UK Jewish school denies racial discrimination - Yahoo! News
So who decides the criteria for being Jewish? The court or the Rabbi? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091027/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_jewish_school Joel Sogol ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: UK Jewish school denies racial discrimination - Yahoo! News
Indeed. And in order to uphold the racial discrimination charge, does the court have to rule that the mother is not, in fact, Jewish, because Judaism is defined under British law as an ethnic group rather than a religion? That, it seems to me, is the principal error here. If the father had converted to Christianity instead of the mother to Judaism, would it still be racial discrimination to keep the boy out? Vance On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:27 AM, Joel Sogol jlsa...@wwisp.com wrote: So who decides the criteria for being Jewish? The court or the Rabbi? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091027/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_jewish_school Joel Sogol ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Vance R. Koven Boston, MA USA vrko...@world.std.com ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: UK Jewish school denies racial discrimination - Yahoo! News
The problem in this case is not ethnicity in the way we usually use that term. If the mother had converted to Judaism under an Orthodox rabbi, the school would have admitted the student. The problem was that in this case she had converted under a rabbi in Britain's equivalent of the Reform movement. If the mother had been born Jewish and the father converted, or was never Jewish, the child would have been admitted to the school because under Orthodox Jewish law, religious identigy passes through the mother. Britain allows it faith schools to select students on the basis of religion, just not on the basis of race. Jewish groups have always maintained that the Orthodox definition of who is Jewish is not racial, because anyone can convert into Judaism-- unlike the immutability of race. So in a sense, the debate within Judaism over whether the Orthodox rabbinate will recognize conversions by rabbis in other denominations has gotten pigeon-holed as a race question. Howard Friedman From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu on behalf of Vance R. Koven Sent: Sat 10/31/2009 11:19 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: UK Jewish school denies racial discrimination - Yahoo! News Indeed. And in order to uphold the racial discrimination charge, does the court have to rule that the mother is not, in fact, Jewish, because Judaism is defined under British law as an ethnic group rather than a religion? That, it seems to me, is the principal error here. If the father had converted to Christianity instead of the mother to Judaism, would it still be racial discrimination to keep the boy out? Vance On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:27 AM, Joel Sogol jlsa...@wwisp.com wrote: So who decides the criteria for being Jewish? The court or the Rabbi? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091027/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_jewish_school Joel Sogol ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Vance R. Koven Boston, MA USA vrko...@world.std.com ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: UK Jewish school denies racial discrimination - Yahoo! News
It seems to me that discrimination based on being Jewish under traditional religious rules is both religious discrimination and ethnicity discrimination. I'm Jewish by birth (i.e., my mother, and my mother's mother, were Jewish, though they weren't religious) but not religious. Under the traditional religious rules, I'm Jewish, with no need for a difficult conversion process. My wife is not Jewish by birth, so while she could become Jewish under the traditional religious rules, this would require a difficult conversion process. So the exclusion of people who are neither born Jewish nor converted to Judaism is discrimination based both on ethnicity and religion. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Vance R. Koven Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2009 8:19 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: UK Jewish school denies racial discrimination - Yahoo! News Indeed. And in order to uphold the racial discrimination charge, does the court have to rule that the mother is not, in fact, Jewish, because Judaism is defined under British law as an ethnic group rather than a religion? That, it seems to me, is the principal error here. If the father had converted to Christianity instead of the mother to Judaism, would it still be racial discrimination to keep the boy out? Vance On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:27 AM, Joel Sogol jlsa...@wwisp.commailto:jlsa...@wwisp.com wrote: So who decides the criteria for being Jewish? The court or the Rabbi? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091027/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_jewish_school Joel Sogol ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Vance R. Koven Boston, MA USA vrko...@world.std.commailto:vrko...@world.std.com ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: UK Jewish school denies racial discrimination - Yahoo! News
It seems to me that the answer to whether Jewishness is religious or ethnic changes according to the moment's convenience, to the frustration of those who find we are Jewish enough for any REAL anti-semites, but not for the Jews. Wm. Linden First-degree mongrel under the Nuremberg Laws. It seems to me that discrimination based on being Jewish under traditional religious rules is both religious discrimination and ethnicity discrimination. I'm Jewish by birth (i.e., my mother, and my mother's mother, were Jewish, though they weren't religious) but not religious. Under the traditional religious rules, I'm Jewish, with no need for a difficult conversion process. My wife is not Jewish by birth, so while she could become Jewish under the traditional religious rules, this would require a difficult conversion process. So the exclusion of people who are neither born Jewish nor converted to Judaism is discrimination based both on ethnicity and religion. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Vance R. Koven Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2009 8:19 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: UK Jewish school denies racial discrimination - Yahoo! News Indeed. And in order to uphold the racial discrimination charge, does the court have to rule that the mother is not, in fact, Jewish, because Judaism is defined under British law as an ethnic group rather than a religion? That, it seems to me, is the principal error here. If the father had converted to Christianity instead of the mother to Judaism, would it still be racial discrimination to keep the boy out? Vance On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:27 AM, Joel Sogol jlsa...@wwisp.commailto:jlsa...@wwisp.com wrote: So who decides the criteria for being Jewish? The court or the Rabbi? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091027/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_jewish_school Joel Sogol ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Vance R. Koven Boston, MA USA vrko...@world.std.commailto:vrko...@world.std.com ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
