Do schools need more interfaith contact?

WHEN THE Institute for Jewish Policy Research carried out its last antisemitism survey in the UK over a year ago, it found this: people who have no Jewish friend, neighbour or colleague are twice as likely to nurse unfavourable views of Jews as those who do have one (10 per cent as opposed to five per cent).

While the battle against antisemitism has largely been waged on the political front, it has an educational dimension, too. Prejudice is linked to ignorance. Stereotypes persist where knowledge of Jews is lacking.

But longer-term demographic trends within the Jewish community are reducing the possibility of nonJews meeting Jews. First of all, the Jewish population is geographically contracting into fewer areas. Regional communities continue to decline. Places as Sunderland have vanished off the Jewish map. The city in which I was raised, Newport, South Wales, no longer has an active synagogue.

I don’t know whether any audit has been done to compare the number of communities with, say, at least a hundred Jews now with 50 years ago. But new regional Jewish outposts are not springing up to replace those which have closed their siddurim for good.

Apart from the shift in geography, the second trend is of Jewish children tending to “huddle” in Jewish schools — the most recent count suggested two-thirds or more of the age group now attend one. So there is less scope for the kind of friendships beyond the community which previous generations of Jewish children enjoyed through school.

A few Jewish schools do take sizeable numbers of children from other faiths — but these are very much the exception.

One practical response is for Jewish schools to cultivate links with other schools. JFS, for example, invites students from other schools to Holocaust education events. A girl from Hasmonean High School was so inspired by her involvement in an interfaith programme with other schools that she went on to initiate a “Great Get Together” gathering in tribute to the murdered MP Jo Cox.

But have inter-school link-ups gone as far as they could or should? The government is keen to encourage school twinning as part of its community integration strategy. In response, the Jewish Leadership Council raised queries about the feasibility of “meaningful interaction” through joint meetings. But it suggested that after-school homework or, for instance, chess clubs could provide a place for children of different religions to get to know one another.

Perhaps the next step is for the JLC to map what contact is actually taking place across the Jewish educational system — which will help determine what more could be done.