Admittance into Jewish Private School is getting a little more difficult in Britain, so much so that the Supreme Court is getting involved. The core issues in Britain are which students are Jewish, based upon which criteria. The criteria are what are mostly in question for different schools.
A Times article brought up the issue of admission into Jewish Schools being discussed in one London court:
The questions before the judges in Courtroom No. 1 of Britain’s Supreme Court were as ancient and as complex as Judaism itself.
Who is a Jew? And who gets to decide?
On the surface, the court was considering a straightforward challenge to the admissions policy of a Jewish high school in London. But the case, in which arguments concluded Oct. 30, has potential repercussions for thousands of other parochial schools across Britain. And in addressing issues at the heart of Jewish identity, it has exposed bitter divisions in Britain’s community of 300,000 or so Jews, pitting members of various Jewish denominations against one another.
“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. It added that while it was fair that Jewish schools should give preference to Jewish children, the admissions criteria must depend not on family ties, but “on faith, however defined.”
There are many religious schools, especially NYC Private Schools which do not actually require that a student actively practice a particular religion however, in London, practicing religion is becoming a big issue. There are sure to be international repercussions to this decision on a global level within the community of Jewish Schools.
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