Our yeshivahs should be legally protected, not unfairly targeted

We are proud and grateful to live on a country that allows faith groups to contribute meaningfully to British society. A diverse society, where different ways of life co-exist, is inherently healthy.

Our yeshivahs are distinct and different and foster a lifelong love of learning. Yeshivahs are not schools and are not intended to replace them. Yeshivah attendees are home-educated in secular studies, as are tens of thousands of others across the United Kingdom.

Our communities, homes and synagogues play a large, stable role in education and communal life for our children, a three-pronged model once widespread across the UK. Yeshivahs maintain robust safeguarding measures and provide safe and supportive environments where students thrive through mentorship, peer interaction and structured learning. Graduates go on to contribute significantly to a bustling social and economic community.

We recognise the need for government action to support vulnerable children, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic. However, our children are neither vulnerable nor at risk and we share our concerns with other groups regarding this Bill.

The inherent data protection risks in a compulsory register for children-not-in-school and the expanded enforcement powers proposed for Ofsted are alarming. These powers are worryingly similar to those under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

Granting such powers to an inspectorate that possesses an anti-faith bias and is criticised by educators across the country is deeply concerning. While children’s wellbeing must remain a priority, more registers or restrictions on settings are not the solution. The tragic case of Sarah Sharrif, who was already known to the relevant agencies, highlights that more funding for and intervention from those agencies are needed, and not more regulation of other institutions.

For over 70 years, our yeshivahs have been the cornerstone of our community, instilling values of productivity, lifelong learning, family and service. These are principles from which wider society could benefit. We appreciate that our way of life may seem peculiar. We are not asking for agreement from readers of the JC nor do we seek for you to send your children to our yeshivahs.

However, we simply ask to be allowed to peacefully continue our way of life. All those attending yeshivahs do so with their parents’ consent and make up a negligible proportion of the United Kingdom population; they should not be unfairly targeted, fuelled by a more negative crusade against faith groups. It is disheartening to see harmful misinformation circulating within the Jewish community, aimed at dismantling them.

At a time of declining religious engagement and rising threats to minority communities, yeshivahs are vital to preserving cultural and religious diversity in the United Kingdom. Protecting them is essential to British democracy. Our differences deserve legal protection, not criminalisation. In a free society, everyone should have the right to choose their educational model and community. We must defend these bastions of faith and our right to be different.

Rabbi Stern is president of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations