SCOTLAND'S Jewish communities have backed an "opt-in" system for religious activities in non-denominational schools.
The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC) has raised concerns that non-Christian pupils often feel "excluded and alienated" during prayers and ceremonies, in a response to a petition by Secular Scotland which has called for an end to pupils automatically participating in religious observance.
Parents currently have the legal right to opt out and ask that their child does not take part.
The submission from SCoJeC cited examples from a recent report into the experiences of being Jewish in Scotland, including one parent who said her daughter was told that she "killed Jesus" when sitting in an Easter ceremony.
"One of the children read: 'The Jews wanted Jesus dead.' She was upset," she said.
The submission said the real issue was ensuring that activities in non-denominational schools are "genuinely non-denominational".
But it added: "In view of the number of pupils and parents from minority faith communities who report feeling excluded and alienated, we agree with the petitioner that there is a strong case to be made for reversing the current situation so that pupils in non-denominational schools are required to opt in to religious observance activities."
However, the SCoJeC stated that the status quo should remain in denominational schools as parents had already "opted in" by sending their children to this type of school.
The petition will be considered by the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee on Tuesday (November 12) .
However, the majority of responses submitted do not support changing the status quo.
Caroline Lynch, chair of the Scottish Secular Society, said the response from the Jewish communities showed that the problems described in the petition are "real, common and serious".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article