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MANNA 106: Winter 2010

Written by Rabbi Dr. Tony Bayfield Tuesday, 17 August 2010

The JFS case hardly represents British Jewry’s finest hour. Yet it signals change and should lead to further change. For the better.

For some years JFS has been taking a more and more stringent attitude on eligibility for admissions. Stringent translates the Rabbinic Hebrew machmir which, in some circles, is regarded as a virtue. In this instance it is better translated as objectionable or misguided. Whether this is the policy of the JFS Governors or the London Beth Din or Rabbi Lord Sacks is not clear.

When a child applied to JFS whose mother is a non-Orthodox convert but a committed, practicing Jew by anyone’s standards, the need for a sensitive and sensible response, not unheard of in the past, was called for. But JFS opted for stringency and the parents eventually resorted to the courts.

There was still scope for finding a sensible response within the confines of the Jewish community but JFS chose to fight. The initial High Court case established the battle ground, the 1976 Race Relations Act. Many within the community publicly expressed anxiety about the use of the courts. Is it desirable for the state to intervene in how a religious community determines who is a member and who is not? Particular alarm was expressed over the use of the Race Relations Act. JFS won in the High Court. It chose not to be magnanimous.

Appeals followed and the child won in both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. In the course of the two judgements it was confirmed that Jews are an ethnic group under English Law, and that defining a Jew as someone who is a Jew either by descent or by conversion is an ethnic
definition. This, in the area of a school’s admissions policy, is discriminatory and breaches the Race Relations Act. Jewish schools may not admit according to the traditional definition of who is a Jew, descent or conversion, but must apply a faith test.

The Supreme Court verdict of discrimination, either direct or indirect, was made by a majority of seven to two. Few think that the Supreme Court could have reached any other conclusion though it is clear that a number of members of the Supreme Court did not relish involvement in the issue.

The JFS case is unfortunate because many share the view of Lord Phillips, one of the judges, that applying race relations legislation to matters of Jewish status is not desirable. The JFS case is extremely frustrating because Jews are not an ethnic group. We are a people bound together by ties of family and history. We are a religious culture populated by people who find meaning in that culture in many different ways – prayer, Zionism,
social action, education, family life and philanthropy are just a few examples of the characteristics of individual Jewish journeys today.

JCoSS, the new cross-communal secondary school, is not best pleased at being told to apply a faith test when it wishes to be open to all Jews who want a Jewish education for their children. It will cope. But it does not deserve to have been caught in the backwash of JFS ‘stringency’. It has been widely known that the Orthodox establishment in this country increasingly includes in its theology an explicit absolutism or, rather, declares its absolutism to be an indispensable article of theology. Whether for reasons of genuine belief or in pursuit of power and control, it arrogates to itself the sole right to determine who is a Jew.

The community has lived with that for some time and the emergence of a network of Progressive and cross-communal schools over the last quarter of a century has been an articulate response. ‘Let us not only admit all who want a Jewish education but let us provide a different kind of Jewish education, pluralist, respectful, modest in its truth claims’. Against that JFS has just spent up to a million pounds claiming very publicly that Orthodox Judaism is the only true form of Judaism, that non-Orthodox rabbis are not authentic teachers of Torah, that non-Orthodox Batei Din have no authority and that non-Orthodox converts are not Jews.

The immediate response of JFS to its defeat in the Supreme Court was to seek instant legislative change via the Board of Deputies. That would have required cross-communal consensus. And there is no such consensus. Indeed, straw polls suggest that there is widespread disapproval of JFS’ actions. The London Beth Din’s growing stringency over who is a Jew does not sit well with the needs of a community which recognises both the ethical and pragmatic importance of inclusivity. The absolutist position flies in the face of a reality where it is clear that it is not just the Orthodox who care about Jews and Judaism. Religious pluralism is a major source of the vitality of British Jewry.

The Liberal, Masorti and Reform communities now account for more than 33% of synagogue affiliations in the UK. It is manifest that, having been subjected to a one million pound assault on their legitimacy and authenticity, they are not going to support those who have unsuccessfully attacked them. They may well agree to a change in the law removing the Race Relations Act from the determination of Jewish status but not at the price of a return to the status quo ante. Such a change must in any case be sanctioned by Parliament.

The JFS case is embarrassing and misguided, a true example of a community washing its dirty linen in public because a minority cannot keep private their belief in their own absolute rightness. It has been an extraordinarily costly diversion with unfortunate consequences. The case nevertheless indicates change. The Orthodox power-brokers can no longer ignore the reality of Liberal, Masorti and Reform Judaism. We are clearly now a pluralist community in which leadership is more widely distributed.

Can the Orthodox community now quietly and without losing too much face accept the reality of the new Jewish world in which it lives and find a way of working with the rest of the community without resorting to the courts and to offensive, unsupportable, absolutist doctrines?

Can the Liberal, Masorti and Reform communities rise beyond a justified sense of vindication and provide responsible, collaborative leadership to a community in which every single Jew matters?

MANNA believes that the answer to both questions is ‘yes’.