Court of Appeals: Jewish School's Admission Policy is Racist

The Court of Appeals in Britain has set the cat among the pigeons. In what has already been called "a far-reaching judgment", the UK Court of Appeals has ruled "the requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or by conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act".

The case was brought by the parents of a 12 year old boy who was denied a place at the JFS (Jews Free School) because his mother was not a "recognised" Jew. She was a convert who made the mistake of converting "at a Progressive rather than an Orthodox synagogue and therefore not recognised by the Office of the Chief Rabbi (OCR)."

The discrimination against M was direct discrimination and therefore could not be justified, said Lords Justices Sedley and Rimer and Lady Justice Smith.

This basically means that now no faith school is immune from the prohibition on race discrimination, and taken one stage further the same could be applicable to countries, at least in the eyes of British law.