Several parents whose children were not accepted into Britain’s Jewish Free School (JFS) are suing the school, saying its use of halakha (Jewish law) to determine admission was “racist and illegal.”  The school’s criteria are based on rulings from the British Chief Rabbinate.

One couple says their son was rejected from the school because his mother’s conversion was not Orthodox and therefore was not recognized by the British Rabbinate.  A second couple says their daughter was rejected despite her mother’s Orthodox conversion to Judaism after the British Rabbinate ruled that the mother’s conversion was not genuine because she later married a man prohibited to her by Jewish law.

Parents say the school policy is discriminatory, and is illegal because the school receives state funding.  School officials argue that they have the right to set admissions criteria according to rulings made by Britain’s Chief Rabbi.  British authorities have refused to intervene, saying the affair is a matter of internal school policy.