Maybe I was wrong to shrug off the ‘Jesus killer’ taunts...
When I was at secondary school I was the only Jewish kid in a large comprehensive, where the RE teacher called me ‘the Jesus killer’, while the other kids would say, as a compliment: ‘You don’t look Jewish. Why don’t you have a big nose?’ One time, and I remember this so clearly, someone dropped a 2p piece, and another kid said: ‘How come you didn’t race to pick it up? As you must love money so much?’
I shrugged it off, just as I continued to shrug it off when I was an adult and these things reoccurred. Perhaps I was buoyed up by knowing that I was part of a worldwide conspiracy that controlled everything? That is always a comfort. But until I read David Baddiel’s excellent book, Jews Don’t Count, I hadn’t clocked it for the antisemitism it was. And was, perhaps, as guilty as anyone for not taking it that seriously.
This one-off documentary, presented by Baddiel, was based on his book, and its thesis is the same. Sure, there’s the direct antisemitism as favoured by the Nazis or those far-Right nasties Louis Theroux goes to hang out with periodically, but what about indirect prejudice?
Why is it that when football cracked down on racism, it was still acceptable for fans to shout ‘Yiddo’ at Tottenham supporters? Why, when you fill in a form, is there no box to tick if you’re Jewish? Why did everyone congratulate Sunak on being our first ethnic-minority Prime Minister, forgetting Benjamin Disraeli, who was (hello?) PM twice in the late 19th Century?
Why was Jeremy Irons allowed to read T.S. Eliot’s Burbank With A Baedeker: Bleistein With A Cigar on Radio 4 when it includes the lines ‘The rats are underneath the piles. The Jew is underneath the lot’? Why aren’t statues of T.S. Eliot being torn down? Why do progressives take every kind of wrongdoing seriously aside from this one?
Baddiel argues that, in addition to the assumption that Jews are dirty, lying and thieving etc, there is this myth that Jews are rich and powerful, don’t need protecting and are, in fact, oppressors rather than the oppressed. How else, he says, might you explain Jeremy Corbyn turning a blind eye to that monstrous mural in East London showing hook-nosed men playing Monopoly on the backs of workers? How?
However, this wasn’t just the book filmed, as Baddiel met other Jews to discuss their identities. His interviewees included Friends actor David Schwimmer, comedian and writer Sarah Silverman, Stephen Fry, novelist Howard Jacobson, writers Patrick Marber and Neil Gaiman, Countdown’s Rachel Riley and actress Miriam Margolyes. The conversations were often complex and nuanced, particularly around whether Jews aren’t given consideration because they are thought of as ‘white’ and can ‘pass’, whereas black people can’t pass as non-black. I don’t have the space to go into this in depth but can say that the bottom line is: being ‘white’ didn’t save six million Jews from the gas chambers. Or as Schwimmer says: ‘Jews aren’t white if white means safe.’
There was so much in this. Should British Jews be expected to have an opinion on Israel? No, said Baddiel. Yes, said Margolyes. This also tackled Baddiel’s time on Fantasy Football League in the 1990s when he blacked up as footballer Jason Lee. This is always thrown at Baddiel on social media, even if the fact that he did so doesn’t mean he isn’t right about this issue. Both can co-exist.
He has apologised many times over the years but had yet to meet Lee in person. Here, he does. Lee is still coldly furious – initially – while Baddiel, who has educated himself since, is truly ashamed. It was rivetingly uncomfortable.
I have given this four stars rather than five because, while Baddiel is a thoughtful, articulate presenter, there was something slightly lazy about it. For his interviewees it’s as if he simply went through his address book. I don’t know. Is showing a succession of successful, well-off Jews the best way to tell people all Jews aren’t like that? When there are so many other kinds of Jews. But, personally, I will always be proud to be part of an extraordinary people dating back 3,500 years and, buried deep in my DNA, I may still be able to remember how to build a pyramid. I don’t know how that could be useful, but it is as comforting as knowing that we control everything around here.
I’m not sure what possessed me to watch The Confession. I guess I was casting around for something that wasn’t football, and a true-crime doc seemed to fit the bill. It’s about Patricia Hall, wife and mother-of-two who left her house in Pudsey, Yorkshire, on a January day in 1992 and hasn’t been seen since. What happened to her? If she was murdered, by whom, and where’s the body?
There were enough twists and turns to keep me intrigued for the two hours, including one staggering twist and turn to do with evidence that was deemed inadmissible in court but was later released to the public. I can’t say more.
What I can say is that it doesn’t uncover anything new and, ultimately, it did seem distasteful. There is one person whose narcissism probably shouldn’t be fed but this, alas, does so, handsomely. Let’s put it this way: I’ve watched it – now you don’t have to.