`I`m not sorry for faith schools`

28 COMMENT
thejc.com
THE JEWISH CHRONICLE
27 september 2013
comment&analysis
Maybe
Buddhism
gets it...
David
Robson
I
N her very enjoyable biography, published this week, the actress Rula Lenska
talks about her adherence to a Japanese
form of Buddhism where if you want or
need something to happen you chant for
it and it often comes to pass. How well
the want-chant success rate stands up
to statistical examination I cannot say.
What I do know is that it’s very different from the
Jewish way.
Go through the full Yom Kippur liturgy and there
is absolutely nowhere for specific requests. Yes, we
beat ourselves on the chest innumerable times and
catalogue every possible sin from aleph to taf , but
nobody invites us to specify to the Almighty what
sort of assistance may be most useful in the coming
year — help with weight loss, an improvement in
the demand for my friend’s light fittings, a not-tooexpensive solution to my car’s gearbox problems
and other such pressing matters. All we are offered is
the rather nebulous possibility of being sealed in the
Book of (good) Life.
I had gone to shul with just one specific and
infinitely tiny request of the King of the Universe.
It was saturday and I really like to watch Match of
the Day without knowing the football results; this
can be hard to achieve in the outside world but as I
was in my seat at 9am and didn’t move from it once
until 8.15pm, I was fairly confident. I have often
felt the Yom Kippur service isn’t long enough, and
so it proved. There was a half-hour break between
musaf and minchah, from
4.30 to 5pm. The man a few
I had just
seats away from me left and
one tiny
a few minutes later
request of the returned
looking redeemed and upliftAlmighty
ed as one might after hours
of fervent prayer. Clearly, he
had something spiritual to impart to those who had
remained through the livelong day: “ sunderland
1, Arsenal 3,” he proclaimed, “spurs 2, Norwich 0.” It
was enough to make me want to become a Buddhist.
A Buddhist might have brought better weather
over succot. We are less hardy than we were. When
I was young we had no central heating and there
would be precious little difference in temperature
between our house and a succah (not that we had
one). succot of course is the only time Jewish men
are supposed to do DIY as part of the religion. “Could
you build a shelter?” asks Kirsty Young on Desert
Island Discs. ‘”shelter, shmelter...”
To be honest, I don’t celebrate the festival any
more, which is ungrateful of me because when I
was at Jewish boarding school it was a godsend. If
we were already back for Rosh Hashanah and none
of the festivals fell on shabbat the whole autumn
term became a work-free zone. so thank you, Shemini
Atzeret!
How very different from the sorely-tried Bruce
Gold in Joseph Heller’s novel Good as Gold. His elderly father, who lives in Florida, returns north only
for (very painful) family High Holy Day gatherings.
Much to Bruce’s dismay he stays until after Simchat
Torah, a festival he wonders if Dad was making it up.
Another fortnight is too much to bear. If only he’d
been a Buddhist.
You’ll always be Lilywhites
Barry
Frankfurt
A
s A Panini-sticker-collecting kid, the albums
provided a lesson in
football trivia that has
stayed with me to this
day. The stadium names,
the players’ places of
birth and the nicknames
for every club, are etched in my memory.
My beloved Arsenal are of course the Gunners. Everton will always be the Toffeemen.
United are the Red Devils and Tottenham
Hotspur the Lilywhites — but never the Yids.
some of my Jewish friends supported
spurs, others Arsenal. In the 80s, we had
David Dein, they had Irving scholar. Neither
club was Jewish. Both were Jew-ish. In fact,
as the Jewish Museum’s upcoming Four
Four Jew exhibition highlights, Arsenal
were nearly a decade ahead of their North
London rivals in using the match-day programme to wish Jewish fans a Happy New
Year at Rosh Hashanah. One-nil to the Arsenal (again), but this isn’t the time or place
for point scoring.
The latest furore over spurs fans calling
themselves the “Yid Army” has not only
touched these pages but reached Downing
street and the media here and across the
world. As an Arsenal fan — a statement that
will no doubt tint what follows in the eyes
of the myopic and tribal —it is clear. spurs
fans are right. As they so triumphantly sang
at home to Norwich earlier this month, they
can sing what they want.
I just wish they wouldn’t. The worst thing
the Football Association could have done was
to make a pronouncement on the issue. Telling 38,000 football fans not to do something
is pretty much guaranteed to have the exact
opposite response. Instead of helping to
address the problem, the FA has managed to
inflame and spotlight it all at once.
The impact that this has on Jewish fans of
other teams should not be ignored. I have
been subjected to antisemitic abuse because
of the association. On one occasion, in
Munich of all places, a coach full of Arsenal
supporters spent the 45-minute journey
from the Beer Hall to the Olympic stadium
extolling the virtues of Hitler’s Jewish policy.
Why? Because gassing the Jews would get rid
of all spurs fans. Obvious, really.
I’ve heard the argument, supported by
David Cameron, that it is crazy to punish
those who use the phrase in a positive way.
The Prime Minister said it was the mens rea (a
concept that has no doubt been debated at
great length at White Hart Lane), the crimi-
nal intent, that matters. This is not about
whether or not spurs fans mean any harm.
They don’t, and to try and punish them is
both futile and unnecessary. It is also the case
that there can be no excuse for antisemitism,
whatever the basis or provocation. But this
misses the point.
When the spurs supporters Trust talks
about “reclaiming” the word “Yid”, it is
unclear from whom it is being reclaimed and
on whose behalf. Jews
What does
have, for a long time,
used the word when
it mean to
speaking about themreclaim the
selves. It already has a
word ‘Yid’?
non-offensive meaning in much the same
way the N-word does when used by those
within certain black communities. Imagine
the reaction if Arsenal fans decided that
being Gooners was a bit passé and now was
the time to “reclaim” a word on behalf of the
club’s black supporters with whom it shares
a long and proud history. You would hope
that common sense would prevail.
If spurs fans really care so much about
raising the esteem in which the pintele Yid of
north London is held, then spare a thought
for the vast majority of Jewish football fans
who don’t support your team. Being a Lilywhite won’t offend anyone.
Barry Frankfurt is MD of Creative & Commercial
and an Arsenal season-ticket holder.
I’m not sorry for faith schools
Sandy
Rashy
A
sPIRITED debate quickly
descended into a tablethumping row as a close
friend and I discussed
the effect of faith
schools after the experience was played out in
last week’s JC.
He regurgitated the conventional misgivings: a Jewish school promotes insularity,
ignorance and a fear of mingling with the
non-Jewish world from university to the
workplace.
As a former Naima JPs and JFs student who
happily blended in with non-Jewish friends
at university and work, I found accusations
of insularity to be patronising from a person
who had been educated at a single-sex, educationally selective and pricy private school.
Many people mistakenly assume that
going to a school like JFs (the largest Jewish
school in Europe with over 2,000 students)
segregates the student from other sectors of
UK society. But they’re wrong.
There’s more to British society than faith
— whether it’s mixing with the opposite sex,
culture or class — and from my experience,
JFs was a mixing pot of diversity.
I would never have met my loud, noisy
friends in any other environment. Many of
us excelled academically, others had a more
creative flair, while a few budding entrepreneurs spent more time in detention for using
school hours to sell knock-off clothing. After
school, we often flocked to the nearby newsagent for sugar-hits and magazines, before
running to catch our bus to respective family
homes in Bishops Avenue (Billionaires’ Row),
more middle-class Edgware or council flats
in Hackney.
We may have all been Jewish — but we all
came from different parts of UK society.
Our religious background wasn’t uniform.
My friends’ bar and batmitzvahs were not all
held at Us synagogues — many were Reform
and others took place at little-known houseconverted Charedi shuls in stamford Hill.
I watched Zionist students proudly paint a
blue star of David on their face during Yom
Ha’atzmaut school celebrations, and then go
on to sit next to classmates who would boycott the event until the
Messiah duly arrived. I
Insularity
learned to be tolerant
does not
of people who came
feature
from different reliin these
gious backgrounds.
Faith schools are
schools
nationally renowned
for their academic
excellence and religious education. As a Jewish student, learning about your religion,
the state of Israel and historical factors from
what led to its creation — from Herzl to the
Holocaust — is nothing to be ashamed about.
Classmates often find it easy to bond over
Friday night dinners, their bubbe’s latest
embarrassing antic and upcoming holiday
to Eilat. There’s no reason to be apologetic
about a shared culture in a stimulating Jewish environment.
Granted, I left school with minimal knowledge of other faiths, but I later learned about
them via extra-curricular dance classes,
books and university lectures. No doubt, I
would not have been able to study the strong
Jewish communal feeling with which I left
school. I have never felt the need to explain
or qualify my Judaism.
I went on to apply my school experience
to a professional setting on graduating from
Birmingham University and BPP Law school.
My Jewish education did not hinder my ability to work with Eastern Europeans asking for
benefits at legal pro bono centres; it did not
hinder my ability to advise Arab shaykhahs
shopping for the latest handbag brand at top
fashion houses; it did not instil me with an
overwhelming fear of being the only Jew, let
alone woman, in a plummy boardroom at
a top stockbroking firm. In fact, my diverse
education taught me about tolerance.
Today I regularly speak to Jewish schools
from Immanuel to Yavneh and Hasmonean. Hasmonean Girls have embarked — to
the surprise of a number of people — on a
number of interfaith projects, from participating in national charities to planting pots
at (non-Jewish) community centres. Insularity does not feature on their curriculum.
While I have chosen to further my career at
the JC, my Jewish schoolfriends have gone on
to become lawyers, doctors, dentists, teachers and artists in the non-Jewish world. And
I have been assured that their education and
Jewish identity helped many to do so.
Sandy Rashty is a JC reporter