Jewish School Held "Racist" For Preferring Jews

Friday, June 26, 2009

A court in Great Britain has found that a religious Jewish school engaged in racial discrimination by applying the traditional definition of who is a Jew as part of its admissions policy.

Traditionally, whether one is Jewish is determined by maternal lineage. If one's mother is Jewish, one is Jewish. When the mother is a convert to Judaism, Orthodox Jews consider the child Jewish only if the conversion was in accordance with Orthodox conversion practices. Among non-Orthodox Jews, at least in the United States, the test is completely muddled, and among progressive Reform congregations, the standards for conversion are quite lenient.

In the case at issue, reported in The Independent, the Orthodox religious school gave preference in admissions to students who were Jewish using the Orthodox definition and standards for conversion. The school denied admission to a student whose mother had converted at a Progressive synagogue. The Court held that such preferences were discrimination on the basis of race: the rest