jews.