Muslim students flocking to UK Jewish school

A UK Jewish school half of whose student body is Muslim.  The surreal touch of Muslim kids waving the flag of a Jewish state aside, I don’t find this shocking.

Growing up in a Muslim family in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s but for the most part isolated from other Muslims, I instinctively identified with Jews and saw them as natural allies in a majority Christian society that rarely deigned to take note of other religious traditions.  I remember envying my Jewish friends their option of aliyah, going to a place (Israel) where they could wear yarmulkes, eat appropriately, and generally be themselves without worrying about the disapproving eye of the majority.  America was considerably less multi-cultural then.

As I got older and learned the tragic modern history of the Middle East and discovered how this beautiful freedom often occurs at the expense of innocent Palestinians, this identification became conflicted and nuanced.  But the affinity remains, even if today it is laced with sorrow.

Independent Online Edition > "The Jewish school where half the pupils are Muslim"

King David is a strictly Jewish school. Judaism is the only religion taught. There’s a synagogue on site. The children learn modern Hebrew – Ivrit – the language of Israel. And they celebrate Israeli independence day.

But half the 247 pupils at the 40-year-old local authority-supported school are Muslim, and apparently the Muslim parents go through all sorts of hoops, including moving into the school’s catchment area, to get their children into King David to learn Hebrew, wave Israeli flags on independence day and hang out with the people some would have us believe that they hate more than anyone in the world.

The Muslim parents, mostly devout and many of the women wearing the hijab, say they love the ethos of the school, and even the kosher school lunches, which are suitable because halal and kosher dietary rules are virtually identical. The school is also respectful to Islam, setting aside a prayer room for the children and supplying Muslim teachers during Ramadan. At Eid, the Muslim children are wished Eid Mubarak in assembly, and all year round, if they wish, can wear a kufi (hat). Amazingly, dozens of the Muslim children choose instead to wear the Jewish kipah.