Every
once in a while a story comes along so jolting that it is scarcely
believable. One such story was that which appeared in the New York
Times of all places this past Sunday about how the Jews’ Free School in
London has been ordered to admit a child whose mother had a
non-orthodox conversion after the child’s parents sued. I will not here
enter into the ongoing and bitter divide in England between orthodox
and progressive Jews. It was a battle that I witnessed and worked hard
to mend through countless essays and public forums over the eleven
years that I lived in the UK. Less so will I here address the very
pressing questions of Jewish status as determined by conversion on the
part of Judaism’s three major branches. I am a passionately orthodox
Jew who is equally passionate about Jewish unity. Our divisions must
indeed be addressed and healed. But this shocking story in Britain
raises something far more pressing that is of equal concern to orthodox
and non-orthodox alike.
What is mindboggling is how a British
court of appeals, which ruled against the school, said that the Jewish
community’s ancient tradition of deciding Jewishness through parenthood
is ethnically-based, discriminatory, and therefore unlawful.
“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.
Whether the reasons were “benign or malignant, theological or
supremacist makes it no less and no more unlawful.” In an astonishing
ruling, the court said that if the child practiced Judaism then he is
Jewish. But to base it on his parents was an unlawful emphasis on
ethnicity rather than on religious faith. One can immediately
understand the implications for Jews who are not at all observant.
Presumably the British government would not consider them Jews.
Now, let’s put aside for a moment the unbelievable infringement of
government in the affairs of a religion and focus instead on the
court’s rationale. In you are living in Britain you become a citizen
automatically if your parents are British. Even if you don’t behave
particularly British, or hate the country of your birth, the UK cannot
take away your passport. And if you’re an American living abroad, your
children automatically acquire American citizenship. I should know
because six of my nine children were born in Britain. And even though
only one of their parents was American and living in Europe to boot,
they automatically became Americans. Even if you never celebrated the
Fourth of July or ever heard of Abraham Lincoln, you and your children
are as American as George Washington himself.
So is it really that difficult for British judges to understand that peoplehood is conveyed through a parent?
The Jews are first and foremost a people and only secondary a faith.
We were the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob before we received
the Torah at Mt. Sinai and began practicing Judaism’s tenets.
Peoplehood comes first and is completely independent of any kind of
religious affirmation. Jewishness is not something that can be lost and
it is not something that can be renounced.
In this sense Judaism is radically different to Christianity which
is a conscious act of affirmation. While there cannot be atheist
Christians there are plenty of atheist Jews.
I am gobsmacked that a British court is challenging this. In my
eleven years living in Britain I never heard anything so outrageous.
This ruling constitutes a legal assault on the very integrity of the
Jewish religion as practiced in Britain and is a watershed moment in
modern Jewish history. And with all the recent stories of British
academics seeking to bar their Israeli counterparts from conferences
and the rise of anti-Semitic incidents in the British isles, it will
only further cement world opinion that Britain is a country that is
becoming hostile to Jews.
Being a people does not make us a homogenous ethic group. There are
black Jews and white Jews, European Jews and Asian Jews. Converts of
every ethnicity can of course join us at any time. But in so doing they
are not adopting a faith but a people. They do not become merely
practitioners of the Jewish fait but part of the Jewish family. A
convert is transformed from an outsider into a Jewish brother or
sister. But the process must of course have standards. To be a British
citizen is not an arbitrary act. It takes approximately ten years of
residency. Likewise, my Australian wife’s naturalization as an American
citizen took many years of residency and passing a test of American
knowledge.
Now just imagine how absurd it would be if the United States told
Britain to alter its residency requirements, or vice versa, and you can
begin to understand the chutzpa of British judges trying to alter the
identity requirements of a three-and-half thousand year faith that is
the precursor of Christianity.
Next week my organization This World: The Values Network will
sponsor the first-ever conference on Jewish values. It will feature
Steinsaltz, Yeshiva University President Richard Joel, Alan Dershowitz,
Dennis Prager, Michael Steinhardt, AIPAC president David Victor and
Marianne Williamson. One of our religion’s principal values is
community and peoplehood. For thousands of years, dispersed throughout
the world, Jews have always looked out for each other. You could turn
up in any city and, regardless of level of observance, you would be
invited to someone’s home for the Sabbath and feel like family even
though just moments before you were a complete stranger. In light of
this outrageous British legal challenge to this time-honored principle
of Jewish peoplehood we will be adding an entire plenary devoted to
explicating the special Jewish value of identity and peoplehood and
hope that it will assist British Jewry in knowing that they are not
alone in this critical battle.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is founder of This World: The Values Network.
To register for The Jewish Values Conference, taking place in NYC on
Nov. 17 and 18, go to http://www.thisworld.us.
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