| Eye on Europe |

Chinuch UK versus the Deep State

By Gedalia Guttentag | June 13, 2018

he threat to Jewish education from a progressive bureaucracy that has emerged in recent months might have achieved the unprecedented: forcing unity on Britain’s long-fractured religious community, from Modern Orthodox to Satmar, to deal with what has become an existential crisis for the community.

Ofsted, the agency that monitors UK schools, has targeted Jewish schools from across the religious spectrum with a spate of aggressive inspections, focusing heavily on whether chareidi schools are teaching material totally antithetical to the Torah.

Mechanchim are reluctant to discuss details of Ofsted inspections for legal reasons, but a source within a recently inspected school told Mishpacha, “From the start of the inspection, it was clear that the ‘protected characteristics’ [including tolerance for alternative lifestyles] were the focus. Scholastic achievements come across as secondary.” Equally disturbing, “Inspectors claim that teachers can’t be present while they are talking to students, which is untrue. We managed to force them to back off from asking these questions to students, but it was an enormous struggle to protect the children.”

These inspections began in 2016, but only in the last few weeks has Britain’s religious community woken up to the severity of the threat. Beginning with a massive coordinated response to a government consultation on the subject, momentum is gathering behind a movement that could revolutionize Britain’s Jewish communal life. There is now initial agreement to form a coalition called Chinuch UK, which will for the first time represent the country’s full religious spectrum, from chassidic and yeshivah communities to Modern Orthodox.

Given the nature of the threat, speaking to the government with one communal voice is surely the right move. But doubts remain as to whether such a coalition will get off the ground. Historically, chassidic-dominated Stamford Hill has been fiercely independent of Jewish establishment bodies such as the Office of the Chief Rabbi and the Board of Deputies, forming the chareidi UOHC as a separate communal body. The same independence holds true for the Gateshead community and others around the UK that are now threatened. Whether the current problems are dire enough to forge a strongly unified front is unclear.

But veteran Jewish educational consultant Michael Cohen disagrees with the strategy of negotiating with Ofsted. “Long years of interaction with Ofsted have shown that all efforts at dialogue are a waste of time. We now need to go directly to the government. Ofsted have overstepped the rules, which is for them to inspect and comment on schools. We need to sit down with the half-dozen people who have influence with the government, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Conservative Party donors, and convince them.”

Another question mark over the Chinuch UK strategy is how effective the Jewish establishment can be on this issue. Unlike in the US, where organizations such as the Agudah and the OU can wield their lobbying clout exclusively for Orthodox interests, Britain’s religious community has no comparable government access, and must rely instead on pluralist bodies such as the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council — which also represent the Reform.

It is hard to envision such bodies effectively championing a position that must appear extreme to much of their constituency. Underscoring the fact that this is a coalition and not a seamless partnership, the Chief Rabbi’s office told Mishpacha that “if the rabbanim who have spoken out about this matter would like to meet with the Chief Rabbi to discuss it further, he would welcome such a meeting.”

What is clear is that in this battle with the bureaucratic “deep state” in the Department for Education, the religious community’s divisions and lack of government influence have been laid bare.

“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” said a former US president. If the chinuch threat does something to address these shortcomings, it will be a crisis well spent.