Almost one in four Jewish children face antisemitism at or around school
JPR survey also reveals one-in-five Jewish parents with children in mainstream schools more likely to send their kids to a Jewish school following 7 October
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
A new survey from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) shows that 23 percent of Jewish respondents report that their children have experienced antisemitism at school, in its vicinity or travelling to or from it.
Unsurprisingly, the survey, written by JPR’s senior research fellow, Dr Carli Lessof, shows that Jewish children in mainstream schools are more likely to experience antisemitism at school, while those attending Jewish schools are more likely to experience antisemitism while travelling to and from school.
But more intriguingly, one in five Jewish parents with children in mainstream schools say they are more likely to send their children to a Jewish school following the October 7 attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza.
The JPR report, “Antisemitism in schools: how prevalent is it, and how might it affect parents’ decisions about where to educate their children post-October 7’, draws on data collected in June and July 2024, eight months after the October 7 attacks on Israel and in the context of the war in Gaza.
It explores Jewish parents’ understanding of whether their children have experienced antisemitism either at school, in the vicinity of school, and travelling to and from school. The research investigates whether parents would make different choices about where to educate their children in light of the events of October 7 the war in Gaza and the rise of antisemitism in the UK.
Among the key findings are that 23 percent of British Jewish parents reported that their child or children had experienced antisemitism at school (12 per cent), in the vicinity of school (six percent) or travelling to or from school (nine per cent.
Parents of children at a Jewish school are more likely to report that their children experienced antisemitism while travelling to or from school (13 percent) than at school (three percent).
In comparison, those with children at mainstream schools are more likely to report their children experienced antisemitism at school (21 percent) than travelling to/from it (two percent).
Three-quarters (73 percent) of Jewish parents with children in mainstream schools said that the October 7 attacks and the war in Gaza would not affect their choice about where to educate their children, but one in five (20 per cent) said they would now be more likely to send their children to a Jewish school. This proportion doubles (40 percent) for parents whose children have experienced antisemitism in, around or travelling to or from their mainstream school.
Just over half of Jewish parents with children in Jewish schools (52 percent) said that the attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza would not affect their school choice, though most of the remainder (46 percent) saying they would be even more likely to opt for Jewish schooling now.
There are 136 registered Jewish schools in the UK, educating over 36,000 Jewish children. That figure, broken down, shows that about two-thirds of all Jewish children are educated in these schools: almost all strictly Orthodox children learn in Jewish educational settings, as do an estimated 43 per cent of other Jewish children.
JPR says that this represents an extraordinary rise since the 1950s, when there were just over 5,000 Jewish children in Jewish schools.
In 2018 a joint JPR/Ipsos study identified the factors affecting the choice of children’s education for British Jews. Those picking a Jewish school had three main drives: wanting their child to have a strong Jewish identity (80 per cent of parents), to have friends with similar values (60 percent) and to attend a school with high academic standards (40-45 percent).
In contrast, the motivations of parents preferring a non-Jewish or mainstream school were: wanting their child to be educated in an environment that is not exclusively Jewish (60 percent), convenience (e.g. being close to where they live) (35 percent), and again, attending a school with high academic standards (30 percent).
JPR executive director Dr Jonathan Boyd said: “It is particularly jarring to see that a quarter of Jewish parents with children in mainstream schools report that their children have experienced antisemitism there. It is also striking to learn that 40 per cent of these parents would be more likely to opt for a Jewish school now, given the choice again.
“While in real terms, these are not huge numbers, they are sufficiently large to potentially affect the delicate balance between supply and demand for places in Jewish schools, so in our post-October 7 context, it becomes more important than ever to monitor any actual changes in preferences if Jewish schools are not to see a repeat of some of the supply/demand issues they have had in the past.
“But more than this, these findings raise critical questions for mainstream school administrators about how to manage the issue of antisemitism in their schools, and indeed for government leaders about social cohesion. This is part of a growing body of evidence demonstrating how antisemitism can drive Jews away from engagement with wider society, and that should be of concern to anyone who cares about building a more cohesive and understanding society.”
The JPR report comes out at the same time as new figures were released on racism in schools, with a report from the Runnymede Trust saying that thousands of children, some as young as four, were sent home from school for racism last year.
Campaigners, who said the figures could indicate that bigotry had become “normalised”, believed that in some cases the children were repeating in the classroom what they heard at home and from right-wingers on TV and radio.
In 2023, 11,619 children were suspended from school for racist behaviour, 25 per cent up from the previous year, and equivalent to almost 60 suspensions per day.
Dr Shabna Begum, who leads the Runnymede Trust, said: “The fact that children and young people are picking up and articulating racism in schools feels entirely predictable in this current climate.
“Recent years have seen media and politicians legitimise hateful language and violent policy that would once have been scorned. Children are reflecting the hatred that has become a normalised feature of our political conversation.”
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