The Supreme Court in England is set to rule by the end of this year on a case involving a question that has vexed Jewish communities throughout the world for centuries: Who is a Jew? The case began because a 12-year-old boy whose father was born Jewish and whose mother converted to Judaism was denied admission to an Orthodox Jewish high school on the grounds that, because his mother was converted not in an Orthodox synagogue, but in what the Times article refers to as a “progressive synagogue” (which I assume corresponds to something like Reform here in the States), she is not really Jewish; and so, therefore, neither is he. The boy’s family decided to sue the school for discrimination and lost. The Court of Appeal, however, reversed that decision on grounds that question one of the foundational tenets of Jewish identity: that, short of conversion, the only way one can be Jewish is to have been born to a Jewish mother.
In an explosive decision, the court concluded that basing school admissions on a classic test of Judaism — whether one’s mother is Jewish — was by definition discriminatory. Whether the rationale was “benign or malignant, theological or supremacist,” the court wrote, “makes it no less and no more unlawful.”
The case rested on whether the school’s test of Jewishness was based on religion, which would be legal, or on race or ethnicity, which would not. The court ruled that it was an ethnic test because it concerned the status of M’s [which is how the boy is referred to in court documents] mother rather than whether M considered himself Jewish and practiced Judaism.
“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. It added that while it was fair that Jewish schools should give preference to Jewish children, the admissions criteria must depend not on family ties, but “on faith, however defined.”
The same reasoning would apply to a Christian school that “refused to admit a child on the ground that, albeit practicing Christians, the child’s family were of Jewish origin,” the court said. (via Who Is a Jew? Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question — NYTimes.com.)