A Second Expulsion of the Jews from England?
By David P Goldman, First Things
It won’t look like King Edward I’s Edict of Expulsion in 1290, of course. But the practice of the Jewish religion could be suppressed by law de facto in the United Kingdom. That is where the Jewish Free School case may lead, gradually, by slow erosion rather than swift violence. The implications of the Appeals Court decision, in the view of the British government, could be the abolition of all Jewish schools, independent as well as state-funded. That is the opinion of the UK government, as reported by the UK press. A few Jewish schools would survive in the Charedi world. But the point is that Judaism cannot exist as a religion without Jewish schools. Unlike any other religion, Jewish practice centers around Torah learning, not as academic scholarship but as an existential act that unites all Jewish generations in the eternal moment of revelation at Mt. Sinai. If Jewish schools are forced into a narrow, defensive stance, Jewish live in England will be truncated and stifled.
And the implications of the Appeals Court decision, in the view of the British government, would be the abolition of all Jewish schools, independent as well as state-funded. That is the opinion of the UK government, as reported by the UK press.
An Oct. 28 article in the London Evening Standard reports the judgment of a member of the British Cabinet, Children’s Secretary Ed Balls, that the recent court ruling against the Jewish Free School could result in the destruction of faith-based schools in England:
Faith schools could be stripped of the right to select pupils on the basis of their religion, the Standard has learned.
The Government fears that a landmark court case means 100 state and private Jewish schools are breaking race laws by choosing pupils who conform to their beliefs. Many Christian, Muslim and Sikh schools could also be forced to give equal priority to non-believers or pupils of other faiths.
Lawyers acting for Children’s Secretary Ed Balls are urging the highest court in the land to protect the centuries-old tradition of schools educating children on religious lines. The minister’s warning comes in a submission to the Supreme Court in the case of JFS, a Jewish school in Brent, which is fighting to overturn a ruling that it broke the Race Relations Act.
If the judges refuse to support JFS, formerly the Jews’ Free School, hundreds of other faith schools could be forced to abandon religious selection in its current form. Mr Balls’s statement to the Supreme Court, seen by the Standard, says: “The case raises issues of considerable public importance.”
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