In the mid-1990s, when he was a young, quite uninhibited comedian, David Baddiel did something that he would come to regret years later. In a skit on the football comedy show Fantasy Football League, which he wrote with co-creator Frank Skinner, Baddiel played Jason Lee, a black footballer and former Nottingham Forest player.
The 59-year-old British Jewish comedian wore blackface to depict Lee in his Nineties show. The fact that he portrayed Lee with a pineapple on his head to ridicule the footballer's hairstyle didn't help either. Even today, after apologizing for the skit several times and admitting that it was a mistake and had racist tones, people still bring up the show whenever he dares to claim discrimination against his own people.
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In other words, whenever Baddiel talks about antisemitism today, the golden age of identity politics, a time when every racial, ethnic, or gender minority receives immediate protections, someone online will remind him of something he did 30 years ago.
Of course, no one complains about the imitation of Baddiel on the comedy sketch show "Bo'Selecta!" in the early 2000s, in which he was portrayed as a grotesque Hassidic Jew with a huge nose and frizzy black hair. Four years ago, during the Black Lives Matter protests by the African-American community in the United States, series creator Lee Francis apologized to blacks he imitated — including singers such as Craig David or Spice Girl Melanie B, but he never apologized to Baddiel for the offensive imitation. For the past few years, he has been arguing that there is a hierarchy in racism, and expressions of contempt or hatred towards Jews are at the bottom of the list.
Hatred as an identity
While many Israelis have been left shocked by the hostile response and lack of empathy from the Western world in the face of the October 7 atrocities, and many still refuse to accept that their progressive views on gender, race, and religion will never mark them as part of the international left-wing community, Baddiel surely feels as if he basically prophesied everything.
For years, the British-Jewish screenwriter has been analyzing modern antisemitism, especially how it has taken root in progressive left-wing circles, becoming a status symbol and a distinctive characteristic of those who fiercely defend anyone who is treated insensitively because of their race or ethnicity. Antisemitism, he says, not only doesn't top the agenda of those he describes as self-styled warriors for justice, but they have embraced it; not by name of course, and usually in political contexts within the framework of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"I hear a lot of progressives saying, 'Well, antisemitism exists only because of Israel,' but I think that cheapens the meaning of that word, because antisemitism is a form of racism that has been around for generations and generations, long before the establishment of Israel," he said in an interview from his London office. "It's just a way of not dealing with antisemitism and saying, 'Oh, we all know this problem only exists because Israel sometimes does bad things in the Middle East.'
"I refuse to accept that. It is truly perverse to think that Jews around the world are responsible for what is happening in the Middle East, that they are to blame for what happens. This isn't the case for Britons of Chinese descent when China behaves unacceptably. It isn't the case for British Indians when India does something, and it isn't the case with any other minority. It's just Israel's actions that are blamed on all Jews, wherever they may be.
Q: It's funny because the left side of the global political map isn't the one associated with conspiracy theories. Unless it's October 7, then all of a sudden there are plenty of theories and "conclusive" evidence about Israel's involvement in that day's atrocities. How do you explain that?
"I think Israel has become a totem for the extreme left, and for the left in general. It's the thing you have to hate. In the past, South Africa played this role, and I'm afraid now it's Israel. Part of the identity of these people is to hate Israel. People for whom politics is their identity are not interested in complexity. They only care about 'good' and 'bad,' and they support whoever they think is good. Be on the side of the good guys, not on the side of the bad kids.
"And if the good guys, which for them is the Palestinians, do something as terrible as October 7, those people can't fit it into their worldview. They say, 'That can't be true! It has to be the Jews, the Israelis created this themselves.' Otherwise, they would have to accept a much harder fact to digest, which is that there are good and bad people on both sides and that life is complicated."
Q: Tell that to Roger Waters, who attacked U2 frontman Bono for condemning the murder of innocents.
"Roger Waters is a crazy believer in conspiracy theories, and he is obsessed with Israel. I checked it out, and all Bono did was sing a song in memory of those murdered at the Nova Festival. He didn't wave a flag in support of Benjamin Netanyahu or extremist settlers. But once more, Waters can't think in a complex fashion, he just heard someone who sounded to him a little sympathetic to Israel, and that upsets him, because he can only see the world in black and white."
Q: How does the British media view Roger Waters?
"I think some people are aware of this side of him, which is really into conspiracy theories and is anti-Israel, but I think the problem here is – and that's the thing for me – that he is still the man from Pink Floyd. When his last album came out, it received a lot of good reviews. Some critics said, 'Yes, Roger has said some crazy things lately, but hey, we love this album.'"
By the way, I didn't like the album. It was a sort of reworking of 'The Dark Side of the Moon' songs, and consisted entirely of strange, whispered versions of the old songs. But the British media and British people in general don't want to give up on Pink Floyd. What I'm saying is that Roger won't be completely 'canceled' no matter what he says."
One tweet can ruin a career
Baddiel was born in 1964 in New York City but grew up and was educated in London, where he still lives today. He is considered a well-known name in the United Kingdom thanks to the TV series he has written and the books and columns he has authored, as well as for his stand-up comedy. His most recent book, "Jews Don't Count," came out in 2021 and deals with the subject at hand - antisemitism. In the book, Baddiel, a Jew who has never hidden his Jewishness but admits to not having any special connection to Israel, takes an intelligent and meticulous look at the lack of empathy for Jews and the convenient disregard for expressions of hatred or contempt for Jews.
This disregard for anti-Jewish racism comes at a time when "celebrities find themselves 'canceled,'" reputations are tarnished, and entire careers can be wiped out by one tweet that "doesn't meet the standards of morality" dictated by a particular camp. "Displays of condescension toward black people can totally shatter a person's standing, ignorance of LGBTQ issues will cause an uproar, and Islamophobia will lead to death threats, even by people who aren't members of that religion."
But when it comes to antisemitism, then things become more complex, says Baddiel
"Anti-Jewish racism isn't considered racism by a lot of people," he writes in his book, which was recently translated into Hebrew. In the foreword to the Hebrew edition, Baddiel explains that up to the October 7 massacre he had never felt particularly connected to the state of Israel – as he viewed himself as British. The pogrom, as he describes it, changed his feelings.
He wonders whether the fact that it took so long for a Hebrew edition to come out (it was originally published in 2021) is because of his disconnect from Israel.
"I was always a little confused as to why a Hebrew edition hadn't come out previously. After all, it is a book about Jews. Jews buy it and read it everywhere else in the world and there are of course lots of Jews in Israel and that seemed like a good marketing peg. I talk in the book about how I don't have that kind of deep connection to Israel that Jews from other parts of the world are supposed to have, and I thought maybe that's the reason. But an Israeli journalist pointed out to me that I talk about Jews as a minority and in Israel, Jews are a majority. It never crossed my mind to think about it in that way. I think that since October 7 there are Israelis who feel that they are a minority in the world and they have a lot more in common with Diaspora Jews than they had thought. Israelis received a terrible reminder that they are Jews. "
It was also convenient to think that antisemitism wasn't a common phenomenon. My father made Aliyah from Romania in the late 1970s when it was still part of the Soviet communist bloc; whenever I expressed a desire to leave Israel he would say: "Wherever you are, you will always be a dirty Jew." I thought he was exaggerating.
"A lot of Jews who don't live in Israel tell me that I should feel more connected to Israel. The reason they tell me that is that as Jews they will always be hated and if things go wrong they will always have somewhere to go – Israel. I never really thought that was a useful way to think about antisemitism because I felt that Jews in the West – in the United States and Europe – don't need to think about a shelter. They don't need to think 'we need a place to hide;' they should be standing up to antisemitism in the places they live.
"The interesting thing is that Jews in Europe and America are obsessive about antisemitism. Perhaps you are right, perhaps Israelis until recently weren't like that because they didn't want to believe, and because they didn't experience it in Israel. It is really different. I never thought about it. We live in a Jewish state, we see an increase in antisemitism whenever Israel goes to war and it's only then that we see condemnation of Israel around the world. I don't think Israelis are aware that antisemitism is a routine issue for Jews overseas."
Q: You said that the events of October 7 awakened within you a need to express solidarity with Israel that you had not felt previously. Perhaps those events caused you to understand that while you made a distinction between your Judaism and Israel, the rest of the world doesn't make that distinction.
"I think it's a little simplistic to put it that way. Your perception that all the Jews who live in London or New York have some kind of deep romantic connection to Israel isn't necessarily right. For some of us, it's a foreign country. I speak with Jews who say it's their homeland, the land of their ancestors, and I don't know what they are talking about. What is a motherland, what does that mean?"
Q: What I mean is a historically based spiritual connection.
"Yes, but the phrase "land of my forefathers" hints that this a place where one wants to live, but most Jews who say that don't actually want to live in Israel – they want to live in London and say Israel is my homeland. But I am a British Jew. By the way, I want to make it clear that I am not anti-Zionist; I am also not necessarily a Zionist. For a long time that quite simply wasn't the issue. I refuse to succumb to the idea that all Jews, especially in progressive eyes, should be classified by what they think about Israel.
"Until recently, my thing was" I don't really think too much about Israel unless something or someone forces me to do so and that happens sometimes. That was my position on the matter. And then came October 7 and everything was cast aside and replaced by an emotional reaction to what happened. So that might be a bad point to connect, but it is nevertheless a point that connects my family history to what happened to people there. It was a pogrom, right? That connected me."
Is Hollywood really Jewish
One of the most shocking things that has happened since the war is the ease with which people allow themselves to write pretty terrible things about Jews online. Replace the word "Jews" with any other race, and they wouldn't dare talk that way.
"Another thing I have noticed is that people are more willing now to talk about 'Jewish power' or whatever you want to call it, 'Zionist power.' The idea that Jews can have a fundamental influence on geopolitics, that they control America or whatever. Before, people were more aware that this was an antisemitic portrayal and they wouldn't say it out loud. But now they say it all the time. It's absolutely fine now to say that obviously the reason that America funds Israel is because the Jews fundamentally control the American administration."
Q: In your book, you write about the fact that from the perspective of the progressive Left, discrimination against Jews simply doesn't exist. Their argument is that Jews are in positions of power in the economy, in Hollywood, in culture, literature, the universities, in politics. What's your answer to that?
"I say that's not true. It's something that is said about Jews all the time, and people just believe it. For example, people in Germany in the 1920s, before World War II, and not just Nazis, thought that Jews controlled banks. But the real numbers showed that Jews constituted about two percent of the banking industry in Germany at the time. Still, people believed that Jews were overrepresented in the banking industry
"If you check how many Jewish agents there are in Hollywood, you'll find that there are quite a lot, and that leads people to say that showbusiness is controlled by Jews. But I did a documentary version of the book, which was broadcast on Channel 4, and we struggled to find Jews who would work as directors, who would work in production, simply because there aren't that many."
Q: Some people would argue that there are a lot of Jewish producers in the movie business.
"In the beginning, a long time ago, some Jewish immigrants went to Hollywood and built the studios, because they were good at telling stories. But they didn't tell mostly Jewish stories or hire Jewish actors or writers. But that's not the case any longer.
"Even though people think Jews are all over show business, there aren't that many of them in the industry – certainly not in Britain. And I know most of them. Jewishness certainly exists when we meet, but not all the time – none of us are religious. It has been more present since October 7. Some, like Stephen Fry, have become more Jewish, or at least think more about the fact that they are Jewish."
The theme of how progressives view Jews as compared to other minorities is one that Baddiel explores in depth in his book.
"I discovered that the ethnic minority with the most millionaires in the world is Indians, not Jews," he says. "But the important point is not that they're Indians, it's that no progressive will ever say, 'Well, that makes anti-Indian racism a good thing.' We are indeed a minority, and if we succeeded in achieving small pockets of success, it should not be used as a weapon against us to say that antisemitism does not exist."
Q: It's interesting that people ignore the issue of color. Not all Jews are really white.
"It has more to do with the cataloguing of Jews as white or non-white by non-Jews. The fact is that for many years far-right extremists, or Nazis, said, 'It doesn't matter what your skin tone is – if you're Jewish you're not part of the Aryan race.' In other words, you're actually not white simply by virtue of your Jewishness.
"On the other end of the spectrum, a lot of progressives describe Jews as white. It's interesting to consider how much opposition there is to the idea of Jews as people of color. A few days ago, an Israeli-British guy was thrown out of a comedy show in London. A comedian named Paul Currie, whom I don't know took out a Palestinian flag at the end of his performance at the Soho Theatre and asked people in the audience to stand up and give an ovation. Only the Israeli refused to do so.
"Instead of poking fun at him for not having the same beliefs as he does, which is what Currie could have done, he told him to get out. The Israeli left the venue. In any other context that would have been a white man kicking a black man out of his show, a racist event. But when Israel is in the equation somehow the guy isn't black any longer
Q: Hamas terrorists look like poster boys for toxic masculinity, another popular term in recent years. Still, they are categorized as the good guys in this situation.
"In my documentary, author Jonathan Safran Foer says that people today like to see the world in a very simplistic way – a world of victims and victimizers. They seem to find it hard to see Jews as victims. And for those who see the world that way, it's very difficult to see victims like the women of October 7 and see that they are no longer the victimizers. You have to rethink your whole worldview to understand that."
Israel is used as an excuse
Aside from being a proud Jew (the kind who describes himself in his Twitter bio as "Jew," in a kind of defiant reclaiming of the term, which is considered by many to be derogatory), for years, Baddiel has been cultivating another obsession. Being an avid football fan led him and his former comedy partner Frank Skinner to write "Three Lions" (or "Football's coming home" as many know it) an anthem written in 1996 when England hosted the European championship, and which is still a popular chant when England competes in international matches. The popularity and relevance of the song, almost three decades later, sometimes surprise him too, especially given the response the song received when it was released.
Q: It must be very satisfying to have written an anthem.
"When you write, you hope that it will catch on; nothing I ever wrote succeeded like "Three Lions." When Frank Skinner and I wrote the words we thought about the experience of being a football fan, especially in England. The feeling isn't 'we are going to win' which is what is expressed in other songs, but that we will probably lose. That's the idea behind the song. 'We will probably lose but we hope that on this magical path, there will be one time that we win."
"What happened was that against Scotland at Euro 96, England won, and as the teams walked off the pitch the DJ in the stadium played the song, and the whole crowd joined in. Until then, we didn't know they liked this song. It was such a magical moment when everyone At Wembley sang it, except of course for the Scots. Everyone knew the lyrics and sang them as if they were part and parcel of the identity of English fans."
Q: The critics didn't like it when it came out.
"No, and they still don't like it. It got pretty bad reviews but who cares about reviews? People now know that it's the most famous song, the one that is most identified with the England national team, and I think it will be like that forever. When it came out in 1996, the general feeling was that it wasn't cool. You got to remember that it was written in 1996, during the 'Cool Britania' period [when UK culture was popular all over the world and a source of pride for British people] Everyone was hoping that Oasis or some other band would write it, but they were wrong."
Q: For decades after the Holocaust, Israel was popular, it was cool to like us.
"When I was in a Zionist-socialist youth group called Habonim, they wanted to get people to go to kibbutz and make Aliyah, which I never did. But in the 1970s, kibbutz was a progressive thing, and many leftists aspired to the kibbutz lifestyle. I think that's changed for a lot of reasons. Some of them have to do with things that have happened in the Middle East.
"Part of it has to do with the fact that after the Holocaust there was a collective sense of guilt in the world, certainly in Europe, about what happened to the Jews. There was a small window where, for the first time in history, there was sympathy for the Jews. And then people thought that antisemitism was a thing of the past, 'something that happened during World War II.' Of course, that isn't the case.
"People now use Israel as an excuse. Last week in London, a Star of David necklace on a statue of Amy Winehouse was covered with a sticker of the Palestinian flag. People are so stupid that when they see a Star of David, they automatically think it has something to do with Israel and the Palestinians. No, this statue has to do with the fact that she was Jewish and lived in Camden. That's a long, long way from Tel Aviv and Gaza."
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