Why Is This The Matter of the State

This is why I love the separation of church & state in America. Why does the Supreme Court in Britain get to decide how Jews view themselves? This is totally completely absurd, if a school, like King David, who have a requirement that a child should be born to a Jewish mother in order to qualify to attend there, then they should be allowed to keep that standard. It might be "racist" but all religions are prejudice, if they weren't we wouldn't have religion.

Until now, that didn't matter because, in common with other schools under the religious authority of the Chief Rabbi, they've taken Jewish children as defined by Orthodox Jewish law - the children of Jewish mothers. No test of observance or belief was set.

"Judaism differs fundamentally from all other faiths," says Yitzchak Schochet, rabbi of an Orthodox congregration in London. "Regardless of one's observance level, if one is born a Jew it doesn't matter if they keep absolutely nothing.

Just because someone feels Jewish and even acts Jewish, doesn't make them Jewish. If they want to be accepted then convert to Judaism!

Update: I've corrected the link (thanks Peter!). I meant to mention how horrible the comment section of the post is. Like this gem:

Some of us (me included) would say that a child has no religion. There is no such thing as a Christian or Jewish or Muslim child, only a child of Christian or Jewish or Muslim parents. Where would this leave faith schools? Nowhere, I'd be happy to see them all turned over to state control and absorbed into the rest of the school structure tomorrow, their doors open to all children no matter what faith their parents were.
Ponder, London

I liked the following one:

The fact that faith-based schools (especially Church of England schools) are oversubscribed is itself interesting: even non-practising parents see benefit in a faith-based organisation. Why? Because a basis of faith - whatever faith - entails a value set, a discipline and a high standard that is otherwise lacking in our society. And there is always the hope that a child attending such a school might make up his or her own mind to become a practising member of that faith - and that would make the world a better place.
Jane Evans, Los Angeles, USA (British expatriate)