British courts debate Jewish law
This story has got to give pause to advocates, like Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, of government funding for private, religious school education. In a nutshell, the British courts are debating whether the entrance criteria of one its publicly funded Jewish day schools are discriminatory.
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.
Fascinating sub-plots. Is matrilineal descent — the rule that says you’re Jewish by birth only if your mother is — racist? And do we want a secular court deciding either way?
The case also pits Britain’s non-Orthodox streams against the Orthodox.
JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 
November 9th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
On November 9, 2009, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach writes an impassioned article called The British Dare to Determine Who is a Jew”
Unfortunately, Rabbi Boteach fails to address the key legal aspect of the case, namely that JFS is a state-funded school and therefore subject to the laws of the State.