Michael Etherton: TV needs Jewish diversity

Mainstream British society needs to see the range of British Jewry, from masorti to Mizrachi

IRECENTLY COMPLAINED bitterly to a journalist at the BBC that every news report I see about Jews is illustrated with long-lens footage of Haredi Jews in black coats, going about their daily business in Stamford Hill. Almost inevitably, whenever I hear the word “Jew” on ITV, Sky News, the BBC or a host of national newspapers, the images show strictly-Orthodox Jews shopping in Golders Green or walking solemnly past London’s synagogues.

Whilst I like to think that our community embraces its distinctive strictly-Orthodox minority, Jews are not only white, Ashkenazi and attired in clothes reminiscent of 18th century Polish nobility. We are also Sephardi, Mizrachi, middle class, working class, black, secular, modern religious, liberal, reform, masorti, rich and poor. Continually representing Jewish people to the wider British community as cast members of Fiddler on the Roof is lazy journalism and often feels like it’s pandering to a stereotypical need to find a Jew who “looks like” a Jew.

Various journalists I’ve spoken to have explained that it’s not always fair or accurate to attribute this to laziness. A few times a year, an editor will assign a junior reporter to cover a Jewish story. Perhaps it’s Chanukah, perhaps it’s a story about antisemitism. With relatively little knowledge of the Jewish community, a reporter has only a couple of days at most to become an expert, and to find ordinary Jews willing to appear on camera and to secure useful filmed footage of the community from the media organisation’s library. The problem is that the libraries at news organisations are full of these kinds of images and videos of Jewish people. Key in the word “Jewish” and that is what pops up: an old couple with hats on, walking in Golders Green.

I am trying to come up with a solution. When it comes to finding usable library footage of such a diverse and multifarious community, there is surprisingly little available. Moreover, it’s difficult to get any of us on video, especially at such short notice. We are generally nervous about being filmed in the streets of Temple Fortune buying challah and bagels. Community gatherings often take place on shabbat, when filming is prohibited. Despite the plethora of communal organisations, often the only TVfriendly, responsive members of the community are our chabbadniks or outreaching frum Jews. There is currently no organisation whose job it is to put reporters in touch with key members of the community. I’d love to see a family who would let cameras in to film their Seder, or Britain’s ancient Sephardi community on screen – or how about a synagogue that is open on standby to cameras for a regular shabbat service?

Stereotyped representation of Jews in the news is also mirrored by a dearth of British-Jewish representation in film and TV fiction, apart from Friday Night Dinner, most of whose actors are not Jewish. If you enjoyed the wonderful wry and irreverent US comedy, Shiva Baby, which premiered at the UK Jewish Film Festival last year, you might also notice that there is no British equivalent.

The only recent major fiction about Britain’s Jewish community was Disobedience, focussed on oppression within the strictly-Orthodox community. That was back in 2017.

The reason for this lack of representation is straightforward. When it comes to crucial public funding, of the dozens of ethnic groups listed by the BFI film funds and Arts Council, there is no tick box for ‘Jewish’. Jews can only self-identify either by ticking Jewish as religion, or the unhelpful ‘other ethnic group’. We’ve been in Britain for more than 350 years but we still await official recognition as an ethnic minority. The consequences in terms of funding and representation are huge, and particularly damaging bearing in mind a climate of increasingly mainstream Jew-hatred.

That is one of the reasons behind the launch of the new UK Jewish Film Short Doc Fund. We hope over the coming years to build up a unique library of three-minute documentary films, including hitherto unrecorded snapshots of real Jewish life in Britain today, and to make these available free of charge for audiences everywhere, including news reporters. We have already received many intriguing pitches of our under-represented community. The project is aimed not only at experienced filmmakers but those with little or no experience, young or old, who will be supported by our fund mentor. The first five of these new short documentaries will be screened at the UK Jewish Film Festival 2021, which takes place on 4-11 November.

To submit your proposal, get it to us by next weekend: info@ukjewishfilm.org And who knows, next time I turn on the TV and see a report about Jews, the images may be more more reflective of our diverse community.

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