The Lawyer: How will faith and religious practice be defined?

Defining a faith

How will faith and religious practice be defined? And by whom? This issue is likely to lead to increasing division, given that Orthodox Jews do not accept that non-Orthodox Jews practise the faith properly.

Orthodox synagogues may no longer be able to refuse to marry couples who cannot prove their Jewish lineage. They may now have to marry anyone who proves that they practise the faith.

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The Teacher: Is there a political agenda behind the judgement?

A political agenda behind the judgement?

It is startling that for the first time in England a judge, be he Christian, secular or anything else, believes he can impose his interpretation of Jewish identity on the community. This judgement reflects the confusion between race and religion that bedevils much of English life.

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Liberal Judaism has sought to build a policy of inclusion

Liberal Judaism has long and consistently argued that Judaism is primarily transmitted culturally and through example and influence. That transmission, which frequently happens to children in families, but may happen to adults too, is perhaps best described as one of Jewish education in its broadest sense.

This education equips the Jew with a sense of identity and commitment which is forged by an encounter with Jewish beliefs, values, attitudes and ideals, and an immersion into Jewish practice and Jewish mores.

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A bad ruling at a bad time: To confuse religion and race is a mistake.

The learned judges who ruled last week that the admission procedures of the JFS were in breach of the Race Relations Act clearly did not wish to claim that Judaism is racist. Yet, by one of the great ironies of our time, a law, intended to protect Jews from racism, has now been used against them.

Since the days of Abraham and Moses, Jews have been commanded to educate their children and thus hand on their faith across the generations. We are the people who predicated our survival on education, the first in history to create a universal system of schooling.

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Jews are not a race; but then again, no one else is either, race is a social construct

Since the 1930s, Jews in Britain have sought some protection from the state against discrimination and libel.

Such moves reflected the rise of political antisemitism and wider social prejudice.

In the 1950s, with the growth of new Commonwealth immigration, there was a revival in support for anti-racist measures, but politicians and the state rejected them as being against the laissez-faire approach then adopted to “race relations”.

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