Abstract: Faith schools remain a topic of debate in contemporary Britain. In 2017, faith schools accounted for 33.7% of state-funded mainstream schools. Faith schools differ from other state-funded mainstream schools in many ways. For example, they have the ability to control the content taught in their Religious Education and Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) syllabuses and have control over their admissions arrangements. This project explores the impact Jewish schools can have on one’s adult beliefs, through a small-scale study. This study analyses online questionnaire responses from 25 participants aged 19-27. All participants in this sample attended the same Jewish secondary school in London, referred to as ‘School A’. The responses show that faith schools can have a significant effect on one’s adult beliefs, due to the ways in which they teach pupils about different religions, political ideologies, and sexuality. This was found to be mainly due to the perceived exclusion of other religious beliefs and opinions. Despite this, most of the participants still felt able to express themselves and their beliefs. Moreover, this study’s participants felt that their adult beliefs were more significantly impacted by their family and community, rather than by their school. The study’s findings highlight a need to improve the inclusivity of SRE teaching in Jewish schools. This project recommends that further research is conducted on the impact of attending a Jewish secondary school on an individual’s beliefs later in life, and whether this is also representative of all UK faith schools.
Abstract: This report draws on data collected in June and July 2024, eight months after the October 7 attacks on Israel and in the context of the war in Gaza, to explore Jewish parents' understanding of whether their children have experienced antisemitism either at school, in the vicinity of school, and travelling to and from school. The research goes further to investigate whether parents would make different choices about where to educate their Jewish children in light of the events of October 7, the war in Gaza and the rise in antisemitism in the UK.
This is part of a growing body of evidence demonstrating how antisemitism can drive Jews away from participation in wider society, and that should be of concern to anyone who cares about building a more cohesive and understanding society. The findings raise critical questions for mainstream school administrators about how to manage the issue of antisemitism in their schools and, indeed, for government leaders about social cohesion.
Some of the key findings in this report:
A little under a quarter (23%) of British Jewish parents surveyed reported that their child or children had experienced antisemitism at school (12%), in the vicinity of school (6%) or travelling to or from school (9%).
Parents of children at a Jewish school are more likely to report that their children experienced antisemitism while travelling to or from school (13%) than at school (3%).
In comparison, those with children at mainstream schools are more likely to report their children experienced antisemitism at school (21%) than travelling to/from it (2%).
Three-quarters (73%) of Jewish parents with children in mainstream schools said that the October 7 attacks and the war in Gaza would not affect their choice about where to educate the children, but one in five (20%) said they would now be more likely to send their children to a Jewish school.
This proportion doubles (40%) for parents whose children have experienced antisemitism in, around or travelling to or from their mainstream school.
Just over half of Jewish parents with children in Jewish schools (52%) said that the attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza would not affect their school choice, with most of the remainder (46%) saying they would be even more likely to opt for Jewish schooling now.
Abstract: This factsheet looks into Jewish education in the UK and the rest of Europe, highlighting parents’ different motives when choosing a Jewish or non-Jewish school for their children. The paper draws data from three sources: previous JPR research on school registration numbers, a 2018 pan-European study sponsored by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), conducted by a joint JPR-Ipsos team, and JPR’s spring 2023 survey of Jews in the UK.
Some of the key findings in this factsheet:
The number of Jewish children attending Jewish schools has increased significantly over time and is expected to reach about 40,000 by the mid-2020s;
In the UK, the number of children attending Haredi schools outnumbers the number of Jewish children in mainstream Jewish schools by about three to two.
Parents in the UK, France and across Europe are most likely to point to a desire for their child to develop a strong Jewish identity as a motive for registering their children to a Jewish school;
Jewish identity is followed in most places by a desire for their children to have friends with similar values, with the exception of France, where concern about antisemitism in non-Jewish schools is a more common motive;
In the UK and France, the most common motive for parents to send their children to a non-Jewish school is actively preferring a non-Jewish (integrated) environment, cited by about two-thirds of all such parents in both countries;
Convenience also commonly features as a reason not to send children to a Jewish school, coming second on the list in the UK and France, and topping it elsewhere in Europe.
Academic standards and availability are also marked highly as reasons parents prefer a non-Jewish school for their children, particularly in the UK.
Abstract: This dissertation is an ethnography of children and young people growing up Jewish in Luxembourg. It focuses on the students of a Talmud Torah class in a Liberal synagogue that, in recent years, has drawn increasing numbers of highly mobile, multilingual families from around the world. As these students learn how to be Jewish and carry on Jewish tradition, they simultaneously explore what it means to be modern and to be modern Jews. This process pushes them to confront a series of ambiguities and apparent paradoxes across the contexts of their everyday lives – in Talmud Torah, at home, and at school. Based on 31 months of fieldwork, this dissertation reveals the nuanced semiotic ideologies and competing visions of modernity that become visible through the lens of the students' Talmud Torah learning, including learning to read Hebrew, engaging with religious texts, and participating in ritual performance, and their school experiences. The students grapple with, navigate, and position themselves in relation to these different 'projects of modernity' as they work to make sense of and bring together the aims of Jewish continuity and liberal modernity and all that these entail. By exploring these processes, this dissertation aims to participate in the anthropological conversation about 'modernities' and 'the modern' as a project that is both embracing of the liberal, the secular, and inclusivity and can be powerfully normative, constraining, and exclusionary, and to encourage us as anthropologists and teachers to think about how we might leave open the possibility for nuance and alternative attachments, desires, goals, mobilities, and ways of being in the classroom and beyond.
Abstract: The number of Jewish pupils enrolled in Jewish schools has been climbing consistently for several decades and has increased significantly since the mid-1990s. This rise, described in previous JPR Jewish schools bulletins, has taken place in both the ‘mainstream’ and the ‘strictly Orthodox’ sectors. However, JPR’s new schools bulletin reports that, while the number of registered pupils in 2021/21 shows an overall increase of 1,612 pupils on three years previously, the growth rate has moderated in recent years, nearly flattening within the mainstream sector.
“These new findings are already playing an important role in helping community leaders to plan the future of Jewish education in this country”, says Dr Jonathan Boyd, Executive Director of JPR. “The clear slowdown in growth in the mainstream sector, particularly at primary level, urgently needs to be understood to ensure that all Jewish children who wish to be educated within the Jewish school system can continue to be offered that opportunity.”
Some of the key findings in this report:
35,825 Jewish pupils were studying in 133 Jewish schools in the academic year 2020/21. This represents an increase of 1,612 pupils, or 4.7%, since 2017/18.
60% of Jewish pupils in Jewish schools are in strictly Orthodox schools; 40% are in non-strictly Orthodox or ‘mainstream’ Jewish schools, a slight shift from 58% to 42% three years previously.
Almost three-quarters of all Jewish pupils in Jewish schools are in schools in Greater London or South Hertfordshire (73.3%) – a drop from 74.6% in the 2017/18 academic year that is influenced by a shift towards Manchester (27% to 29%) and away from London (67% to 65%) in the strictly Orthodox sector.
The geographical distinction between London and elsewhere is most pronounced in the mainstream Jewish sector, where 86% attend schools in London or the surrounding area.
Overall, there has been growth in the numbers of both primary and secondary school pupils since 2017/18, but this conceals a fall in primary pupil numbers for the mainstream Jewish sector over the last two academic years.
Abstract: Dans la brochure informative qu’elle fait publier lors de son ouverture en 1935, l’école Maïmonide affirme vouloir faire de ses élèves des adultes « conscients de leurs doubles devoirs envers le judaïsme dont ils sont les héritiers, envers la France dont ils seront les citoyens dévoués ». Le premier lycée juif français s’est donc donné pour objectif de former une élite communautaire qui puisse mener une vie citoyenne et professionnelle épanouie en France tout en assurant la relève de la vie juive dans le pays. De fait, parmi les valeurs juives transmises en son sein, le sionisme a toujours tenu une place de premier plan. Comment expliquer qu’un établissement scolaire se donnant pour mission principale d’assurer la pérennité d’une vie juive en France accorde une telle importance au sionisme ? En analysant les différentes manières dont le sionisme a été interprété et mis en pratique dans le cadre de l’école Maïmonide, cet article propose de montrer comment, au fil des générations, l’établissement n’a cessé de concilier son attachement au sionisme avec la volonté d’œuvrer pour l’essor du judaïsme en France. Cette analyse permettra de revenir sur l’histoire de ce premier lycée juif français qui, bien qu’évoqué dans de nombreux travaux portant sur l’histoire de l’éducation juive en France, n’a jusqu’ici fait l’objet d’aucune une étude spécifique. Plusieurs historiens ont signalé l’absence d’archives conservées par le lycée Maïmonide pour expliquer cet angle mort historiographique. Pour remédier à ce manque, cet article s’appuiera sur des sources provenant de divers fonds d’archives institutionnels et privés, sur la presse communautaire et sur une cinquantaine d’entretiens, menés entre 2016 et 2020 en région parisienne et en Israël, avec d’anciens élèves et professeurs de l’établissement scolair…
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Education against, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Schools: Non-Jewish, Schools: Primary / Elementary, Schools: Seconday / High Schools, Jewish Pupils, Jewish Children In Mainstream Schools, Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism, Teaching and Pedagogy, Universities / Higher Education
Abstract: Malmö stad har under hösten 2020 undersökt förekomsten av antisemitism och förutsättningarna för judiskt liv i Malmös förskolor, skolor, gymnasier och vuxenutbildning. Resultatet presenteras nu i en rapport tillsammans med en forskningsöversikt och förslag på åtgärder framåt. Undersökningen och rapporten är en del av Malmö stad och Judiska Församlingen Malmös samverkansöverenskommelse.
Rapporten handlar om att motarbeta antisemitism och stärka förutsättningarna för judiskt liv i Malmös förskolor, skolor, gymnasier och vuxenutbildning. Studien består av intervjuer med skolpersonal och judiska barn och unga i Malmö, vilket kompletteras med en skolpersonalenkät utförd i några av Malmös grundskolor och gymnasier, samt en forskningsöversikt.
- Antisemitismen i Malmö är ett verkligt problem med tydliga offer, men frågan är mer mångbottnad än vad den ibland beskrivs som. Målsättningen med det här arbetet är att, utifrån kunskap och forskning, identifiera problem och behov i Malmös skolor för att skapa förutsättningar för att arbeta systematiskt med dessa frågor i utbildningen, säger Mirjam Katzin, samordnare för arbetet mot antisemitism och författare till rapporten.
Resultatet visar att det ofta saknas tillräckliga förutsättningar och förkunskaper hos skolpersonal för att arbeta mot antisemitism. För att förebygga rasism och antisemitism är en ökad kunskapsnivå central. Detta gäller i första hand lärare och annan skolpersonal och i andra hand eleverna. Slutsatsen är att det behövs kunskap och utbildning i demokrati, rättigheter, antirasism och specifikt frågor om antisemitism, konspirationsteorier, Israel/Palestina och de nationella minoriteterna.
Abstract: „Antisemitismus ist an deutschen Schulen Normalität.“ Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt die im Dezember 2018 veröffentlichte Studie „‚Mach mal keine Judenaktion!‘ Herausforderungen und Lösungsansätze in der professionellen Bildungs- und Sozialarbeit gegen Antisemitismus“ von Prof. Dr. Julia Bernstein unter Mitarbeit von Florian Diddens, Ricarda Theiss und Nathalie Friedlender.
Für die Studie wurden 227 Interviews an 171 Schulen mit jüdischen Schülerinnen und Schülern, deren Eltern, mit jüdischen und nichtjüdischen Lehrkräften sowie mit Fachleuten aus der Sozialarbeit und aus Bildungsorganisationen durchgeführt. Die Befunde von Prof. Dr. Bernstein zeigen, dass antisemitische Äußerungen und Handlungen an Schulen normal sind und häufig nicht erkannt werden. Jüdische Kinder und Jugendliche erleben subtile Anmerkungen, diffuse Ablehnung, offenen Hass und Gewalt. Die offene Selbstpräsentation als Jüdin_Jude in der Schule wird aufgrund der Gefahr von antisemitischen Angriffen weitgehend vermieden. Die Perspektive der jüdischen Lehrer_innen zeigt, dass sie als offen auftretende religiöse Jüdinnen_Juden sowohl von der Schulleitung und im Kollegium als auch von Schüler_innen Benachteiligungen, teils sogar Anfeindungen erfahren.
Es ist die erste empirische Studie zu Antisemitismus im schulischen Bereich, die die Perspektiven von Jüdinnen und Juden in den Vordergrund stellt. Die Studie schlüsselt die Erlebnisberichte aus drei Perspektiven auf: die der jüdischen Schüler/-innen, die der nicht-jüdischen Lehrkräfte und die der jüdischen Lehrkräfte.
