To: Michael Gove MP, Shadow Secretary for Children, Schools and Families
From: Daniel Finkelstein
Re: Jewish school admission policy
● I thought you might find it useful if I prepared a memo for you on Jewish school admissions. I realise that we talk often about these sorts of things, but I thought it couldn’t hurt if I sent you a note of the kind I used to draft, as director of the Conservative research department for members of the Shadow Cabinet. It is an irony, of course, that in those day you were the Times journalist and I the politician.
● I know that what happens in the Jewish community is a subject close to your heart. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have been wonderful friends of the Jews, as much as we have any right to expect. Even so, you are something different altogether. I doubt there is a single person who is not him- or herself Jewish who has taken as close and friendly an interest in us as you have.
When we were working on The Times together, I caught sight of your application to be Conservative candidate for Surrey Heath. Asked on the form to name your main interests, you wrote that you supported Israel and Jewish causes. I thought that remarkable (in a good way) for a non-Jew applying for a seat with very few Jews in it.
So — for all that this Labour government has been a very good friend to the Jews — if you are Schools Secretary, the Jewish community will have an ally beyond compare.
Most of us found the exclusion of a convert's child outrageous
● You will therefore, I know, want to solve the problems in admissions procedures left after the Supreme Court ruling on JFS in a way that the community would want. The problem is that it is difficult to work out exactly what that is. You are prepared to amend the law. But we can’t expect you to do anything (and I am sure you won’t) until we have arrived at a consensus.
● There is one thing that virtually the whole community agrees upon. We are almost all uncomfortable that the Supreme Court has defined what it means to be a Jew. We are also worried about the practical consequences.
This may seem odd, because those who are not Orthodox found the refusal to recognise Reform and Liberal marriages infuriating. I, for instance, found having to prove I was Jewish in order to secure a place for my son at a Jewish school extremely agitating.
But you know all that because we were newspaper colleagues at the time and I discussed it with you in the staff canteen. And most of us found the original JFS decision, the exclusion of a convert’s child, outrageous.
Yet, if the court ruling remains in place, all sorts of new barriers may make life even more difficult for non-Orthodox applicants. A faith test could, in practice, be very divisive.
● So Jews do want a change. And here’s what I think you might gently suggest to the community.
● The United Synagogue has spent much money and time creating many fine schools, and deserves admiration for having done so. Many of these schools are very welcoming to those from other synagogues. Those outside the US should, therefore, accord it the respect it deserves. We should understand its ideology and its rules even when we do not share them. We should not expect or demand that the US change its attitude to Reform and Liberal Jews, even if we hope it will.
● The US might then consider a compromise. Whatever its theological view of Reform and Liberal marriages and conversions, its view of whether they are real Jews, it should allow the children of these relationships to be admitted to Jewish schools.
● You are the one person — from outside the community and with your philosemitism — who might be able, tactfully but firmly, to insist on this change as the price of a change on the law. I hope you don’t think this too much to ask. But it might make a real difference for Jewish parents. And I know that matters to you.
Daniel Finkelstein is executive editor of The Times
