A strictly Orthodox councillor has urged rabbis to consider public demonstrations to prevent religious schools being compelled to teach about same-sex relations.
Brian Gordon, a longstanding Conservative councillor in Barnet and an executive member of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, said Charedi representatives had been “too timid” in trying to protect the community’s religious rights.
“We should be far more vigorous and politically direct in our campaigning, to the point of peaceful mass protests and demonstrations, if our rabbis will so permit,” he said at a public meeting in Stamford Hill at the end of last week.
“We should be demanding that no faith school should be required to teach things that are opposed to their religious ethos - full stop,” he said.
“Because we have been so quiet and restrained, most politicians are not even aware of the injustice to which our schools are being subjected.”
He was addressing an audience of more than a hundred people - evidence of continuing disquiet within parts of the Charedi community over the government’s equality requirements in schools.
Also speaking was one of Stamford Hill’s most venerable figures, yeshivah head Rabbi Eliaykim Schlesinger, and by telephone link-up, the former head of the Manchester Beth Din, Dayan Gavriel Krausz.
In his remarks, Dayan Krausz urged, “We have to remain strong like a rock and not digress one iota from the ways our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents have taught us.”
He said if the community capitulated to teaching topics such as LGBT and evolution, "then we can say bye-bye to the Jewish community to Britain".
Recalling the start of the Nine Days of Mourning associated with the Destruction of the Temples and other catastrophes in Jewish history, he warned “we are again faced…with a very serious decree”.
Mr Gordon said there was an “obsession” to promote the concept of equalities within the education system.
“This has enabled the growing anti-religious, humanist lobby that has taken hold behind the scenes within the Department for Education and Ofsted to arrogantly ride roughshod over faith schools,” he contended.
“They aim to force them to teach lifestyles that are biblically forbidden. To demand the teaching of same-gender relationships at religious schools is itself an act of intolerance and extremism, even abuse.”
He added that “we can teach children to be tolerant towards other cultures and lifestyles… without having to spell out what they are.”
Official Charedi representatives, he said, had tried to “delude themselves and the kehillah [community] into accepting that a few trifling concessions here and there from the DfE and Ofsted… are some kind of victory”.
Charedi leaders have been hopeful that new DfE guidance has given their schools more flexibility, for example leaving it up to headteachers to decide what age it is appropriate to introduce relationship and sex education topics.
They were also reassured by DfE indications that it would not act against independent schools when there were only one or two minor unmet requirements - although whether avoiding any reference to same-sex relationships would be regarded as a minor breach remains to be seen.
But Dayan Krausz later told the JC, “If I could see the fruits of so-called diplomacy, I’d be happy. But I haven’t seen any results.”
