Who is a Jew?: British Court Weighs in on Jewish Identity

In a surprising victory for non-Orthodox Jews, a British court has weighed in on an ancient Jewish debate: who is a Jew?

A twelve year-old Jewish boy who obtains his heritage from his father (a kosher-keeping, observant Jew) applied to North London's Jews' Free School, an exclusive, attractive Orthodox school that denies many applicants. Unfortunately, the school uses the classist Orthodox criteria for deciding who is Jewish. In their view, a Jew is someone who has a Jewish mother or who converts to Orthodox Judaism. Anyone else is a non-Jew. In this view, a Jew with a last name like Cohen who has had a bar mitzvah, has made aliyah to Israel, who keeps kosher, goes to synagogue, who has been told all his life he "looks Jewish", would be considered goyim if his mother is not Jewish.

The London school took a look at the 12 year-old Jewish boy's identity and ignored the fact that he is ethnically Jewish and therefore should not have to convert. The school heads found out that his mother converted through a Progressive temple instead of through Orthodoxy and decided the boy is not Jewish.

His family sued the school, they lost the case, but a British Court of Appeal overturned the ruling this summer. They said the school was discriminating and that whether their rationale was "benign or malignant, theological or supremacist, makes it no less and no more unlawful" ("Who Is a Jew? Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question", Sarah Lyall.)

Much of the Catholic community is supporting the Orthodox Jews outraged by the court's decision, and now so are many Muslims and Protestants. They see this as a scary precedent in which religious institutions are not allowed to make their own rules. To them, this is a slippery slope that could lead to outlawing disrimination against gays and other infidels.

The media, of course, are getting this story all wrong, and in doing so are granting implicit support to these religious fundamentalists. Sarah Lyall of The New York Times echoes the incorrect statement made by many news sources as well as the court that the school was using ethnicity as a criteria, and that opposers of the school's policy are using observance.

That simplistic, reductive observation may make the debate smoother, but the truth is more complicated. The New York Times says, "the court ruled that it was an ethnic test because it concerned the status of M's [the boy's] mother rather than whether he considered himself Jewish and practiced Judaism."

That is incorrect. What sort of ethnicity is only inherited through the mother? Anyone can claim to be Jewish and even practice whatever she wants. That does not mean she is Jewish, and that certainly does not mean she should be granted access to an exclusvie Jewish school that actual Jews compete to get into. "Jewish" describes an ethnicity and a religion. If one is not born Jewish but wishes to be a member of the religion, she must go through a conversion. That is fine. The school parts with common sense when they say a boy with a Jewish father must convert as if he were a non-Jew. The school is discriminating because of a hateful religious rule that dishonors patrilineal descent; it has nothing to do with ethnocentricism.

The boy in this case is Jewish because he is. His father is Jewish. End of story. It should not matter what branch of Judaism his mother converted to. Orthodoxy's crtieria for deciding who is Jewish is not just heartless--it's stupid and factually incorrect. Jewish girls are reminded periodically by the media to get tested for breast cancer more often than other girls because Jewish women are more likely to get this disease. Should a girl who inherits her Jewishness from her father not bother with this extra precaution? That would be a bad idea, because nature disagrees with Orthodoxy on who is Jewish.

The school is wrong. And in a way, the court is wrong too. They made the right decision for the wrong reason. The school is not making ethnicity an issue; I am. I am the one saying ethnicity should play a role in this debate. Those of us Jews who oppose the school are saying it's time patrilineal descent is recognized by Orthodoxy. The school is on the same side of "the new antisemites," those who say Jewish identity is only religious and that Jews are not a people--not an ethnicity--and therefore have no claim to their ancestral homeland.

Once again, strange bedfellows.