There’s a debate going on in the UK right now about faith schools. Most of the coverage seems to imply that faith schools are detrimental to multiculturalism. Even David Aaronovitch, with whom I often agree, is opposed:
I think that far too many Jews are being separated off into these ghetto schools. As I have written here before I believe that the Jewish experience is disappearing from mainstream schools, and the mutual incomprehension that Jewish students say that they encounter at university is the consequence of this enforced ignorance. I have never heard this point sufficiently addressed by the separate school zealots.
Jewish schools are also mildly abusive in that they set out to indoctrinate children religiously and politically. JFS - an excellent school by all accounts - promises several times to “give the students a positive view and experience of Israel”. This is no more the function of a school than to give a positive view of Iran or Pakistan or the United States or the Vatican. Children should be encouraged to make up their own minds what view to take of another country.
JFS also undertakes to inculcate in its students “a strong sense of Jewish identity”. But why? Don’t they get that at home? At synagogue? At Jewish Youth Group? How constantly Jewish do you need the children to be, for heaven’s sake? Do we really want schools demanding of the young that they experience exclusive senses of religious and communal identity? As opposed to, say, understanding the idea of the identity of others? We can all go off into our corners and celebrate our identities, Muslims in Muslim schools, Catholics in Catholic schools, and Sikhs in Sikh schools.
Please don’t accuse me of wanting to get rid of parental choice, because I don’t. It’s just that some choices are bad for the wider community, and separate schooling is probably one of them. So I would like Jewish parents to choose something else. And also don’t accuse me of being anti-choice unless you are prepared to allow non-Jewish parents to choose Jewish schools.
And that brings me to my great suspicion. It could of course be that the main motivation for collecting Jewish children under one roof is the desire to be together - huddling together for spiritual warmth. But isn’t there also an element of the desire to be apart, to be uncorrupted by the inferior or brutish other?
He’s got a point. Faith schools only serve to make an insular community more insular. And the majority of Jewish parents want only one thing for their Jewish children—to find a Jewish partner, have Jewish kids and keep the faith. Hence the need to herd them off in Jewish schools. But let’s face it, where else can minority children learn so much about their culture and religion as they can in school?
I spent four years at a Jewish school between the ages of 9 and 13. Yes, some teachers tried to foist their beliefs on us. I remember one in particular, a holocaust survivor, who practically told us never to trust anyone who wasn’t Jewish. But we all had our own minds, our own parents, our own influences. Jewish school gave us the chance to learn about Jewish history and culture every day rather than once a week at Jewish Sunday school.
Rather than alienating me from British society, my Jewish education made me a better citizen. It gave me the confidence to live in Britain with a deep knowledge of my Jewish heritage. In many ways I suppose it gave me the confidence years later to become an unaffiliated Jew (sorry mum and dad). I know how to mark all of the major festivals. I can read Hebrew. I have a basic knowledge of my history and my culture. I’ve studied Torah. I’ve led services in synagogue. And I still decided it’s not for me.
Now, there’s a crazy idea in the UK to force faith schools to accept a percentage of pupils of different faiths. Will non-Jewish children attending Jewish schools have to learn Hebrew and take part in school Seders and Kabbalat Shabbat services? I would estimate that at least one-fifth of my time at Jewish school was spent studying something on a Jewish theme. If non-Jewish pupils are excused from these Jewish activities, what will they do instead? (And what was the point in them being in a Jewish school in the first place?)
In a multicultural society minorities are always going to want to find ways to pass their heritage on to their children. And in many cases teachers are more capable, more knowledgeable, and have more time than parents. Let faith schools teach minority children about their heritage. Then send them out into the world and let them make their own decisions.
PS Regarding David’s:
I think that far too many Jews are being separated off into these ghetto schools. As I have written here before I believe that the Jewish experience is disappearing from mainstream schools, and the mutual incomprehension that Jewish students say that they encounter at university is the consequence of this enforced ignorance. I have never heard this point sufficiently addressed by the separate school zealots.
I’m no separate school zealot. But as I’ve said above, I think that for those parents who want it for their children, faith schools are very important. David’s implication seems to be that it is more important for minority children to be assimilated. Did my presence at a secular high school teach non-Jewish pupils that much about Jews? I doubt it. Even at a secular high school minority pupils tended to stick together. We were still seen as different.
As for the “mutual incomprehension” at university. Most people I met at university either went to boarding school—not a well-known Jewish activity—or came from parts of England with little or no Jewish community. So doing away with Jewish schools in Manchester and London would have made little difference to them.
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