A little history

Jan 23, 2007

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The Jew’s Free School “is Europe’s largest and most successful Jewish secondary school. It was established in 1732 as the Talmud Torah of the Great Synagogue of London, serving orphans of the community.

In 1822 the School was relocated to Bell Lane in the heart of the East End where, throughout the 19th century, it absorbed thousands of immigrant children. At one time JFS had 4,000 children on roll and was the largest school in the world.

In the inter war period, children often came straight from the Kindertransport to JFS. During World War II students were evacuated to East anglia and Cornwall and the School was destroyed by enemy action. It re-opened in 1958 in Camden Town where its location remained central to the London Jewish community of the late 1950s.”

I must say that I am proud that my country, England has had the tolerance and sense to accept Jews living their lives among us and alongside us for so long. Many English Jews have chosen to integrate and intermarry, many, like the Hassidim, have chosen to preserve a distinctively different way of life. We have been enriched by their presence, whichever path they have chosen.

So I must admit that I find it surprising that England after so many centuries of tolerance has now arrived at a point where Sir Cyril Taylor, who heads the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust is reported as saying “We have a huge number of children in this country in schools which are, in effect, segregated. Hopefully, most people agree that that is not a good thing……. In some part of the country where, for example, children only speak Bangla at home and do not mix with other communities at school, it has become a real strategic security problem.”

I know very little about Islam, much less than I know about Judaism and Christianity. I know of no reason why Muslims should not be treated with the same tolerance and respect and be made welcome here, because it quite clearly is Muslims who are being targeted.

We didn’t do this to the Jews at the time of the King David Hotel bombing, nor to Irish while Irish terrorists were murdering people in Warrington, Birmingham and Brighton.

There is no justification whatever for New Labour’s persecution of the Muslim community. It is racist, it is wrong.

It’s where it is

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Comments

14 responses to “A little history”

DaddyBean
23 January 2007
Hm, comment requires a bit to much thought at the moment.
but I’m sure you should be in bed 😉 (my excuse is that i have been but coughed so badly I had to get up again))
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Merry
23 January 2007
I agree, there is a difference in how we treat cultures. I don’t know about that hotel bombing, was it a deliberate jewish terrorist attack?
I DO know though, that we have a long history of treating Irish people differently; i’ve watched my mums passport be suspiciously started at over and over again, i’ve even seen a policeman markedly change his geniality level when my mum reported an unlit skip in the road and then revealed her Belfast birthplace when giving routine details. We’ve been detained at African customs places, i’ve sensed (at younger than 10) the bristling of people to my Irish accented grandparents when at the height of the mainland troubles.
I’ve clung quite proudly to my Irish heritage throguh my childhood and teens, defending it by my ordinariness i suppose but to be honest, since it all resolved 9as it were) i’m not sure i do anymore. Maybe i was just after a cause that made me different 😉
I see my white skinned muslim friends and know they get eyebrows cocked at them “why are they doing that, what is the agenda” and i can’t understand why people don’t see religion and strong faith as something worthy of preserving and supporting. A school full of happy, supported, enriched people living life by the good aspects of a religion that advocates family bonding, togetherness, peace and charity doesn’t really seem like a bad thing to me. They seem in fact like values we could do with embracing a bit more often as a culture. They seem like the values that are under attack.
It seems to me that attacking the values and rights to community make extremism of all sorts much more likely. in fact, it is those aspects of this government that have finally turned me right off them being in charge. I don’t want dicators, oppression, extremism or despair – but i don’t want a plastic, souless society either.
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Tim
23 January 2007
King David Hotel bombing
Your Irishness had not registered with me. The story you tell seems to me to exemplify what I mean. OK, fine, when you have things like the Birmingham pub bombings going on, then it is understandable that people might give a second thought to Irish accents. It is understandable if, after the London bombings, people look askance at people who they mentally connect to the perpetrators. We all have prejudices, anyone who denies that is a fool, at best, and if I were sitting on a bus next to someone who looked a bit like Osama bin Laden and was carrying a rucksack, yes, that might well make me a bit nervous. But that does not justify institutional persecution of the entire Muslim community, quite the opposite.
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Merry
23 January 2007
I quite agree. I can recall feeling incredibly irritated by it in all sorts of ways.
Online, i do (did perhaps) keep my Irishness quite quiet, mainly because in fact i have a very famous historical relative who had a connection with a famous freedom fighter in a fairly dramatic and un pc fashion!
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Tim
23 January 2007
“Online, i do (did perhaps) keep my Irishness quite quiet”
Merry is Irish!!!
🙂
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Merry
23 January 2007
Indeed. 1/2 Irish 😉
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Allie
23 January 2007
Hmmm. Well I really don’t know. I have always felt that if the state is funding education (ie everyone’s taxes are paying for it) then it should be totally separate from religion. If people want to fund their own faith schols then fine. I don’t single out muslims here, I’d say the same of any religion. That said I really wouldn’t persecute anyone, of any faith, who chose to express their faith through dress or behaviour in state funded schools. I just don’t see that the state should FUND faith schools. I have nothing against faith, just think that organised religion leads to dogma and persecution and the state has no business using my taxes to support it.
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Tim
23 January 2007
I agree with you Allie. My objection is that, once again, Muslims are being singled out.
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t-bird
23 January 2007
I wonder if it’s the language issue rather than the faith issue that the minister meant to raise? It’s the “in effect” bit that makes me wonder. He’s refering to children where there is no English spoken in the home and hence these children have no real ability to cope with an English speaking school. So is he talking about children forced into segregation because they are placed in schools that can deal with their language instead of being placed in more mixed schools rather than the parents choosing to segregate them on faith grounds? I have no problem with that being raised as an issue, Ghetto schools don’t help anyone, lest of all the pupils.
I will be somewhat stroppy though and say that I don’t think complete seperation, even voluntary, is something that is good. Our particular nation is as diverse as it is becuase so many different cultures have intergrated into it. I grew up boardering on a major Jewish area and although the kids went to the Jewish school (which is a practical arrangement – they do have different festivals around which to hang the school terms after all) and obviously went to the Synagogue on Saturday rather than Church on Sunday, that was as far as the difference went really. The Kosher shops were on the same street as Spar, we shared play parks, their children joined the same Guides/Scouts etc, we were all part of the same community. That’s different from a community that seals itself in and doesn’t share it’s culture or allow it’s children to see ours.
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Tim
23 January 2007
t-b, I don’t think for one second this is about language. That is a very different issue and one which could be addressed in many other ways. How do you feel about the Hassidim? Surely, if this were anything other than a racist attack on Muslims, then the Hassidim would be the first place to point the finger. My view is that if a group wants to shut themselves off from mainstream society, as Hassidim do and as the Amish people in the US do, then it is their right to do so, there is no law against it .. yet.
Perhaps we need a law which requires everyone to send their children to a state school chosen at random? 🙂
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Debbie
24 January 2007
You know, Allie, Muslims pay taxes TOO you know. We should have whatever education that we see fit. This is not a secular society in reality as we have a head of state who is also head of church and the Lords are made up of clergy. Nobody had an issue with faith schools until Muslims got them and with a population of Muslims of 1.8 million I can only thing of ONE school that is state funded – by far less disproportionate than that of Christian or Jewish schools. As a person who is supposed to live in a democratic society I should be afforded the right to freedom of conscience. Just like YOU do for your way of life.
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Tim
24 January 2007
I am not convinced that the State should be funding religious schools or any religious education at all. But, assuming that it does, then all faiths should be on an equal footing.
But in the end this is just another piece of fear-mongering. Next they will have us all wearing badges so they can tell what kind of “strategic security problem” each of us represents.
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Allie
24 January 2007
Debbie, I say the same of ALL faith schools. I think we SHOULD live in a secular society when it comes to state funded services. Faith is nothing to do with the state – it should neither fund nor supress it. Of COURSE you should have freedom of conscience. I find it bizarre that you should think I have suggested you should not.
It is simply not true that ‘nobody had an issue with faith schools until muslims got them’. I certainly did and so did a lot of other atheists. Just try talking to some of the people who get ‘given’ jolly little ‘high achieving’ CofE schools that slip the religion in daily. I have family members who have children sent home with religious tracts every term. Only one religion by the way – Christian. I am not Muslim bashing. I fully support freedom of religion.
BTW Debbie, I pay my taxes TOO and I don’t get state funded schools that provide the education I see fit. That’s why I choose to home ed. 😉
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Debbie
24 January 2007
Whatever. personnally i think schooling in any form is unproductive but if you pay your taxes you should get what you want without someone making out like they are doing you some great big frigging favour. And whilst you at a personal level had issues with faith schools at governmental level there was never any issue with it. until the bogey man wanted them too then all hell breaks loose.
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