Many Consider Themselves Called, but in Truth Only Few Have Been Chosen

Civitas, 30 June 2009

“The requirement that, if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or by conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act.”

So three appeal court judges decided last week.

They reached that decision, when considering whether an over-subscribed voluntary-aided Jewish school in north London had acted unlawfully in giving priority to children judged Jewish by the religious authorities to whom it looks for guidance on religious matters, in preference to children not considered Jewish by those authorities.

The case was brought by the parents of a twelve year-old boy to whom the school had refused a place because he was not Jewish according to the religious authorities on whom the school relies for guidance on these matters.

When last year the parents took the school to court, it was judged to have acted lawfully in refusing the boy a place because he was not Jewish in the eyes of that rabbinical authority. Dissatisfied with that ruling, the boy’s parents appealed against the decision, with the result it was reversed in the court of appeal last week.

The school is likely to contest last week’s decision. Doubtless, if the law lords eventually find in its favour, the boy’s parents will take the matter to the European Court of Justice on human rights grounds. By the time the case is resolved, the boy at the centre of it is likely to have become eligible for a full state pension (should there  still be such things a few years hence), and the matter have become purely one of principle.

But exactly where, as a matter of principle, does justice reside in this case?

Did the school in question act unlawfully or improperly in refusing to admit the boy on the grounds that he was not Jewish (in the eyes of the religious authority to whom it looks for guidance on religious matters), and that to give him a place, under the circumstances of its being oversubscribed, would deny a place to a child who was Jewish (according to those same authorities)?

I, for one, cannot see that the school acted at all improperly, or that its decision to deny the boy a place in any way contravened the Race Relations Act.

The religious authority to whom the school looks for guidance on religious matters is the Office of the Chief Rabbi. On purely religious grounds, it considers a child counts as Jewish if and only if the child’s mother is Jewish according to its reckoning. A child’s mother counts as Jewish in its reckoning, only if her mother was Jewish in its reckoning, or else if the child’s mother has undergone conversion in a manner that it recognises to be acceptable.

The appeal court judges have claimed that application of such a criterion transmutes being Jewish from having the status of being a purely religious matter into its being a matter of ethnicity. Whereas state-funded schools, if over-subscribed, may lawfully discriminate on religious grounds, they may not do so upon ethnic grounds. Hence, the judges concluded the school acted unlawfully by refusing the child a place.

However, has whether a child is Jewish been turned into a matter of ethnicity, rather than remain a purely religious matter,  should the question be thought to turn on whether the mother of the child is considered Jewish according to some recognised Jewish religious authority? I, for one, cannot see that it has been.

From the perspective of the religious authority in question, the Jews are a people who are individuated from others by a certain supposed lineage and who have been charged by God with a certain divine world-historic mission: namely, to act as a light unto other nations by revealing to them the existence of God and what God wants of humankind. (According to those same religious authorities, God is far less demanding of non-Jews than He is of Jews. Non-Jews need only acknowledge God and act righteously to others to qualify for salvation. For them to do so, orthodox Jews believe, they have also to observe all the numerous other requirements of the Mosaic law.)

Now, according to Jewish orthodoxy, non-Jews may convert to Judaism, should they feel they genuinely feel called upon to do so. But since, according to orthodox Jewry, the full benefits of salvation can be gained by non-Jews without their having the costs involved in terms of Jewish ritual observance, orthodox Jewry tends to be wary of the sincerity of the motives of those who seek to convert, and only recognises as a convert someone who has passed very stringent tests.

This, by the way, is a bit like the new citizenship test that has recently been introduced for immigrants seeking British citizenship. Many native-born British citizens would not be able to pass this test, but that does not disqualify them from British citizenship, nor make the test unfair for immigrants who wish to gain such citizenship.

Who counts as having satisfactorily undergone conversion to their faith is something that all religious authorities must be allowed to decide for themselves. Otherwise who does, and who does not, belong to  some faith becomes completely meaningless.

It simply begs the question to claim that the criterion employed by the Office of the Chief Rabbi to decide whether a child is Jewish unfairly privileges those whom it recognises to be Jewish above those whom it does not. From the standpoint of the Office of the Chief Rabbi, the children born to a Jewish mother, as it judges the matter, belong to a group whom God, not it, has picked out for a special world-historic mission whose fulfilment demands their living somewhat apart from others in the way orthodox Jews do so live.

Members of this group are, so far as those rabbinical authorities are concerned, at perfect liberty to opt out, although, like Jonah in the Bible, it is always open for them to reassume their place in the divinely ordained scheme of things, should they change their minds. However, in the eyes of these authorities, people are not free to opt in at will, or to decide for themselves whether their children should be considered to be members.

No one who thought that they should be free to decide these things for themselves could conceivably be employing an understanding of Judaism that was acceptable to these religious authorities.  It would make a mockery of their religion.

Jewish authorities do admit conversions – think of the story of Ruth, for example. But to satisfy themselves today of the sincerity and purity of the intent of the would-be convert, and hence of their eligibility for membership, orthodox rabbinical authorities demand would be converts satisfy certain very exacting tests. For them not to do so, would be like leaving the question of who should be allowed to drive on public highways up to the would-be drivers, rather than leaving it to qualified driving test examiners.

Of course, one can judge the whole shooting-match a load of out-dated mumbo-jumbo that a modern secular state should not in any shape or form help in any way. Certainly no one is forcing anyone to accept any of it.

But freedom of thought and association are precious freedoms, and it would be a callous person indeed, although we know there are many such people, who would consider religion insufficiently worthwhile to justify being protected by such liberties.

Of course, there are some who think that religions are worthy of such liberties, save that practised by Jews. Well, we all know where such a line of thinking has ended up in the past.

The appeal court judges have, in my view, made a terrible, terrible decision that the country will one day deeply regret was ever made, should it be allowed to prevail.