Charedim and Board need a new pact
V IN 1971, Rav Chanoch Padwa, head of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations (UOHC), wrote a short letter stating that his organisation would “withdraw their representation” from the Board of Deputies. This was the first time, since its founding in 1760, that a section of the Jewish community had formally disavowed the Board. At the time, however, this did not necessarily appear significant. Rav Padwa objected to an arrangement that maintained the alliance of the liberal and centristorthodox communities who formed the overwhelming majority of British Jews. Losing a tiny minority of black-hatted obscurantists must have seemed like a small price to pay, perhaps not even a price at all.
Nearly 50 years on, however, Anglo-Jewish leaders find themselves facing the cold hard realities of demographics. Finding the right philosophical balance between tradition and modernity, between dogma and education, between identity and acculturation is all well and good, but what determines the future of a community is having babies and getting those babies married. Charedim now account for around 20 per cent of the total Jewish community and by 2031 will be responsible for 50 per cent of Jewish births. For the Board of Deputies, this poses an unavoidable existential question: what proportion of British Jews can be outside the tent before the title of “voice of the British Jewish community” becomes untenable? The problem isn’t just theoretical. Two years ago, at the height of the BoD’s campaign against Labour antisemitism, the project was almost derailed by literally half a dozen Chasidim in Stamford Hill, who proclaimed in the national press that Charedim supported Jeremy Corbyn and even launched a campaign to demand Sadiq Khan boycott the BoD annual dinner. In reality these activists represented only a tiny sliver of Charedi opinion, but the ace up their sleeve was the undeniable fact that the BoD speaks on behalf of the Jewish community while its most demographically vibrant and, for want of a better word, most obviously “Jewish” looking part is not represented. With each passing year, the ability of Charedi activists to embarrass and undermine the Jewish establishment is only going to increase.
At the same time, though, this situation is also not working out for Charedim. We lack an institution like the Board of Deputies with the stature and ability to consistently make an impact at the highest levels of British politics and society. Our need for powerful representation, however, is becoming ever more acute. Aside from the chronic issues relating to housing and urban planning in a country where our birth rate is more than three times the national average, we are facing a steadily increasing threat to the viability of our way of life. After decades spent in the cosy dreamworld of official multiculturalism, the Charedi community has woken up to a harsh new political reality split between Cancel Culture on the left and Muscular Liberalism on the right. In this environment, we desperately need influential and astute representation.
In theory, resolving these issues is straightforward: Charedim should rejoin the Board of Deputies. In practice there is almost no chance of this happening. The reasons Rav Padwa gave for leaving apply just as much today and it is inconceivable that the Charedi rabbinical leadership would be able to overturn 50 years of precedent even if it was minded to. Truth be told, however, if the BoD is honest with itself, it must admit that this is not the solution it wants anyway. In addition to the sheer numbers of Charedim with a right to be represented, the Board’s’ system of electing representatives would ensure our dramatic overrepresentation. The BoD is already struggling to maintain unity over hot button issues like Israeli settlements and annexation. The shock of absorbing more than a hundred Charedi deputies would be like the plank that broke the camel’s back.
Behind the scenes, however, a different model of engagement is already in development. While maintaining the fiction of organisational separation, the BoD and the UOHC work together on a regular basis, with the former explaining the position of the Charedi community and the latter taking their representations to Whitehall.
The problem with these arrangements, though, is that they don’t really give either side what it needs. Charedim get occasional pro bono representation from the Board of Deputies, but no fixed advocacy for their interests. The BoD does not, as far as I can tell, get anything at all, and certainly not the formal recognition it requires. Instead, the UOHC preserves enough plausible deniability to get out of the way whenever a Charedi extremist decides to lob abuse at the BoD.
I propose that we take the existing relationship, bring it out into the open and formalise it in the shape of an explicit agreement specifying in detail the extent to which the BoD is authorised to act as a representative of the Charedi community. What this means, essentially, is that Charedim would outsource their external affairs operations to the BoD in return for an official statement recognising it as the proper representative of the UK Jewish community of which we are a part. The BoD would not need to endorse Charedi causes, only represent them faithfully. Charedim would have to affirm this relationship in specified ways whenever the Board’s legitimacy is challenged, as well as paying its share of the Board’s budget.
Conducting an open and public debate about the relationship between the BoD and the Charedi community will go against the instincts of many on both sides, but I believe it is vital to define explicitly how Charedim and the Anglo-Jewish establishment can work together and, just as important, where we have to maintain separation. For my community, this would be a real opportunity to develop the kind of maturity befitting our size and numbers. For all of us, it is the only way to secure a future for UK Jewry as safe and successful as the past two centuries have been.
By 2031, Charedim will account for 50 per cent of Jewish births’
Eli Spitzer is headmaster at Tiferes Shlomo Boys’ School, @spitzer_eli