Treatment of Religious Students is Hardly Kosher

A heated controversy, which boiled over last term in a usually calm and much loved college, illustrates starkly the extra hassles that face Cambridge students who want to honour their religious obligations. It thrusts in all our faces the disturbing question: ‘just how much freedom of religion do we have in this university?’

Last November, three Orthodox Jewish girls signed up to attend Christmas formal with the rest of their college friends. They specified that they could not attend on the Friday night because of observance of the Sabbath. They could only attend on Wednesday. They also requested Kosher meals. The response: only the Friday night was available. Kosher meals would cost them each £60. This was not a feasible option for the girls.

Were the observant Jews of this college to be excluded from Christmas formal because of their own religious commitments? Could the college not accommodate for Jews who observed the Sabbath and dietary laws but also wanted to feel part of their college community? The issue was taken up by the JCR President who tried to help them out with an appropriately angry email. After no progress, the Senior Tutor was contacted with a slightly angrier email. His response? “I am forwarding this to your tutor who will no doubt be in touch with you.” But the girls were right to doubt, because the tutor is yet to reply.

Christmas formal has come and gone and the Jews of this college have been ignored, their religious commitments not understood and their level of observance not accommodated for. These girls have been excluded from the college community and left disheartened, and understandably angry.  Angry Jewess No.1 continues to check her Hermes account regularly for the reply, but she is repeatedly disappointed.

Essentially, the college community has failed to deal with the issue at all. While Cambridge prides itself on being both inclusive and tolerant, as well as rightly celebrating its diversity, instances like this one reveal that still  there are ways in which we still need to learn to include  those that are different in the community. Parts of being an Orthodox Jew mean leading a practically different lifestyle in the observance of religious laws, but this does not affect their desire to be involved in college life. Food provision is a good example of something that is affected by religion but also falls within college remit, and it is here that we can identify cases of real exclusion. Accommodating for religious observance must involve genuine efforts to avoid isolating these students.

This issue also indicates how the main challenges of religious life in Cambridge are associated with religious observance, rather than religious belief. As a religious Jew I am rarely challenged on what I believe or why I believe it. My more curious friends sometimes remark about my level of observance and might question why I stick to certain laws, but I have not yet encountered a problem from someone who really disputes the details of Jewish theology. It is religious observance that poses the greatest challenge; it is institutionalised exclusion that is the problem, not attitudes amongst students. The day-to-day struggle of adhering to Jewish laws in a secular environment is what creates the discomfort that I often feel in Cambridge.

For Orthodox Jews it seems as though the university has succeeded in allowing them to observe religious laws as they wish- provisions are often made in college to allow Jewish students to cook Kosher food themselves, for example. In this sense, there is freedom of religion. What the university has failed to do, however, is understand that a religious student does not want to be isolated, and that the result of this will be an angry student. Or in my case, one Angry Jewess.