Talk:JFS (school)

Controversy

JFS has recently been the centre of much attention in the UK Jewish media, particularly the Jewish Chronicle, because the son of a woman who converted to Judaism was not accepted by JFS. However, this was not due to the school's own policy, but because the London Beth Din - the local religious authority - refused to recognise the mother's conversion. After Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (the Chief Rabbi of England) pronounced the conversion unauthentic, the mother has since taken legal action against him

• I have never heard before of anything like this. Maybe the mother was not converted properly.--Dakota ^{t e} 14:07, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, The LBD ruled that her Israeli conversion had not been properly carried out and that she had failed to observe Judaism in any way since her geirut. Another conversion was rejected--ironically, the woman taught English at JFS. It's been alleged that the LBD has something against Israeli Rabbanut conversions. Alexisr 11:17, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Bias?

It is also interesting to note that the school charges a fee for (compulsory) Jewish Education and that the "free" is in name alone. Further more, the school does not offer Religious Studies until sixth form and instead teaches only Judaism, a compulsory GCSE. To 'compensate' for the lack of RS the school holds "Multifaith" seminars although these are only once a year and usually involve simply talking about the problems jews face in the world, trying to be accepted and one year a black christian came to talk to us about the problems she faced. She did not mention her religion and so many students were left asking: "Since when was being black a faith?" While charging is unique to Jewish schools (IIRC), it is common practice amongst British faith schools to make RE about the faith they teach. This article suggests that JFS is somehow unique. The point of a faith school is that it teaches about the faith it espouses! Alexisr 11:17, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it was free at some time in the past. The history coverage in the article is rather lacking. Nathanian 20:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

It is free. The JS department (and the security) is funded by parents, but they do not have to pay in order to be part of the school. The information about who pays is kept confidential. r3m0t ^talk 09:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

JFS Jewish Education fees are volunatary. This school is not State or Private but voluntary aided. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.5.99 (talk) 21:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup

I have marked this article as requiring cleanup. The grammer and sentence phrasing needs attention.

Ignition00 (talk) 10:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I have attempted to clean up the article as much as possible. P.S. Grammer is actually spelt Grammar :)

(AdamD123 (talk) 01:19, 5 November 2008 (UTC))

Redirect?

I am wondering why JFS redirects here. I think it should go to the disambiguation page. Considering this article was on the brink of deletion before, I am not sure it is by far the most important use of the abbreviation "JFS" one could think of. I think the JFS disambiguation page would be the best place for "JFS" to redirect to, leaving the choice up to the reader what they meant. --elwood_j_blues (talk) 20:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Legal ruling - is it explained correctly?

The article currently says:

They ruled that the mother's religious status, and thus her child's religious status, had been determined using a racial criterion rather than a religious criterion

I'm not sure that's right. From the press I've seen about it it was reported that the ruling was more like that the child's religious status had been determined from the mother's religious status, and therefore constituted a racial criterion rather than a religious criterion? Newman Luke (talk) 00:05, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:49, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

---

Jews' Free School → JFS (school) — "JFS" no longer stands for "Jews' Free School". The school is only known as JFS, and if you look at their website or any of their publicity you will not see it referred to by its old name. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 15:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the official name has apparently changed, but what of the common name? That hasn't necessarily changed, and that's what we use here. Andrewa (talk) 19:40, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

JFS, easily. I've never heard anyone call it Jews' Free School. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 15:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Interesting... The school history on their website doesn't even mention Jewish Free School or Jew's Free School as former names, but the London Times does. Is there an attempt being made to rewrite history here, do you think?

When was the official name changed, do you know? And from which of the two possible expansions of JFS we now have? And what of the other one, was that ever the official name? That all might help to answer the obvious and most puzzling quesion: Why did the many former editors of this article choose and/or accept Jew's Free School as the article name?

We don't need to answer these particular questions before moving the article, but we do need more information of some sort IMO, and some of it probably belongs in the article. No vote as yet. Andrewa (talk) 16:38, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Still wavering on this one... The fact that the Times article linked to above starts out A leading Jewish state school goes to the new Supreme Court today to challenge a ruling that it broke race laws. JFS, formerly the Jewish Free School,... (my emphasis) suggests that the former name(s) were still in common usage as recently as October 27, 2009, the article date. Andrewa (talk) 16:54, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think anyone's trying to rewrite history. The school's name was changed, perhaps never officially, a very long time ago; JFS is quite well known as a school in London, but most people would be confused if you mentioned the old school. The article in the Times notes the former name because the controversy it describes was directly about whether or not the school had the right to restrict admissions to the school to Jews, or if that vioated UK anti-racism laws. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps never officially? How long ago? What are your sources?

People would become confused? Not surprising; The single piece of information that would be most helpful to have on the history page of any school website is any former names. Yes, the reason The Times does mention the former name is obvious. What is not so obvious is why the school website doesn't.

So I hope I'm not going over the top in asking whether history is being deliberately suppressed, but there may be more of a story here than we have yet, and it's relevant to the article name (as well as content). This is a job for... Wikiman! Andrewa (talk) 04:25, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know when exactly the school was renamed/rebranded. It's been known as JFS for a long time. What's Wikiman? 84.92.117.93 (talk) 21:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

So again I ask, what are your sources for saying it's been known as JFS for a long time? For more on Wikiman, just follow the link (which I also gave above)...! Andrewa (talk) 02:25, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

"I got a Certificate of Education ... in 1971.... I came for interview at JFS and as someone finishing at college I was so green I didn’t even know JFS was Jewish until I came through the doors of Camden Town." http://www.jfsalumni.com/yourmemories/?disp_feature=t1heu9. This suggests to me that the JFS name was dominant by 1971, whatever the formal name. It seems JFS was the formal name by 2003; note the award to Miss Ruth Laura Robins described at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2987844.stm. Perhaps it was formally named JFS when the school was re-established in 1958, even though journalists and judges continued to mention the old name in 2009. NebY (talk) 10:09, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and as I suggested above, I think the main reason why the Times mentioned the school's former name was to give context to the school's history as a Jewish establishment. In any case, "Jews' Free School" is clearly not the right name to use here. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 22:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Quite. The current name of JFS is verifiably long- and well-established. I support the proposed move. NebY (talk) 23:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support move. The evidence presented here indicates that it's known more widely as JFS. I concur with the comment that the former name may have been mentioned in the discrimination story because of the story itself, not because the newspaper thought readers would need the old name in order to recognize the school in question. Propaniac (talk) 19:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Stadhome House

The article refers to a Stadhome house, but it also says that there are four houses and lists four by other names. So what is Stadhome House?Bill (talk) 04:09, 8 July 2022 (UTC)