I’m a Jewish teacher. Stop asking me questions about my Muslim students

It usually happens at a kiddush or a simcha. I introduce myself, and, when asked, explain that I teach in a non-Jewish school.

Oh, they say. Does it have a lot of Muslim students?

Yes, say I.

And do you wear a kippa?

Every day for the seven years I’ve worked there.

I know the question that’s coming, because it always comes.

And do you ever have a problem with the Muslims?

The question comes as it always does and, invariably, I take the coward’s way out. I say no, that I’ve never had a problem with any Muslim student. In fact, I say, the only interaction I’ve ever had on matters of faith was when two of my Muslim students approached me after 7 October and told me they were worried about me, and would pray for my family. Or that I used to daven mincha in the multi-faith prayer room next to my Muslim colleague, me standing and facing Jerusalem, him kneeling to Meccah. Sometimes I point out that the only antisemitism I’ve ever suffered at work was a white, non-Muslim, boy drawing a swastika on his desk, a student who, on investigation, may not even have understood what he was doing.

These answers that I give aren’t false. Every event there happened. But giving an answer like this is cowardly, because the answer engages with the question “do you ever have a problem with them”, when the brave person’s answer isn’t to say “no”, it’s to say “why should I have done?”

Like Jews, Muslims in this country are not a monolithic group. Like Jews, there are those who are open and tolerant. And, like Jews, there are those do not share those values. There will be Muslims who, on hearing that their colleagues work in law or accounting or finance, ask them if they’ve ever had a problem with “the Jews”. There will be Muslims who will be surprised to hear that in fact there are many Jews who are wonderful citizens and neighbours. And yes, there will be some Muslims whose beliefs are so extreme that they are led to firebombing a shul or stabbing an anonymous Jew in broad daylight. Some Muslims, but not all.

I have no problem with calling out those who espouse or preach hatred. I have no problem with open discussions about how that hatred relates to their faith. But I do have a problem with casual assumptions and lazy stereotypes that we would never accept were they levelled at members of our own faith: we must not think about others that which we would not want thought about ourselves.

And yet, with all that being said, I still take the coward’s route. Instead of challenging my questioner, and asking them to reflect on why they thought it was appropriate to ask the question, I acknowledge it, and respond as though it were legitimate or ethically reasonable, and feed them some heart-warming chicken soup about Muslim boys praying for my family. Rather than attacking the paradigm, I take the easy route and choose to live within it.

But I’m not sure how much longer I can, and when I see prominent Muslims like Sara Khan, Mohammed Amin and Oz Katerji taking a stand against antisemitism, I find it harder to take the easy way out. Why should they speak in a way that I won’t? Why should I allow people’s assumptions about my students to go unchallenged? I suppose, on reflection, that I shouldn’t, and from now on I won’t. And so, if you find yourself at a kiddush or a simcha and you’re chatting with a science teacher who teaches at a non-Jewish school and wears a kippa every day, don’t ask him if he ever has a problem with “the Muslims”.