The last few months have witnessed the words “British values” being used as a battering ram to demolish the schools of the strictly Orthodox Jewish community, which collectively educate thousands of children.
The powers entrusted to Ofsted inspectors have been used out of all proportion. Visits upon visits, criticisms upon criticisms have been piled on the Charedi community, all for the sin of having a different value system.
The fact that these very same schools educate some of the most law-abiding citizens of the United Kingdom is ignored. The fact that these children are being educated in schools where violence and drug use is unknown is ignored. The fact that the children are happy and well taken care of is ignored.
What the inspectorate thinks important is “British values”— a euphemism for a set of values completely at odds with the beliefs of the strictly Orthodox community. The words “male”, “female”, “marriage”, “family”, among others, which until two decades had an unequivo cal meaning, have been reduced to nebulous and murky definitions; and the powers-that-be at Ofsted have decided to make an example of the Orthodox community for not going along with this alarming social experiment.
These are not British values. This is not the England to which Manasseh ben Israel in his Humble Address to His Highness the Lord Protector aspired , when he appealed to Oliver Cromwell in 1655: “ that ye would, according to that piety and power, wherein you are eminent beyond others, vouchsafe to grant, that the great and glorious name of the Lord our God may be extolled and solemnly worshipped and praised by us through all the bounds of the Commonwealth, and to grant us place in your country, that we may have our synagogues and free exercise of our religion.”
This was the England to which my great-great-grandparents fled — a country which placed no condition or limitation to being a Jew other than that of being an upstanding citizen. This was the England where I was educated, not all that long ago. I was provided a classical religious Jewish education in a Charedi school, an education which no doubt would keep the current band of Ofsted inspectors fretful and sleepless. And yet, as an adult I have had no problems navigating the secular world successfully, researching and lecturing in university.
These days I have chosen to go back and study in kollel in Israel, where I am expected to devote all my time to the study of Talmud and halachah. (Writing for the JC is not part of the curriculum, hence my writing under a nom-de-plume.) Most of my peers are a credit to their community and to the society in which they function. Some have achieved great success either in business or in the sciences. They are the results of the best of what England as a country has to offer.
These so called “British values” are actually continental values. They are French values, when during the Reign of Terror that followed the Revolution, tens of thousands were killed in the name of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”. They are the values of the Yevsektsiya (Communist Jewish section), which closed down thousands of Jewish schools in post-revolutionary Russia. In fact, using government power to suppress freedom of religious thought, is the hallmark of extremist regimes throughout history.
A tolerant, free and multicultural society is not one where everyone shares the same core beliefs — that would be a monocultural society reminiscent of North Korea — but rather one where many disparate, divergent and contradictory values live at peace with one another. Using progressive-sounding phrases such as “British values” or “preparing youngsters for life in modern-day Britain” cannot hide the fact that tens of thousands of British citizens live in fear of the day when these phrases will be used to destroy their way of life.
The best example of British values, I would argue, is actually within the strictly Orthodox Jewish community. This is a community with attitudes and a code of conduct vastly different to those of its surroundings. The make-up of the community, the way they educate their children, the goals the individuals set for themselves, their belief system, their hopes and aspirations, are undeniably unique and different.
Yet, this is a community which prays regularly for the stability of the government. This is a community which supports strong ties with their elected representatives and the local police force, as any civic council member will tell you. Their rabbis believe strongly the Jewish way is the correct way of life, yet they cultivate positive relations with their non-Jewish neighbours.
At parades and demonstrations which promote values antithetical to Jewish values, the Jewish community has a firm policy of non-interference and letting others behave as they see fit. Judaism believes moral people of all nations will have a share in the world to come. You will not hear of Jewish fanatics who go off to the Judean desert to learn bomb-making skills so that they can blow up their local church or mosque. Neither do religious Jews run wildly down the street holding a knife and screaming Yehei Shmei Rabbah (“May His Great Name Be Blessed”).
Two thousand years of diaspora living have taught the Jews a thing or two about getting on with others. If the Ofsted inspectors were truly intent on creating an open and pluralistic society, then instead of seeking to educate the Jewish community, they would do well to learn from them.
The author is a student at a kollel in Israel. Leibel Black is a pseudonym
