[PatrickHenry]

Heh! Like my lurid title? It's not quite as bad as I made it sound, but this is a quirky story.
http://education.independent.co.uk/s...icle312619.ece

Helen Sagal converted to Judaism 15 years ago - but the Chief Rabbi has barred her son from a state-funded Jewish school. Nick Jackson reports on a controversy that has divided the community and may end up in court

"I've been put in the position that I'm a Jew in Israel, but not in the UK. When I fly from London to Tel Aviv, at what point do I become a Jew? Over the Balkans?" Helen Sagal is trying to explain how she has found herself and her children stripped of their Jewish identity in Britain by the Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, after her 11-year-old son Guy applied for a place at the Jewish Free School (JFS) in north London. "We were keen for Guy to have a Jewish education and we'd heard good things about JFS," she says. "So last October we applied to send him there." In December, a letter arrived from the school saying that because Sir Jonathan could not recognise Helen's conversion in Israel 15 years earlier, he could not confirm Guy's Jewish identity, so he could not have a place at the publicly funded school, which puts a priority on educating Jewish children. "It was out of the blue," Helen says. "They'd never met me. I thought, 'Who is this man to judge my conversion 15 years later?'" The Sagals say Sir Jonathan is denying them their right to freedom of religious expression. His decision has prompted furious debate in the community over what it means to be Jewish. The Sagals received hate mail accusing them of making a mockery of Judaism, while supportersaccused Sir Jonathan of fundamentalism... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After voicing support for the families in The Jewish Chronicle, Professor Alderman claims he has been told by an official at Sir Jonathan's office that he must publicly recant some of his views before they will talk to him. "I wouldn't have believed it," he says. "They think they're above accountability, only answerable to God. It's a fundamentalist attitude." The Sagals aim to make the matter as public as possible in the British and Israeli courts, suing Sir Jonathan for defamation. They have been advised by Professor Michael Corinaldi, an Israeli legal academic. "A conversion certificate is final and universal," he says. "No one can deny it. Judaism is a status. This is libel."

This story is interesting to me because my son and daughter in law are Jewish converts. But they live in California, not the UK.