The British Dare to Determine Who Is a Jew

Every once in a while a story comes along so jolting that it is scarcely believable. One such story was that which appeared in the New York Times of all places this past Sunday about how the Jews' Free School in London has been ordered to admit a child whose mother had a non-orthodox conversion after the child's parents sued. I will not enter here into the ongoing and bitter divide in England between orthodox and progressive Jews. It was a battle that I witnessed and worked hard to mend through countless essays and public forums over the eleven years that I lived in the UK. Less so will I address the very pressing questions of Jewish status as determined by conversion on the part of Judaism's three major branches. I am a passionately orthodox Jew who is equally passionate about Jewish unity. Our divisions must indeed be addressed and healed. But this shocking story in Britain raises something far more pressing that is of equal concern to orthodox and non-orthodox alike.

What is mind-boggling is how a British court of appeals, which ruled against the school, said that the Jewish community's ancient tradition of deciding Jewishness through parenthood is ethnically-based, discriminatory and therefore unlawful.

"The requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or conversion, is a test of ethnicity, which contravenes the Race Relations Act," the court said. Whether the reasons were "benign or malignant, theological or supremacist makes it no less and no more unlawful." In an astonishing ruling, the court said that if the child practiced Judaism then he is Jewish. But to base it on his parents was an unlawful emphasis on ethnicity rather than on religious faith. One can immediately understand the implications for Jews who are not at all observant. Presumably the British government would not consider them Jews.

Now, let's put aside for a moment the unbelievable infringement of government in the affairs of a religion and focus instead on the court's rationale. In you are living in Britain you become a citizen automatically if your parents are British. Even if you don't behave particularly British, or hate the country of your birth, the UK cannot take away your passport. And if you're an American living abroad, your children automatically acquire American citizenship. I should know because six of my nine children were born in Britain. And even though only one of their parents was American and living in Europe to boot, they automatically became Americans. Even if you never celebrated the Fourth of July or ever heard of Abraham Lincoln, you and your children are as American as George Washington himself.

So is it really that difficult for British judges to understand that peoplehood is conveyed through a parent?

The Jews are first and foremost a people and only secondary a faith. We were the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob before we received the Torah at Mt. Sinai and began practicing Judaism's tenets. Peoplehood comes first and is completely independent of any kind of religious affirmation. Jewishness is not something that can be lost and it is not something that can be renounced.

In this sense Judaism is radically different to Christianity which is a conscious act of affirmation. While there cannot be atheist Christians there are plenty of atheist Jews.

I am gobsmacked that a British court is challenging this. In my eleven years living in Britain I never heard anything so outrageous. This ruling constitutes a legal assault on the very integrity of the Jewish religion as practiced in Britain and is a watershed moment in modern Jewish history. And with all the recent stories of British academics seeking to bar their Israeli counterparts from conferences and the rise of anti-Semitic incidents in the British isles, it will only further cement world opinion that Britain is a country that is becoming hostile to Jews.

Being a people does not make us a homogeneous ethic group. There are black Jews and white Jews, European Jews and Asian Jews. Converts of every ethnicity can of course join us at any time. But in so doing they are not adopting a faith but a people. They do not become merely practitioners of the Jewish faith but part of the Jewish family. A convert is transformed from an outsider into a Jewish brother or sister. But the process must of course have standards. To be a British citizen is not an arbitrary act. It takes approximately ten years of residency. Likewise, my Australian wife's naturalization as an American citizen took many years of residency and passing a test of American knowledge.

Now just imagine how absurd it would be if the United States told Britain to alter its residency requirements, or vice versa, and you can begin to understand the chutzpa of British judges trying to alter the identity requirements of a three-and-half thousand year old faith that is the precursor of Christianity.

Next week my organization, This World: The Values Network, will sponsor the first-ever conference on Jewish values. It will feature some of the world's leading Jewish personalities, including Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Yeshiva University President Richard Joel, Alan Dershowitz, Dennis Prager, Michael Steinhardt, AIPAC president David Victor and Marianne Williamson. One of our religion's principal values is community and peoplehood. For thousands of years, dispersed throughout the world, Jews have always looked out for each other. You could turn up in any city and, regardless of level of observance, you would be invited to someone's home for the Sabbath and feel like family even though just moments before you were a complete stranger. In light of this outrageous British legal challenge to this time-honored principle of Jewish peoplehood we will be adding an entire plenary devoted to explicating the special Jewish value of identity and peoplehood and hope that it will assist British Jewry in knowing that they are not alone in this critical battle.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is founder of This World: The Values Network. To register for The Jewish Values Conference, taking place in NYC on Nov. 17 and 18, go to www.thisworld.us.

 

Comments

[Shwazy]

To recap:

1. Jewish child applied to jewish school
2. School denies child based on method of conversion
3. Child's parents sue, and win

How is this not a victory for all jews?

I'm sorry sir, but you are fighting on the wrong side of justice. The court was in the right, and you sir, are discriminating on the basis of the religious beliefs of your particular sect, which the parents of the child in question do not share.

[Shwazy]

I see another, different narrative here.

Jews dare to determine if other jews are sufficciently jewish to join the club.

Religion is self-identified. You have no more right to tell a jew that they are not a jew than i do to tell a jew he/she is not a full citizen. The government was in the right here, and you sir, are not.

[DrunkenTypist]

Actually it is not the British courts deciding who is and who is not a Jew. This case came to court because the Orthodox community decided that the child's mother is not a Jew as she converted via a Reform synagogue. Accordingly it would seem, some Jews are more Jewish than others - who exactly is discriminating here?

[rf dude]

Imagine that - an argument over the meaning of laws and rules...

[PATina]

Let me know if I got this part right before I comment.

A child was denied admittance to a school because the school determined the child was not Jewish based on the mothers method of conversion to Judiasm.

[lastpost]

“I will not enter here into the ongoing and bitter divide in England between orthodox and progressive Jews.”

Isn’t the court judgement an example of the same methodology being deployed to neutralise the BNP? Requiring them to admit these they might otherwise seek to exclude. Thereby hopefully assisting dilution of entrenched prejudices.

[Rand]

To all who have decided that Jewish law is outdated and who aren't, themselves, Jewish: It's absolutely none of your business

My attitude about what defines a Jew as a Jew is simple: Anyone willing to face the bigotry which has been aimed at Jews for centuries, and is willing to say to tyhe world "I am a Jew", has every right to be considered a Jew

That said: This is a question of school-funding and the law, not really a religious matter

[Rmath]

Precisely.

[Sentientbeing09]

To all who have decided that racism is outdated and who aren't, themselves, racist: It's absolutely none of your business

My attitude about what defines a racist as a racist is simple: Anyone willing to face the bigotry which has been aimed at racists for centuries, and is willing to say to the world "I am a racist", has every right to be considered a racist

That said: This is a question of school-funding and the law, not really an ethnic matter

[Marnie1]

If the school doesn'tl like the ruling it needs to get off the government doll. If it takes government money then it must accept that the government has a right to decide, to a considerable extent, how that mone is spent based on the laws and practices of the nation as a whole.

If a group wants to protect and history of ethnic exclusion and prejudice that is up to it, as long as it does so within the law of the land doesn't expect those it exlcudes from having to pay to be excluded.

[gray375]

then i guess that means using their logic, the hejab and sharia law should be banned.

[ruthhmiller]

Rabbi, the case was based on the distinction between a religious characterization as opposed to a racial or ethnic characterization.
Determinating jewish identity from your mother's identification as a Jew results in a racial or ethnic charcterization because it depends on lineage and parentage. It is just the same process that Hitler used to troll for Jews, only his was more extensive.
We try to avoid that process in civilized society. A process that has been in effect for 5000 years has probably got some real problems in it as human society has changed during that time, and of course, so has Judaism.
I suppose if a school wants to limit its enrollment to only children born of certain kinds of mothers, it can, but I think the state cannot support such a school and that seems to be the issue here.

[HelloFunnyWorld]

To ruthhmiller,
Just chanced upon your comment~

( "Rabbi, the case was based on the distinction between a religious characterization as opposed to a racial or ethnic characterization.
Determinating jewish identity from your mother's identification as a Jew results in a racial or ethnic charcterization because it depends on lineage and parentage. It is just the same process that Hitler used to troll for Jews, only his was more extensive.
We try to avoid that process in civilized society. A process that has been in effect for 5000 years has probably got some real problems in it as human society has changed during that time, and of course, so has Judaism.
I suppose if a school wants to limit its enrollment to only children born of certain kinds of mothers, it can, but I think the state cannot support such a school and that seems to be the issue here.")
_________

Well put. Indeed very well put.
Hope the Rabbi, Marianne Williamson, David Victor, all of them, and the Rabbi's World Values Network read your comment. Jewish leadership needs to get on board with everyone everywhere wanting a better World for their children, than the current one made for us these past few decades.
Thank you.

Moms in Canada

[Rmath]

We all forget that it didn't matter to Hitler and the Nazis whether a Jew met a rabbinical purity test. Whether one was one-fourth or one-eighth or three-fourths Jewish, all went to their deaths. Being declared a Jew should not mimic the process by which one joins a country club.

[NotImpressed]

Actually I don't forget the example of Nazi policies determining who is a Jew. The lesson I would draw is that the Jewish communities, not Christian-dominated "secular" governments, should be the ones to determine who is Jewish. As Rabbi Boteach wrote, there is a wide range of thinking and policies within those communities.

[Marnie1]

But the British government is not telling the Jewish community who to consider Jewish. It is telling the school that if it takes government money it cannot exclude a student on the basis of ethnicity.
The Jewish community can shun the child, but the school can't exclude her on the grounds that it chose to use for exclusion.

[BeyondKen]

If the Jews' Free School in London do not want British government interference, they should stop taking British tax dollars. (Yes, they're a state-funded school)

[regina1]

AMEN! No tax dollars for religious education. Of any kind. Period.

[NotImpressed]

No tax dollars for religious education might be a good policy. It is not the UK's policy, and not what this ruling is enforcing.

The point of this article is that the UK's policies are based on a model of religion that has a distinct Christian bias - a religion is -something that an individual chooses and potentially changes at will. It is difficult for those with that bias to think outside of it.

[NotImpressed]

Taking funding away from all religious schools would be one thing. Taking funding away from only Jewish schools (or only this one school because of its Jewish approach to admissions) is discriminatory.

[Figural]

Rabbi, if you lived in my country for several years, you surely understand that the function of judges here is to clarify what the law passed by Parliament, is, and how it applies to the cases brought before them. The first thing to know about how our laws are interpreted, is that if the law as passed, is clear and unambiguous in its language, then that's what the law is; judges are not allowed to look any further in deciding its meaning. That applies even if the application of the law is not what Parliament intended when it debated the draft. An example is an amendment to the Rape Act passed some years ago. A misplaced comma in the draft made the amendment read that defendants should have the same protection of privacy as the victim, which Parliament never intended, and it had to pass another amendment to remove the protection.

If you want to take issue with the outcome of this case, it's the actions of the legislature that you should address, not the judiciary.

[Dubnacious]

Can you deny hat the Jewish community's ancient tradition of deciding Jewishness through parenthood is ethnically-based and discriminatory? This Ancient tradition is outdated.

[rosiebond007]

Totally outdated and discriminatory to the max.

[NotImpressed]

And what do you think of the tradition of the UK's state-funded monarchy? Is it subject to anti-discrimination laws? Is it ethnically-based and discriminatory?

[Figural]

The monarch herself isn't subject to the law of her country, some antiquated notion about the courts being hers and she can't be tried or sued in her own courts. I don't think that applies to the rest of the family.

We should be a republic – I'm working on it.

[Mortifyd]

Did we ask you? No. Unless you are one, it's not your call to say who is and who isn't - it's OURS.

[BeyondKen]

Yes. If you're taking _our_ tax money, then we have a say in how our £'s (or dollars) are spent.

[Marnie1]

But that is not the legal issue.
The legal issue is whether a publically funded school can discriminate based on ethnicity. By law, it cannot.

[caphillprof]

No sooner does his argument conclude that Jewish is a people and not a religion than he turns the argument on its head and alleges that the British court is attacking a religion and not a people.

Oy.