Who Counts?

Logo of the Jewish Free School

Some of you might remember the story that first emerged a few months ago about the Jewish Free School, a large Jewish high school in London, which was sued for refusing to admit a boy on the grounds that he was not Jewish because his mother’s conversion, performed by a progressive rabbi, was invalid. (According to Jewish religious law, or halacha, a person is Jewish if their mother is Jewish, or if they have converted to Judaism according to a complex ritual process sponsored by a rabbi. However, many contemporary Orthodox rabbis do not accept conversions performed by more liberal rabbis, and thus, the question of what constitutes a “valid” conversion has become a contentious political issue in the Jewish community.) The student in question – referred to as “M” – and his family initially lost their case, but that ruling was overturned this past summer by the British Court of Appeals. The appeals court ruled that the school – which receives funding from the government, as do many religious schools in Britain – could choose to admit students on the basis of “faith, however defined,” but could not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity or family ties. (The school, which still wishes to use Jewishness as an admissions criterion, has now instituted a somewhat ridiculous system in which prospective students are “rated” on various elements of their religious practice.)

I read this story when it first came out, and I was reminded of it recently when I saw a New York Times column by Roger Cohen, in which he comments briefly upon the JFS controversy and the court ruling. Cohen says that he finds the court’s ruling about what constitutes Jewishness to be “quaint,” for, he explains, “No one I know ever defined a Jew, or persecuted one, on the grounds of whether or not he went to synagogue regularly.”

Now, I will say that I, too, found the court’s reference to “faith” somewhat awkward, or perhaps just uninformed – no self-respecting student of religion would ever use the word “faith” as a synonym for “religion,” particularly when it comes to Jews. But, setting that aside, I take strong issue with Cohen’s appraisal of the situation. First of all, he is just plain wrong when he states that Jews have always been defined by others – and persecuted – on the basis of heredity and not on the basis of religion. In fact, there is a complex history of interplay between and development from anti-Judaism (religiously defined) to anti-Semitism (racially defined); just because Cohen has only directly experienced the latter does not de-legitimize the former.

But Cohen’s tunnel vision is not just historically inaccurate – it’s also exclusionary. When Cohen asserts that Jewishness has always been determined by family ties, he is implying that this is the only legitimate way to define it. I am troubled, however, by how easily he brushes aside the offensiveness of a system that can tell a boy who has been raised as a Jew and who has two Jewish parents (albeit one a convert) that, sorry, he’s just not Jewish enough. Does Cohen really think that this boy should be considered “less of a Jew,” and thus less worthy of attendance at a Jewish educational institution, than a child of (for example) two completely secular Jews with no interest whatsoever in Judaism? Cohen, evidently, comes from a verifiable maternal line of Jews, and thus his Jewish identity is halachically untroubled – no one has ever told him, or will ever tell him, that he doesn’t “count” as a Jew. In some ways, what bothers me the most about his comment is its off-handedness – he seems completely unaware of the privileged position from which he speaks.

I react to Cohen’s comment, and to the broader debate over what constitutes Jewishness, on a deeply personal level. My father is Jewish, but my mother comes from an Irish Catholic background and was not Jewish when I was born (though she later converted). Although some liberal Jewish communities now accept “patrilineal descent,” my parents – who planned to raise my brother and I as Jews – wanted to make everything as “kosher” as possible, and so we were both converted as young children by a Conservative rabbi. Nevertheless, according to many Orthodox Jews, my conversion is not valid.

As the rate of intermarriage increases, and also as converts continue to enter the Jewish fold, the number of people in my position – who consider themselves to be Jews, and who often have lived their entire lives as Jews, but whose genetic heritage is mixed and whose halachic identity is questioned by some – has grown and will continue to grow. Many issues arise as a result, some of which I hope to explore in future blog posts. For instance: Should we accept as Jews anyone who says they are Jewish, or anyone who believes certain things, or anyone who practices in a certain way, or anyone with a Jewish mother, or a Jewish father, or with such-and-such conversion – or some combination of the above? Is Jewish identity a strict either/or? What does it mean to be a half-Jew? (We recently had a fascinating evening of discussion here at Vassar on the latter topic.)

I’d like to finish with one last comment on the JFS case. I’ve written this post with the implicit assumption that, as the court ruled, it is acceptable for a school to discriminate among applicants based on religion, and that the issue at hand is how to define religious identity. But why is even this sort of discrimination considered acceptable? I understand that the JFS is a Jewish school, but why must that Jewish flavor be maintained through an exclusionary admissions process? Why not just have a school that offers a strong Jewish curriculum, and strong Jewish life, and let it attract whatever students it attracts? Those students will, in all likelihood, be mostly Jewish, and if there are non-Jewish students who choose to attend for whatever reason – well, more power to them, and more power to the Jews. I don’t think that the Jewish “character” of the school would be somehow diluted by letting in a few interested non-Jews. And, given how contentious and potentially exclusionary the question of “who is a Jew” is, an admissions policy that does not take religion into account may be the fairest path.

- Jessica

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