“Ever since we were married we’ve lived a Jewish life,” David says. “Being Jewish is the centre-point for our lives.”But Sir Jonathan insists that at the time of their conversion, both women ignored fundamental aspects of Judaism. “Mrs Sagal was unable to provide us with evidence that, whether at the time of her conversion or subsequently, she maintained even the most basic observance of Jewish law,” he said in a statement. Kate Lightman is accused of entering into a controversial marriage to David, against the letter of the law, so soon after conversion that, says the Chief Rabbi’s office, that she cannot have sincerely taken on the duties of Jewish law at the time.”People don’t suddenly, out of the blue, get into a relationship and decide to get married and have no inkling of this in the months beforehand,” said a spokesperson for the Office of the Chief Rabbi. “If you want to join any club, you can’t put a red line through one of the terms and conditions on the form. They’ll strike you off.”The women say they are being stripped of their status for behaviour since they converted. According to Jewish law, once you are a Jew you are always a Jew: as long as you were born or converted legitimately, no one can take that away from you.

As converts, they say, they are being treated as second-class Jews.The issue has prompted some in the Jewish community to ask: if the families are so keen to send their children to JFS, why not just let them? “There are different communities represented in the school,” explains a spokesperson for the Office of the Chief Rabbi. “But what they have in common is that their mothers are Jewish.” This view is “pathetic and absurd,” says Helen Sagal.The Sagals believe that Sir Jonathan’s real reason for annulling their Jewish status is simple arrogance. By rejecting the decisions of Israeli courts to convert Helen and Kate, he is setting himself above them.”These children are being used as pawns by Jonathan Sacks so that the world will regard his standards as the highest,” says Professor Geoffrey Alderman of the American InterContinental University in London, who has been campaigning on behalf of the families.But Sir Jonathan says standards, at least in the Sagal case, have been lax and that basic procedural norms were not in place. According to the Chief Rabbi’s office, it is widely accepted that a foreigner wanting to convert would spend at least a year in Israel under the guidance of the Chief Rabbinate or have a special application from a Beth Din (religous court) abroad Neither had occurred in her case. The court which dealt with Mrs Sagal’s conversion was among a number of city conversion courts that were later disbanded, he says.Professor Alderman dismisses this as rubbish “It’s a spurious cover-up,” he says.

“Different religious courts have always behaved in different ways. Sacks is imposing his own view of conversion on Israel.”Professor Alderman says the Sagal and Lightman cases are not the only ones. Three other families whose mothers converted in Israel have contacted him since the Sagals’ troubles became public earlier this year. “But they’ve been so ashamed about what’s happened that they’ve accepted it,” he says “These people rule by fear,” David Lightman says.

“But we refuse to remain silent.”After voicing support for the families in The Jewish Chronicle, Professor Alderman claims he has been told by an official at Sir Jonathan’s office that he must publicly recant some of his views before they will talk to him “I wouldn’t have believed it,” he says. “They think they’re above accountability, only answerable to God. It’s a fundamentalist attitude.”The Sagals aim to make the matter as public as possible in the British and Israeli courts, suing Sir Jonathan for defamation. They have been advised by Professor Michael Corinaldi, an Israeli legal academic “A conversion certificate is final and universal,” he says “No one can deny it Judaism is a status. This is libel.”Many in the wider Jewish community think that the rules for membership to Sir Jonathan’s club are too strict. Rabbi Danny Rich, the chief executive of Liberal Judaism, a Reform movement with 10,000 British members, has condemned what he calls the “narrow ‘definition policy’” at schools such as JFS.

“Liberal Judaism believes that state-funded Jewish schools should be for the benefit of all Jewish children,” he says.Others go further. “When you allow religion to dictate policy in schools, it leads to this kind of discrimination and injustice,” says Terry Sanderson, the vice-president of the National Secular Society. “We should remove these dreadful admissions criteria and make these schools open to everybody in the community.”In the meantime, children like Guy Sagal will continue to be excluded, whether because of “faulty” conversions or the pride of the religious establishment.”Being Jewish is important to me. My family’s Jewish, so it’s important that I’m Jewish,” Guy says.