Europe’s largest Jewish school lost its right to select its pupils on religious ground due to a ruling by the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The case had been brought by a Jewish man whose son was refused admittance because his mother was deemed non-Jewish by the Chief Rabbi of England. Most of the justices dismissed the school’s appeal but hastened to add that the ruling should not be considered a finding of racism in any of the parties to the case. However, the justices added that a special exemption should be provided under the UK Race Relations Act.
Ministers fear the December 16 judgment could mean that 100 state and private Jewish schools are breaking race laws by selecting pupils who conform to their beliefs. But the UK secretary for children’s affairs, Ed Balls, vowed to protect the right of faith schools to select pupils on the grounds of their religion. "We are going to need to look carefully at the implications of this," he added.
London's prestigious JFS, formerly known as the Jews' Free School, gave preference to children who were Jewish according to principles defined by Britain's chief rabbi. The chairman of the JFS governors, Russell Kett, said he was disappointed by the ruling. Critics said the decision interfered with longstanding Jewish tradition and imposed secular standards on who belonged to the faith. The school is Europe’s largest Jewish school and dates to the early 1700s.
The 12-year-old boy, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was not given priority by the school because although his father is Jewish by birth, his mother converted at a progressive synagogue not recognized by Orthodox Judaism. The chief rabbi did not recognize her conversion, and the boy therefore was not recognized as Jewish.
Five judges of the nine-member Supreme Court ruled that the school's policy amounted to racial discrimination, upholding an earlier ruling by the Court of Appeal. The lower court had decided that because Jews are defined as an ethnic group under British law, denying a child admission because his mother is not Jewish constituted racial discrimination. The school appealed.
Orthodox Jews and the school expressed dismay by the December 16 ruling. The school said it now would admit students according to tests of their religious practice, e.g. attendance at Sabbath services, their level of Jewish education, and family communal activity. The school argues that such tests, however, are irrelevant to Jewish law. Orthodox Jews say anyone with a Jewish mother is a Jew by birth, regardless of whether they practice the faith.
Said United Synagogue president Simon Hochhauser, "Essentially we must now apply a non-Jewish definition of who is Jewish," and "The closeness of the court's decision underlines the inherent difficulty in applying the complex modern law of discrimination to an ancient religion," he said.
The ruled that the school must pay most of the family's legal costs. The lawyer representing the school, David Pannick, had argued that that the boy (identified only as “M”) was rejected because of a religious disagreement, not because of his ethnic origins. The fact that the boy wasn't admitted "is not on the ground of M's ethnic origins. It is on the ground of a religious dispute between rabbis about who is a Jew," Pannick said. Britain's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, said the case raised complex questions about British law and Jewish identity that "require careful reflection and consultation."
Oona Stannard, who heads the Catholic Education Service for England and Wales, said: "I am very disappointed at today's ruling in which a secular body, ie the Supreme Court, is deciding on the matter of membership of a faith group for the purposes of schools' admissions. What constitutes membership of a faith group or a religious denomination should be a matter for that faith or denomination to determine. That any other authority should deem to do this in place of the faith group, or for a body outside the faith group to claim that its decision as to what constitutes membership has priority, is a sad and undermining state of affairs.”
Stannard added, "It is important whilst noting our sympathy for our Jewish brothers and sisters, to remind that the judgment should not impact on Catholic schools. This is because the definition of being Catholic is clearly based on baptism and not on any ethnic or other factors. We will continue to keep this situation under close review."
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