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The JFS is Europe's largest Jewish secondary school. It was established in 1732 as the Talmud Torah of the Great Synagogue of London, serving orphans of the community.
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LONDON (EJP)---A British High Court judge ruled that a Jewish school's entry criteria were "entirely legitimate" Thursday after the father of an 11-year-old boy who was refused entry brought a legal challenge.
The boy, identified in court only as "M," was turned down for the high-flying JFS -- formerly known as the Jewish Free School -- in Kenton, north-west London, because his was not born a Jew but converted at a progressive synagogue.
Judaism is passed down through the maternal line. The publicly-funded school gives preference to children whose Jewishness is confirmed by the office of Britain's Chief Rabbi whose United Synagogue does not recognize such conversions.
Judge James Munby said that the school's entry policy was "entirely legitimate."
He added that a ruling against the school could have rendered unlawful "the admission arrangements in a very large number of faith schools of many different faiths and denominations."
The boy's father said he had been "appalled" that his son had been declared "not Jewish enough" to attend the school. The family's lawyer accused the school of applying an application test "not based on faith but wholly or partly on ethnic origins".
Father and son, who were not named, are active members of the Masorti, a "progressive traditional" Jewish movement.
The judge said that the kind of admissions policy in question was "not materially different from that which gives preference in admission to a Muslim school to those who were born Muslim, or preference in admission to a Catholic school to those who have been baptised".
"But no-one suggests that such policies, whatever their differential impact on different applicants, are other than a proportionate and lawful means of achieving a legitimate end," he added.
The judge said a decision against the school could have rendered unlawful "the admission arrangements in a very large number of faith schools of many different faiths and denominations".
