Whenever someone is described in the media as a person of faith, there’s a dispiriting inevitability that it will be meant as a compliment. So consider the declaration by the Hasidic Belz community in north London that the children of mothers who drive them to school will be turned away at the gates. Women driving is, say the rabbis, “contrary to the rules of religious modesty in our camp”.
In a cosmopolitan capital city in the 21st century, it takes deep religious conviction to publicly hold women in such contempt. Yet so accustomed are we to the place of religion in public life that we risk overlooking another scandalous aspect of this episode: hundreds of children are being educated at the sect’s two north London