Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time

hijab, or cross; didn’t go to Oxbridge; are a carer; don’t have a trust fund; or are black (or white). Jews weren’t mentioned but, I suppose, could qualify under another category. As far as I’m aware, most Jews don’t have a trust fund. And, as Ms Butler probably knows, there are black Jews.

Baddiel is concerned in this short, polemical book — in effect, pamphlet — with Jews being “left out” by well-meaning, self-defined anti-racist progressives, many of whom appear to be spectacularly ignorant of history. But, even today in liberal democracies like our own, Jews, too, are victims of racism, in the singular form of antisemitism. Baddiel quotes from a nauseating written example — by the widely treasured Alice Walker.

Baddiel himself knows of antisemitism’s modern incarnation only too well, as his vividly described experience of being a football fan bears out. He is particularly critical of the adoption by Tottenham Hotspur fans of the identity “Yid”, on the basis of the club’s historical Jewish associations. Baddiel (whose team is Chelsea) refers to “Yid” as “the Y-word”, believing it to be as abhorrent as “the N-word” used by anti-black racists.

Today’s antisemites tend to favour the word “Jew”, or euphemistically “Zionist”, in their malignant vocabulary. Baddiel, however, relegates “Jew” beneath “Yid” because “Jew” is “not a slang word coined by racists”. But neither is “Yid” — and we can write that without asterisks. There is still a vibrant Yiddish language and culture, taught in classes from London to Beijing. Traditional Jews use the adjective “Yiddishe” in entirely benign ways. And, however raucously, Tottenham fans are doing the same. Elsewhere, his focus is too much on the Twitter bubble and he is perhaps too dismissive of the religious foundations (his definition of “Talmud” is a howler) of even the most secular Jewish identity, to which he adheres so strongly. But I was swept along by his stirring exposure of one glaring omission after another of the words “Jews” or “Jewish” from where they belonged.

David Baddiel is literate, lucid and writes with passion and precision. He has done a great service in c showing Jews how to stand up — and be counted.

Baddiel is concerned with Jews being “left out” by self-defined anti-racist progressives