Many of us know Sir Jonathan Sacks best from his gentle, early morning murmurings on the radio on Thought for The Day. So it comes as a shock to hear how the Chief Rabbi describes himself: “I’m the acceptable face of fundamentalism, that’s my highest aspiration.”

He’s made his name far beyond the Jewish community, as a social analyst with the ear of Gordon Brown (and a daughter working in the Prime Minister’s office) and other political leaders. But if you think the head of a minority religion would be in favour of right-on multiculturalism, think again. “Multiculturalism has run its course”, is the opening line of his new book, The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society.

As we settled down for tea in his palatial North London home (a perk of the job), he came out fighting. “This book is probably politically incorrect in the highest order. And if it isn’t, well at least I intended it to be.”

If you expect a religious leader to be accessible, or give straightforward answers, think again in the case of Sir Jonathan. He makes a case for a Britain where there is greater integration but, crucially, without assimilation. To the layman at least, this argument, especially in the contentious case of faith schools, throws up more questions than answers.

“I recognise the tension you’re talking about and it is a real tension,” he said. “And it’s the theme of the book. How do we create integration without assimilation? How can you be part of a larger entity without losing your identity? That’s the very narrow bridge that this book walks across.”

He should be good at walking across “narrow bridges”. The son of East End of London shopkeepers, he got a double first in philosophy from Cambridge, and was 17 years ago given the job of leading and uniting Britain’s somewhat fractious – and shrinking – Jewish community. He appears kind, learned, is a fine writer, and obviously intelligent. So why then should it be so frustrating to speak to him?

He attacks multiculturalism, for its idea that Britain was something of an hotel, welcoming guests who paid their taxes and giving them some services in return, but giving no one a sense of belonging and therefore responsibility. Instead, all citizens need to make more of an effort to put down community roots.

But, when we ask him for examples of how to go about doing this, he demurs. “My argument is really a kind of direction-finding exercise,” he said. “We need a strong concept of the common good, a sharp distinction between state and society.”

OK, well, what does the “common good” mean for faith schools? He led the drive for more Jewish schools in the early 1990s, by alarming the Jewish community about their imminent demise. “I decided to use shock-horror tactics,” he said. “And since then we’ve built more Jewish day schools than ever in our 350-year plus history.”

Yet in his book he writes that while faith schools benefit those lucky enough to attend, “it is not good news for all-of-us together”.

That sounds like a clear admission that his evangelical support for faith schools is at odds with his desire for integration. “That’s a very good point,” he said, then answered an entirely different question. We asked again if Jewish schools are compatible with integration. “Of course, yeah.”

If you are puzzled by the rest of his answer, so were we: “Because we have lived as a minority. And 26 centuries ago we got the best piece of advice ever given to an ethnic minority. Came from the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote to the Jewish exiles in Babylon and said, ‘Seek the peace and welfare of the city to which you have been exiled because in its prosperity you will find prosperity. In its peace, you will find peace’. That is the duality that Jews have lived for 26 centuries.

“So, for instance, you know all our role models have been very active in contributing to Britain as a whole. And, at the same time, very active in supporting Jewish causes. Now, you know, once you’ve got that degree of historical expertise behind you, that’s when you try and say something to society as a whole from that kind of perspective. We have had to perform that balancing act for a long time.”

Hmm, yes, but, are faith schools compatible with integration?

“Yes, of course. Absolutely, because we have an ethic of responsibility to society. The way I have always put it, and it comes really from the first words of God to Abraham, are, the challenge is to be true to your faith while being a blessing to others regardless of their faith.”

Much of talking to Dr Sacks is like this: tantalisingly provocative ideas wrapped in layers of obfuscation, then swaddled in an erudite sweep of references. Finally, after much prodding, he explained what he meant about faith schools not being good for society: “Because there is no counter pressure.” ie, the schools do not take strong enough steps to look outward. “They [Early 20th-century Jewish schools] wanted their kids to be good Englishmen and women, that’s what my parents wanted for me. I think that today there is just too little content to that idea . . . I just am aware that communities are turning inward.”

He was born in 1948 and his parents sent him to a local school (with a Christian ethos), whereas he sent his three children to a Jewish one, a pattern typical of the current boom in faith schools. Why?

“My parents knew that I would be taught hard work, respect for authority, respect for the family, a certain basic set of ethical guidelines that were utterly congruent with their own.

Today parents are very concerned about where their children will find those values – they do not find them in the wider culture,” he said

Does he think some parents are not religious, but send their child to a faith school in the hope not of salvation but of better grades? “It’s quite possible. I don’t mind why they send them to Jewish schools, I just hope that when they go to those schools they’re going to learn some profound moral lessons.”

You can imagine our relief to find him clear on the subject that forms the strongest part of his book: how multiculturalism rewards victimhood, with various minorities competing to be the most wronged. “We have a culture in which the quickest route to public sympathy is to be a victim. So it does pay to be a victim . . . And I think to be a victim is to be part of the culture that is the absolute opposite of the culture of responsibility.”

The literary lion

–– Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, has written 16 books

–– His most controversial was Dignity of Difference (2002), in which he argued that there was one God and one Heaven but many versions of truth

–– Some ultra-orthodox Rabbis said that this was incompatible with Judaism as it suggested that the faith did not contain the absolute truth. The book won the 2004 Grawemeyer Award for Religion

–– Some reviewers called The Politics of Hope (1997), in which Dr Sacks proposes a new politics of responsibility in which all portions of society have a part to play, the most influential handbook of civil society of the decade

–– His most recent previous book, To Heal a Fractured World – The Ethics of Responsibility (2005), is a plea for ethical behaviour from non-Jews as well as Jews

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