Latest / Blocked and Reported / Episode 306: Counting Jews (with David Baddiel)

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Episode 306: Counting Jews (with David Baddiel) · Blocked and Reported

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: All right, Jesse.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: So today is your last day at your San Francisco.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, Berkeley?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Are you in Berkeley?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like you don't even know me.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've been in Berkeley for the last few months.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: You seem like more of a Berkeley guy.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: You've been staying in.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Hold on.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Expand upon that.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: You're a dork.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: As opposed to like the super cool people of San Francisco.
• 0:32
  You don't do fentanyl And you don't work in tech And you're not
• 0:35
  in a polycule Not
• 0:36
  that you know of So Oakland is out So you've been in Berkeley
• 0:40
  for the last couple
• 0:41
  months Wait you're saying Berkeley doesn't have polycule Sorry
• 0:44
  We can move on My
• 0:46
  pride is slightly wounded but we'll move on When I think of
• 0:49
  Oakland though I think
• 0:50
  of A black people you're not that And B like queer anarchist
• 0:53
  polycule types You're
• 0:54
  not in a queer polycule You're in a normal polycule Which is by
• 0:58
  that I mean that
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: you've been renting a room In Ayla's apartment right
• 1:03
  I have not rented a room in Ayla's apartment I mean you're
• 1:08
  somewhat correct Oakland
• 1:09
  is a lot of things Katie it's a lot of things and some of the
• 1:12
  obviously some of the
• 1:14
  some of the freakiness extends into Berkeley but uh yeah today
• 1:18
  is my last day uh
• 1:20
  after we finish recording this I will pack my stuff up and
• 1:24
  throw my laptop in the
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: ocean and come back to New York
• 1:28
  and you have been so I've gotten a glimpse of this apartment
• 1:32
  that you've been
• 1:33
  staying in for the last several months because of our our many
• 1:37
  zoom chats and um we
• 1:40
  like to do like a zoom chat check-in just to see how each other
• 1:43
  is doing separate
• 1:43
  from the podcast every day usually you know when we're talking
• 1:46
  on the phone which
• 1:47
  we occasionally have to do for the business oftentimes I'm with
• 1:50
  Jana because I'm
• 1:51
  almost always with Jana and most and she'll do this thing
• 1:54
  drives me crazy we'll be
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: talking on the phone and she'll be mouthing
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: How's her finger?
• 2:23
  she crushed her finger she did crush her finger um but she
• 2:26
  didn't have to have
• 2:27
  surgery so that was good that's good anyway back to your
• 2:29
  apartment so I've been
• 2:31
  fascinated with this apartment because it's got what it looks
• 2:33
  like really nice
• 2:34
  crown molding it looks like a real adult's apartment like an
• 2:37
  adult with like a 401k
• 2:40
  life insurance a family these are all things we have except for
• 2:44
  the family we have
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: all these things thanks to me yes you're the provider but my daddy so
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: I am the provider, yes.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: with your permission,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: I would like to take a photo,
• 2:57
  share a screenshot on our show notes of this apartment that
• 2:59
  you've been staying in.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then get sued for some kind of copyright claim from the landlord.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's fine with me.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think you can have a copyright.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's how copyright works.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've made mistakes in front of the past.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's fine with me.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a little bit worried about... Stalkers.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was...
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Many stalkers.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, I was...
• 3:18
  I think it's fair that you had asked to do this before and I
• 3:21
  was like,
• 3:21
  I still live here.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Don't do it yet.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now that I'm leaving, sure.
• 3:25
  Because you thought that somebody was going to be able to
• 3:26
  figure out where you live
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: based on the crown molding.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Based on...
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's like... All it takes is one.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: The angle of the sun going through...
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: You've been on Kiwi Farms,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: as have I.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think they would be the ones who would attempt to murder me,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: but there's freaks out there.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's freaks out there who if you...
• 3:44
  if you left in the image the reflection of a single leaf from a
• 3:48
  single tree in like
• 3:49
  a picture frame they would be able to figure out where it was
• 3:52
  so there is a very
• 3:53
  impressive I'm sure you've seen this I can't remember the
• 3:56
  account name but this guy
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: who does these like geo geo locating things based on on very very little
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: information he can figure out oh it's insane
• 4:08
  i could tell from the viscosity of the saliva on your lip in
• 4:12
  this photo that you're
• 4:14
  in southern idaho exactly um okay so you guys if you want to
• 4:18
  check out this very
• 4:20
  fancy looking apartment that jesse's been although you said
• 4:22
  it's kind of shitty
• 4:23
  right it's like everything it's not okay this is what this is
• 4:26
  also what i'm worried
• 4:26
  about i it's not shitty it's it's wonderful and why do you
• 4:30
  complain if there were
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: it shut up
• 4:34
  Imagine Jana mouthing at you right now shut the fuck up which
• 4:37
  she would never do
• 4:40
  Katie you may have heard that wealthy communities do not like
• 4:44
  to make a lot of
• 4:45
  short-term housing available or long-term housing for that
• 4:47
  matter so there's not a
• 4:48
  ton of options in Berkeley and I sort of like the idea of like
• 4:51
  who knows if I will
• 4:52
  maybe coming back here so I need to maintain a good
• 4:54
  relationship with the purveyor
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: of this fine establishment whatever
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: issues may have arisen over the months.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: How's that?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: I stopped listening.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: People let me know in chat what you think of the image of where I live.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: I designed all the stuff.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is all stuff I bought in my travels around the world.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, what are we talking about today?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Today, you, thank God, will not be doing much talking.
• 5:19
  This is a episode that is sort of overlapping with our last
• 5:23
  Primo episode.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Katie, what was our last Primo episode about?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: so this one was 135 minutes long,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: and it was- Well,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: you don't know yet because you're still editing it.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: You might do a really tight job.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: I might.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to get it down to 13 minutes.
• 5:38
  It was about a comedy streaming company called Dropout,
• 5:42
  which is an outgrowth of College Humor.
• 5:46
  and it's about the long history of college humor and dropout is
• 5:50
  it dropout.com
• 5:51
  dropout TV dropout TV dropout dot TV or dropout TV just call
• 5:55
  just imagine Jana
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: making like a move moving a long motion
• 6:00
  I gotta get out of here I gotta pack you know her well and it's
• 6:04
  so lot lot of
• 6:06
  history in there and then it's about two particular
• 6:09
  controversies political
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: controversies led by their psychotic fans
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: and Reported jessesingal
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Blocked and Reported jessesingal
• 6:51
  constantly aggrieved that this streaming improv channel is not
• 6:57
  political enough or
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: is not political in the right ways.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so the ultras,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: as I call them,
• 7:03
  were mad after October 7th that a couple of the performers who
• 7:08
  appeared on Dropout
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: TV,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: not the regular cast,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: but guests,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: were quote unquote Zionists.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And
• 7:15
  They were mad because they were evangelical Christians who are
• 7:20
  waiting for the
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: second coming of Jesus.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: They just snuck onto this improv show somehow.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know these are Jewish performers who one of whom had performed at
• 7:30
  a fundraiser in LA I think for a hospital in Tel Aviv that was
• 7:34
  treating victims of
• 7:36
  October 7th the other one had at one point said that his
• 7:39
  grandfather had helped
• 7:40
  found Israel but was also clearly not like a fan of killing
• 7:44
  Palestinians so it was
• 7:46
  this witch hunt and a petition was launched and the petition
• 7:49
  was just crazy it was
• 7:51
  really crazy especially again in the context of you are mad at
• 7:54
  an online improv
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: channel
• 7:57
  And you should just listen to the Primo episode if you want to
• 7:59
  get the full details of that.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: What matters if you're a freeloader,
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: if you're on the free feed,
• 8:04
  is that Dropout TV responded to this actually very small wave
• 8:08
  of anger from their
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: ultras by posting an announcement to Instagram that read in part...
• 8:15
  That was subsequently deleted because there was a wave of
• 8:17
  outrage from the other
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: side,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: but I found it insane.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: I found this statement to be anti-Semitic.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: and just crazy.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it made me remember that there was this guy I had met,
• 8:42
  this brilliant British broadcaster and writer and comedian
• 8:46
  named David Baddiel,
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: and he'd written a book called Jews Don't Count.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And this made me think of the Jews Don't Count the
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I read his book and I wanted to talk to David Baddiel.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking we would do an episode,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: you and I,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: about the dropout thing and maybe include like,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: 15-20 minutes of me going over this with Baddiel.
• 9:02
  But I really like the conversation with Baddiel because we talk
• 9:05
  about this,
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: we talk about other aspects of just being Jewish and...
• 9:09
  what's right what's fair anti-zionism anti-semitism
• 9:12
  circumcision I just thought it
• 9:13
  was a good conversation circumcision should we be allowed to
• 9:17
  circumcise other
• 9:18
  people's kids without their consent you know just the normal
• 9:20
  stuff Jews talk about
• 9:21
  when no one else is around so that's today's episode Katie
• 9:25
  anything you want to add
• 9:26
  as the token gentile with the Jewish last name or Jewish
• 9:29
  seeming last name no let's
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: meet here after the interview and debrief okay I'll see you there
• 9:37
  David Baddiel you are an actor writer comedian broadcaster
• 9:41
  author dancer model
• 9:44
  actress statesman former prime minister so of course I'm having
• 9:48
  you on to discuss a
• 9:49
  minor controversy from 2024 thank you for joining us my
• 9:54
  pleasure yeah I am all
• 9:55
  those things of course of course I think you missed out
• 9:58
  professional soccer player
• 10:00
  I forgot about your time in the in the EPL which was what's the
• 10:05
  word caps how many
• 10:06
  caps did you have I have 2000 caps 2000 caps all right so for
• 10:11
  our purposes matters
• 10:13
  the most about your incredible resume is a 2021 book called
• 10:18
  Jews don't count how
• 10:19
  identity politics failed one particular identity the title
• 10:22
  nicely sums up the
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: argument of the book your basic thesis tell me if I'm getting this wrong
• 10:27
  At a time of ever-growing awareness of bigotry and attempts to
• 10:31
  counteract bigotry,
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: even in its more subtle forms,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: and again,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: 2021 is when you write this,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: your argument is that anti-Semitism seems to not really count.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: People make excuses for it.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: They explain it away.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: They claim Jews aren't actually a vulnerable group.
• 10:45
  Anything you would add to that summary of the book before we
• 10:47
  dive into this particular incident?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's basically correct.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's targeted at progressives.
• 10:55
  I think that that has slightly shifted in terms of who is
• 11:00
  anti-Semitic and who is
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: responsible for Jews not counting since then.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a wider net than it was.
• 11:06
  The book was kind of specifically about the fact that I wrote
• 11:09
  at a time when
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: progressives seemed to me to be,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: quadrupling their concern about offensiveness and racism.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: and the worries about marginalisation of various groups,
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: huge smorgasbord of groups that they cared about,
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: except for Jews.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And really the book describes a kind of neglect.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a weird book to some extent.
• 11:34
  It's not much about active anti-Semitism,
• 11:37
  as it were,
• 11:38
  people saying,
• 11:38
  I hate Jews.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's more about people missing out Jews from the...
• 11:45
  yeah the plate of things that we care about things that we want
• 11:49
  to look at and ally
• 11:51
  ourselves to when we were talking before I hit record you said
• 11:56
  that you've actually
• 11:57
  been turning down a surge of interview requests on that could
• 12:00
  could you just talk
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: about that a little bit
• 12:02
  Oh well that's just to do with me so basically the book came
• 12:06
  out here and I'd
• 12:07
  always been quite so one of the small side effects of Jews
• 12:12
  Don't Count there are
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: many side effects it had many effects actually one was to make me like
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: and Reported jessesingal
• 12:32
  I was then the first person like who you're gonna call
• 12:34
  basically if you've got an
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: item on your news program about Jews it would
• 12:47
  When Flash is a Star of David in the London Night Sky and you
• 12:50
  have to pick up the Flash.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
• 12:52
  I'm the Jew man and Commissioner Cohen immediately calls me and
• 12:57
  all the rest of it.
• 12:58
  And that was okay for a bit and then I got kind of bored of it
• 13:02
  and sort of fed up
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: with it and felt I'd said everything I wanted to say about it.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I also...
• 13:11
  I'd never been like in the closet and that's an interesting
• 13:13
  thing about Jews in
• 13:14
  Britain is that there aren't that many Jews in Britain and the
• 13:16
  ones that are quite
• 13:17
  a lot of them are in the closet uh they like and lots of people
• 13:20
  wrote to me after
• 13:21
  the book came out and said oh I've never really like come out
• 13:25
  with it and I've
• 13:25
  always been a tiny bit ashamed of it and I've tiny bit like
• 13:28
  don't want to tell
• 13:28
  people I'm Jewish and I've read your book so these are folks
• 13:31
  like Idris Elba
• 13:32
  sending you an email being like I'm actually Jewish I never
• 13:34
  told anyone I feel
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: comfortable now
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm yet to find the one from Idris,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: perhaps that went to spam,
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: but yes,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: quite a lot of people discovering their Jewishness or whatever,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: which feels foolish to me.
• 13:51
  now considering it is an absolute seventh circle of hell of
• 13:56
  antisemitism but when I
• 13:57
  joined Twitter in 2009 my bio I decided was going to be one
• 14:03
  word Jew and it remains
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: that because I am
• 14:08
  people say oh you're very proud about being Jewish I'm not I'm
• 14:10
  just absolutely not
• 14:12
  in the closet about being Jewish not just like I'm not in the
• 14:15
  closet about anything
• 14:16
  about myself so I was I'm always entirely happy to talk about
• 14:19
  it but actually I
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: tend to turn it down now I'm only doing
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Blocked and Reported jessesingal
• 14:40
  I don't think it's got a proper release there I think it's just
• 14:42
  people buying it
• 14:43
  because they've heard about it So I'm basically saying I'm
• 14:50
  doing it to plug the
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: book in America in a way I don't need to do in Britain
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's a level of transparency to this that I really appreciate it.
• 14:57
  I made a joke before we hit record about giving you exposure
• 15:01
  because you are
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: extremely famous over there,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm glad hopefully this will help a little bit because I mean,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'll explain to you what prompted me to read it,
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: but it got me thinking about stuff
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's a
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting to me,
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: the idea that you would become King Jew,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: because that's like a crowded field in the US,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: and we have a lot of representation.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: But... Yeah, we really do.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for a start, there are 275,000 Jews in the UK, right?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: In the whole country, yeah.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: In the whole country.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: as you know,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: when Joe Rogan,
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I believe,
• 15:52
  said recently that he thought there were like 2 billion Jews or
• 15:55
  something in the
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: world,
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: people think there are more Jews than they are,
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: because there's too much talk about Jews,
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: there's too much focus on Jews,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: and there are too many quite well-known Jews globally,
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: most of them Americans.
• 16:04
  American and so people think there are a lot of Jews but there
• 16:07
  aren't there are 15
• 16:08
  million Jews in the world and very few of them are in the UK so
• 16:12
  it's a tiny
• 16:13
  community a lot of whom don't go on about being Jewish because
• 16:17
  they're slightly
• 16:18
  embarrassed about it that's also to do with the whole English
• 16:20
  thing where sort of
• 16:22
  going on about anything about yourself is sort of considered a
• 16:24
  bit weird so there's
• 16:27
  that but yeah I mean if you ask people in Britain who's Jewish
• 16:32
  they'd name like me
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: and the chief rabbi
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's a crazy role to have to inhabit.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Do you get an...
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think...
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember if this comes up in your book.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it does.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: I remember one time I was in North London, which is like a very...
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a very orthodox part of North London.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like everyone's visibly Jewish.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's visibly... Stamford Hill.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I believe...
• 16:54
  I believe that's where it was and I've had this same feeling
• 16:57
  also like in other
• 16:57
  parts of Europe where I'm in the tiny pockets of like religious
• 17:01
  Jews the few that
• 17:02
  weren't butchered in a forest somewhere I don't like the idea
• 17:06
  that for much of the
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: world when they think of a Jew they think of a guy with a long beard
• 17:11
  wearing whatever praying I just hate the idea that there's so
• 17:15
  few of us left and
• 17:16
  there's one subset of us that are so much more visibly Jewish
• 17:20
  and religious when to
• 17:21
  me like the center of Jewish cultural life has always been
• 17:24
  secular and intellectual
• 17:26
  and I feel like that gets a little bit overlooked just because
• 17:29
  of the reality of
• 17:30
  what happened to us did you get annoyed by that does that make
• 17:33
  resonate with you at
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: all
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I get annoyed by almost nothing.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have a weird inability to get angry about anything,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: which makes me an odd person to be on Twitter sometimes.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's the Jewish side of you and the British side of you fighting.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: The Jewish side wants to get angry.
• 17:49
  Well,
• 17:49
  I certainly think there's a very complicated conversation to
• 17:52
  have about
• 17:53
  the visibility of Jews and the idea that there is a specific
• 17:57
  idea of what a visible
• 17:59
  Jew looks like and how because that also relates to the fact
• 18:02
  that part of the Jews
• 18:04
  don't count thing is that people think Jews can pass and that
• 18:08
  people think that
• 18:08
  Jews are white and that Jews like when they complain about
• 18:12
  anti-Semitism well just
• 18:14
  go back into the closet is essentially what people what
• 18:16
  progressives mean by you
• 18:18
  can pass a thing they would never say by the way to a gay man
• 18:21
  or whatever like you
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: know
• 18:23
  Jews are not allowed to be proud of their Jewishness because if
• 18:27
  they then say well
• 18:28
  we're getting anti-semitic attack they get accused of white
• 18:31
  privilege which is you
• 18:33
  don't you know you can pass if you want and unless of course
• 18:36
  you look like a
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: religious Jew
• 18:38
  um i another thing i like if there was one thing it's an
• 18:41
  interesting thing that
• 18:43
  seemed to sort of surprise people who hadn't really thought
• 18:46
  about jews when they
• 18:47
  read jews don't count in this country at least is there's a bit
• 18:51
  in the book where i
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: say uh the
• 18:53
  Key Thing About Anti-Semitism Is It's Nothing To Do With
• 18:56
  Religion That Because You
• 18:58
  Know My Grandfather I'm An Atheist And It Would Make No
• 19:02
  Difference To The Nazis My
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Great Uncle Arno Died In The Warsaw Ghetto He Was An Atheist
• 19:09
  Nazis and indeed white supremacists who are trying to burn down
• 19:12
  your house they
• 19:12
  don't ask if you keep kosher before they burn down your house
• 19:16
  it's that's why it's
• 19:17
  racism because racists who are the people who actually count
• 19:22
  when you're talking
• 19:22
  about racism you have to listen to them and what they think do
• 19:25
  not care whether you
• 19:26
  pray or go to synagogue the only reason in fact that 11 jews
• 19:30
  were massacred in
• 19:32
  tell me pittsburgh in 2018 was not because they were at
• 19:35
  synagogue it was because a
• 19:37
  right-wing shooter knew that's where he would find jews yeah he
• 19:41
  thought jews were
• 19:41
  responsible for immigration because he believed in the great
• 19:44
  replacement theory so
• 19:45
  it's very important that when you talk about that image of the
• 19:48
  religious orthodox
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: jew actually he's a bit irrelevant to modern antisemitism
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Not only irrelevant,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: I would say modern anti-Semitism is much less centered on,
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 20:00
  they're drinking the blood of our children in some ritual and
• 20:03
  much more about our
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: ostensible puppet mastering of global policy,
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's great replacement theory,
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's theories about Israel.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're sort of the ultimate secular puppet master.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's really where most of the complaints come in.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so there's two things there.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is yes,
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: and the key thing about the reason for the Jews Don't Count phenomenon is
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: association of Jews with power.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we are the only minority who have an association with power.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: All other minorities within the West, all other minorities...
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: and Reported
• 20:48
  negative stereotyping as a result of being you know well we
• 20:52
  well we get a double
• 20:52
  negative stereotype which is once as I think I think I say in
• 20:55
  the book as low
• 20:56
  status like all other minorities so we're dirty and thieving
• 20:59
  and all that but we
• 21:00
  are also high powered we are also extremely rich and powerful
• 21:04
  and puppet mastering
• 21:05
  I would take one issue with what you said though just now yeah
• 21:07
  which is different
• 21:08
  from the book because times have moved on and I now think on
• 21:12
  the right and possibly
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: on some parts of the extreme left
• 21:17
  they are bringing back some of that um blood drinking you know
• 21:22
  whatever it is sort
• 21:23
  of mad christian thinking at 14th century thinking about jews
• 21:28
  as far as i could
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: make out and i tried to avoid them but i
• 21:31
  you know occasionally find them on my algorithm the way that
• 21:34
  Tucker Carlson and
• 21:35
  Candace Owens and all those people are now talking about
• 21:39
  Zionists stroke Jews is
• 21:41
  entirely in tune with that in fact my son who is theoretically
• 21:45
  half Jewish said to
• 21:46
  me when he was in New York recently that a guy like a music guy
• 21:51
  my son is does
• 21:52
  music was talking to him about Baal you know this Baal yeah
• 21:56
  like that like B-A-A-L
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: demon or something yeah
• 21:59
  yeah there's some ancient demon that we're supposed to worship
• 22:02
  that we worship and
• 22:02
  that we sacrifice christian babies too of course and that
• 22:05
  basically is secretly
• 22:06
  behind the whole like netanyahu that's secretly what he's doing
• 22:09
  when he's doing his
• 22:10
  terrible things it's in service of Baal rather than whatever
• 22:13
  the fuck it is in
• 22:14
  service of so yeah that seems to be resurfacing which is nuts
• 22:19
  but the thing about
• 22:20
  the way that people start thinking when they start thinking
• 22:22
  these things is it will
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: always go somewhere nuts as you know
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: and in the case of sort of US political discourse,
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: if you told me I accidentally first covered Candace Owens 10 years ago,
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: and she was visibly crazy then.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if you had told me there would be
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Blocked and Reported jessesingal
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: version of it.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now,
• 23:03
  I keep derailing the thing I want to get to because I find all
• 23:07
  this so interesting
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: and it's a lot of stuff I struggle with myself.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: The whole thing about Jews being powerful is
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is part of a conspiracy theory.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: It fuels a lot of antisemitism.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: In the United States,
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: growing up free of overt antisemitism,
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: I have felt like I'm part of a group that has a very dark,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: recently traumatic history,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: but that in the US,
• 23:31
  if we're going to have this creepy conversation about a
• 23:33
  hierarchy and which groups
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: have power,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: which groups have money,
• 23:36
  Jews in the US are we are doing pretty well and we are
• 23:39
  overrepresented in some
• 23:40
  prestigious fields how do you square these two things that I
• 23:44
  think are both true
• 23:45
  that we're vulnerable and this could flip at any time and that
• 23:48
  like we've had some
• 23:49
  success in some context well it's slightly different in America
• 23:52
  actually in terms
• 23:53
  of the book's success I have been asked a couple of times to
• 23:56
  come and speak in
• 23:56
  America based on the book and I got asked to do some big gig
• 24:01
  for I'm gonna say the
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: UJA some big Jewish whatever organizations
• 24:07
  and i'm doing it and i'm talking about how you know there's an
• 24:12
  image of jews as
• 24:13
  being all billionaires and all powerful and blah blah blah and
• 24:16
  how that's mythic
• 24:17
  and used against us and then i said not in this room obviously
• 24:20
  because it was clear
• 24:21
  to me as i looked out that oh no they are all incredibly
• 24:24
  wealthy that's how they've
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: paid for me to come from london
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: to do this event.
• 24:29
  So it is,
• 24:30
  you know,
• 24:31
  clearly there are ways in which Jews in America have mobilized.
• 24:35
  It's more important in a way than the money,
• 24:37
  than they've mobilized politically.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: it's very different in Europe where,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: there's very immediate examples,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: very recent examples,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: obviously the Holocaust.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: In my own case, my mum was born in Nazi Germany.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: My whole family was murdered on that side.
• 24:55
  the money that they did have was very very much taken away from
• 24:58
  them and that's the
• 25:01
  problem with the notion of Jews being wealthy and powerful
• 25:04
  because what happens is
• 25:06
  in a kind of progressive mindset that's that's power is a block
• 25:09
  there's no nuance
• 25:10
  in power whereas historically that's absolutely not true my
• 25:14
  grandparents were
• 25:15
  indeed quite rich in Germany in 1932 by 1939 they had nothing
• 25:20
  they were fleeing to
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Britain with my mother as a baby and most of their family was murdered
• 25:25
  but the notion is that money somehow insulates you from that
• 25:28
  and will will forever
• 25:29
  and that simply isn't true I also think that having some money
• 25:35
  and some power which
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: American Jews maybe have should not mean
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: That therefore one is allowed to be anti-semitic about them, i.e.
• 25:45
  to propagate all these kind of conspiracy theories or whatever
• 25:48
  about them.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were to apply that to other minorities,
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: some of which are also doing pretty well,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: by the way.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Asians in America are doing pretty well.
• 25:55
  I don't think that I or any other liberal minded person is
• 26:00
  going to start saying
• 26:02
  really negative things about Hindus and then think well that's
• 26:04
  okay because Hindus
• 26:05
  have got money and power haven't they that seems so unlikely
• 26:09
  but somehow or
• 26:10
  downplay you would never downplay a bias incident against an
• 26:13
  Asian or a Hindu
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: because they're powerful it doesn't really make sense
• 26:16
  because yeah well and also a lot of the time what we're talking
• 26:19
  about is attacks on
• 26:20
  individuals right so so say you know the Pittsburgh attack
• 26:27
  that's just 11 Jewish
• 26:28
  people who get killed and they're all just sort of sweet mainly
• 26:32
  old Jewish people
• 26:33
  or whatever and yet some are other and this is one of the
• 26:36
  things about attacks on
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Jews is happening a lot at the moment is
• 26:39
  There's a sense in which when Jews as individuals are attacked
• 26:42
  the wider idea of
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: the power of Jews is sort of in the space as making that understandable
• 26:50
  there's a kind of weird notion obviously the Middle East is the
• 26:53
  number one thing
• 26:53
  but the general idea that Jews are powerful quickly comes in to
• 26:58
  sort of make the
• 27:00
  fact that a bunch of just individual Jews have been killed
• 27:03
  somehow or other well
• 27:04
  we've got to expect this you've got to expect some pushback if
• 27:07
  you do right and you
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: don't get that with other minorities some of whom are doing fine you know
• 27:14
  Jews are not the only minority that are actually not just you
• 27:18
  know economically
• 27:19
  disadvantaged there are other minorities and they don't get the
• 27:21
  same nexus the way
• 27:24
  this has played out in the states is well this gets to a quote
• 27:30
  from you I can't not
• 27:31
  read which is in the book you say people get ready to clip this
• 27:37
  fuck Israel
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: You say, I kind of think, fuck Israel, dot, dot, dot.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care about it more than any other country.
• 27:45
  And to assume that I have to have a strong position either way
• 27:47
  on Israel is racist.
• 27:49
  And I found this a little bit refreshing because I had felt
• 27:52
  that same sense of
• 27:54
  conflict and exhaustion and going back and forth in my head
• 27:56
  over this country
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: that's very far away and that I don't know much about.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: But that I had been told, and it might be different where you grew up,
• 28:03
  We are raised to feel a connection to Israel and to think that
• 28:07
  it's important to
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: feel a connection to Israel.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: And when there's an attack on a synagogue,
• 28:12
  there's people who I find very ghoulish online who will point
• 28:16
  out that synagogues
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: will often put in front of the synagogue,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: we support Israel.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they will try to play up that connection between Jews and Israel.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think it's an anti-Semitic canard that among American Jews,
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: at least,
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: we are raised to
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's a normative thing.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: You are supposed to feel connected to the state of Israel.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: That connection is socialized from a young age.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you reconcile anti-Semites who,
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: in a random American Jew,
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes a random American Jew they're trying to murder,
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: see the state of Israel,
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: which has nothing to do with that individual Jew.
• 28:50
  How do you reconcile that with the fact that we are socialized
• 28:52
  to think we are
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: connected to Israel and to be told we should feel connected to Israel?
• 28:57
  Well it's incredibly complicated and it's incredibly
• 28:59
  complicated at the present
• 29:00
  time where and if we get on to the thing that you asked me on
• 29:04
  to talk about it's a
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: very good example Eventually,
• 29:06
  hours from now we will Or a more potent example that maybe
• 29:10
  people have heard of
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: that's very recent which is the guy from The Stranding
• 29:12
  Stokes talking about American Zionists you know we have an
• 29:17
  issue at the moment
• 29:18
  which is very important which is the use of the word Zionist as
• 29:22
  interchangeable
• 29:23
  with Jews and what you've just what you've just said is makes
• 29:27
  that more complicated
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: and Reported jessesingal
• 29:50
  fuck israel really in a kind of massively aggressive way what
• 29:53
  i'm saying is i can't
• 29:54
  be fucked with this conversation that gets in the way all the
• 29:58
  time and this was in
• 29:59
  2021 now obviously it sits there absolutely on top of the
• 30:03
  conversation but at the
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: time where you're trying to talk about antisemitism which is a
• 30:09
  more than 2,000 years old this type of discrimination and
• 30:13
  racism and extremely
• 30:14
  violent murderous way of thinking with an enormous history the
• 30:19
  notion that it just
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: goes back to 1948 right the notion that all in fact 99% of the history of
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: anti-semitism itself preceded the establishment of Israel yeah
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: it's deeply,
• 30:32
  deeply baked in to Western European way of thinking and indeed
• 30:36
  other cultures' way
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: of thinking.
• 30:38
  And it's a part of the Jews don't count phenomenon is to sort
• 30:43
  of dismiss anti-Semitism.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to say...
• 31:00
  Firstly as a minority in Britain other minorities are not
• 31:06
  beholden to or imagined
• 31:08
  as intimately connected with what you might call their heritage
• 31:11
  country so I'm a
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: comedian right comedians quite often if
• 31:15
  So meanwhile there's a comedian called phil wang here friend of
• 31:18
  mine he's uh of
• 31:32
  British Chinese heritage if someone was to shout out about the
• 31:36
  Uyghurs when Phil
• 31:37
  Wang was doing his bit or if Romesh Ranganation who's a
• 31:40
  brilliant incredibly
• 31:41
  well-known comedian who's Sri Lankan but of Hindu heritage if
• 31:45
  someone was to shout
• 31:46
  about Modi and his sort of pro-Hindu supremacy policies while
• 31:51
  he was doing stand-up
• 31:53
  that person would be immediately if it was on Twitter or
• 31:55
  whatever isolated
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: cancelled all the rest of it for being racist because
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Romesh is British Phil Wang is British and so therefore highlighting and
• 32:06
  underlining and holding them responsible for the actions of a
• 32:08
  foreign state is
• 32:10
  racist it's racist to even kind of mention in a way that that
• 32:14
  person should be
• 32:15
  thought of as foremost something to do with this other country
• 32:18
  so I wanted to put
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: down that
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: and Reported jessesingal
• 33:00
  I actually did a screening of it in New York which was packed
• 33:03
  out I have to say but
• 33:04
  at the UK screening a woman came up to me who's a writer Jewish
• 33:09
  not particularly
• 33:10
  out but she's you know out enough and she came up to me and she
• 33:13
  whispered this
• 33:14
  thing about the Israel section of that documentary which is
• 33:18
  similar and she said
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: thank you for being the first ever Jew
• 33:22
  British Jew or whatever to sort of say publicly you know it's a
• 33:25
  foreign country
• 33:26
  right yeah and that's all I'm really saying is it's a foreign
• 33:30
  country and yes some
• 33:31
  people feel very connected to it some people feel whatever but
• 33:34
  at the end of the
• 33:34
  day it's a foreign country and people who are not Jewish should
• 33:37
  not expect that
• 33:38
  there is a freedom to condemn Jews on the basis of stuff
• 33:42
  happening in that foreign
• 33:42
  country because of an assumption of connection just out of
• 33:46
  curiosity growing
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: growing up in your household
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Did Israel come up and what was the contest when it came up?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: What were you guys feeling started?
• 33:54
  I went to Hanbor Nim which is a Jewish Zionist youth movement
• 34:00
  and so there I think
• 34:02
  the expectation was that I would go on Aliyah and end up in
• 34:05
  Israel and Israel end
• 34:06
  up on kibbutz in Israel it was a socialist Zionist youth
• 34:09
  movement I think it still
• 34:09
  exists even though that is a difficult combination now but I
• 34:14
  really went there
• 34:14
  because my dad went there and that's where he met girls and
• 34:18
  that's where I in fact
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: met my first girls and
• 34:22
  I was six I myself I can say girls because I yeah well I didn't
• 34:26
  really have any
• 34:27
  relations with any of them but I was 14 when I you know and I
• 34:30
  was that yeah I
• 34:31
  basically went there for social reasons and I was never very
• 34:33
  interested in the
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Israel-ness of it uh
• 34:37
  but I yeah I mean occasionally it came up but here's the thing
• 34:40
  is that my dad was
• 34:42
  Welsh and his grandfather had been running away from Russians
• 34:46
  right and ended up in
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Britain and my mother was born in Nazi Germany and
• 34:52
  it was very kind of European and weirdly I suppose what we
• 34:57
  didn't have was that
• 34:58
  thing which quite a lot of Jews do have but we didn't I think
• 35:00
  because we thought
• 35:02
  maybe mistakenly oh Britain is our safe haven we didn't have
• 35:06
  that thing that the
• 35:07
  Holocaust did create in some other Jews which is we need to
• 35:10
  find the bunker
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: where we're safe, and that's Israel.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have that.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of thought it was Britain,
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: and I know there are some people now who really feel it's not Britain,
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: and I know what the reasons are for that,
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: but I still feel probably safer in Britain than I would in Israel,
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: what with it not being actually bombed by Iran presently.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: A couple things.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: One is that,
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: especially among my New York friends,
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was raised outside Boston,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: but that's a classic story of going to the upstate
• 35:40
  you know socialist Zionist summer camp singing songs presumably
• 35:44
  about the workers
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: of the world uniting or whatever but a lot of those kids who
• 35:48
  A lot of those kids who went to the lefty summer camps are not
• 35:50
  exactly supporters of Israel.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them have become outright anti-Zionist.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: They're all against Netanyahu.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: So those two things can totally coexist.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: There is like a,
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: obviously a socialist Zionist tradition,
• 36:02
  even though I think now people are trying to flatten the
• 36:03
  history a little bit and
• 36:04
  pretend that everyone who supports Israel is just in it because
• 36:08
  they want to bomb
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Gazans so badly,
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: which is a slight oversimplification.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, that's completely right.
• 36:17
  you know because i went to that movement that was a zionist
• 36:21
  whatever socialist
• 36:22
  youth movement what i would say i am now and i is a non-zionist
• 36:27
  and a non-zionist
• 36:28
  is someone who doesn't really give a fuck about whether or not
• 36:31
  there's a jewish
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Blocked and Reported jessesingal
• 36:47
  Israel is your homeland right now that's a such a weird
• 36:52
  sentence because clearly
• 36:53
  Britain is my homeland I mean yeah I was born in New York State
• 36:57
  as it happens and I
• 36:58
  also have a German passport as a result of the Germans feeling
• 37:01
  embarrassed and
• 37:02
  deciding to give their you know Jews who ran away his
• 37:06
  descendants and passports but
• 37:08
  I've lived my whole life in England and my home is in England
• 37:12
  and I feel very
• 37:13
  English and so I don't understand that quite that idea that
• 37:18
  Jews in America or Jews
• 37:19
  in England or Jews in France feel well my real homeland is in
• 37:23
  Jerusalem I don't
• 37:24
  really get it yeah well it's tricky because it's another thing
• 37:30
  where you'll be
• 37:31
  It's seen as an anti-Semitic trope that Jews have sort of a
• 37:35
  dual loyalty.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: In some corners of the American Jewish community,
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: there is this sense that that's sort of where we belong or...
• 37:44
  I guess I've never understood the sanctuary thing of Israel as
• 37:47
  a sanctuary because
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in the same boat as you.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: England is obviously much – it's different in a lot of ways.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, 275,000 Jews.
• 37:56
  I can't think of any situation where even setting aside the
• 37:59
  cultural differences
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: and the – it would be tricky to move.
• 38:02
  I'm trying to imagine any geopolitical situation where Israel
• 38:05
  would be safer for
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Jews than the U.S.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: or the U.K.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: for that matter.
• 38:09
  Think of the sequence of events that would have to occur for
• 38:12
  that to line up in that way.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: It just seems very unlikely.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel similar.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: That belonging thing is very true.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's part of being an immigrant.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: You invest a lot of time in belonging.
• 38:39
  to your host nation that has taken you in and then people start
• 38:43
  saying oh no no no
• 38:44
  we've got to move again because we're Jewish so you've got to
• 38:46
  go to the place where
• 38:47
  Jews are that feels like wrong to me I mean the sanctuary thing
• 38:51
  I remember I came
• 38:53
  Florida has a I did another talk Florida has a holocaust museum
• 38:58
  and I got I did a
• 38:59
  talk there and the guy who brought me over was quite cross it
• 39:04
  took because he
• 39:04
  didn't know about my sort of feelings about Zionism and Israel
• 39:07
  or whatever and he
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: in the room with all these people saying, what about sanctuary?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: What about when the Nazis get in again or however else it might be?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I said,
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: look,
• 39:18
  the thing is that what I'm trying to do here is talk about what
• 39:21
  antisemitism is and
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: ways in which you might be able to combat it and whatever.
• 39:25
  And I don't think the way to combat antisemitism is to run away
• 39:29
  to a bunker.
• 39:30
  I think I think I think the best way to do it however You might
• 39:35
  laugh at me and
• 39:35
  think well it's never going to work and it's wrong or whatever
• 39:37
  But I think while
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: we're here and we're having a conversation and an intellectual argument
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's no argument for like, well, we just have to run away.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: The argument is like, how can you challenge this way of thinking?
• 39:48
  And then that is not helped if at the back of your mind you're
• 39:50
  always thinking,
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: it's not working,
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: this challenging,
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: so I better just buy a basement in Tel Aviv.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: A Jew bunker.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: A Jew bunker, yeah.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that just gets back to fundamentally...
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in this very boring,
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: lame,
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: maybe middle-aged or old man,
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: just liberal multiculturalism,
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: more or less.
• 40:15
  Some version of that where there's a bunch of different groups
• 40:18
  and e pluribus unum,
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: we're all the same,
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: we're all distinct in our special ways.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think that's the only hope for Jews.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think anything else will work in the long run.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem is you could all...
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 40:31
  no I don't I mean so do I but I think that starts to look
• 40:34
  optimistic and it only
• 40:36
  starts to look optimistic for one reason and that's the
• 40:38
  internet the internet has
• 40:40
  fucked that and I wouldn't have known that sort of 10 years ago
• 40:45
  maybe even even
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: when it was starting to happen it's clear to me now that
• 40:50
  Hate and rage and of which antisemitism for some reason is
• 40:55
  always like rising to
• 40:56
  the surface like championing that particular emotion is
• 41:02
  absolutely baked in to the
• 41:05
  human psyche and to the human psyche in a way that the internet
• 41:09
  is designed to
• 41:11
  turbocharge and so when you say to me early on in this
• 41:15
  conversation oh there's this
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: completely mad conspiracy theory and
• 41:20
  I never even heard of it before but this person has six million
• 41:23
  followers and she
• 41:24
  is saying it and it clearly means use I mean me and you would
• 41:28
  not have guessed that
• 41:29
  that that could be a thing like 20 years ago right and I want
• 41:33
  to make a joke about
• 41:34
  how I'm skeptical she actually has six million followers I
• 41:37
  think the number number
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: is less but continue
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think six million may just be a subconscious thing.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that number hangs around me quite a lot.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: But,
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: so I'm not confident of what you just said,
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: being how humanity will end up,
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: even though I might want it to be.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: Should we not talk a bit about this actual comedy?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, let me get in true two Jews talking standard.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just try to get one last word,
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: which is I wasn't saying I think that's where we're going to end up.
• 42:04
  I think of the bad options available to Jews as a people who
• 42:08
  will always have to
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: deal with this shit.
• 42:10
  that's sort of the best hope we have is something like that not
• 42:13
  like and it's weird
• 42:14
  because people can always play the Hitler card when you talk
• 42:16
  about I think our best
• 42:17
  hope is assimilation into a greater body and right you can
• 42:20
  always play the Hitler
• 42:21
  card but I'm I guess all I can do is hope there isn't another
• 42:24
  Hitler anyway yeah
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: okay well actually let me let me just say one more okay okay
• 42:29
  one more thing which might be helpful which is the other reason
• 42:32
  is I wrote a movie
• 42:33
  called The Infidel which should be I mean it did alright but
• 42:37
  now it feels like it's
• 42:38
  more potent because it's a movie a comedy about a British
• 42:41
  Muslim who discovers that
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: he was biologically
• 42:43
  Jewish and has a kind of nervous breakdown and he meets a
• 42:46
  Jewish guy who's a sort
• 42:48
  of neighbour of his played by Richard Schiff who used to be in
• 42:50
  the West Wing and
• 42:52
  Richard Schiff at one point tries to explain to him all the
• 42:54
  different types of Jews
• 42:56
  sort of a bit like you were saying is like when people think
• 42:57
  about Jews this is one
• 42:58
  of the ways racism works is they have a very blocky idea in
• 43:01
  their head but there
• 43:02
  are so many different types of Jews and right at the end of it
• 43:05
  he says oh yeah and
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Israelis Jews without angst without guilt so not really Jews at all
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: and I guess that's part of what I feel is that when you talk about that
• 43:14
  multicultural Ashkenazi European ideal that is what I'm
• 43:18
  comfortable with and yes
• 43:19
  it's a bit nerdy and a bit frightened and Hitler hangs around
• 43:23
  it but the sort of
• 43:25
  like macho gun-toting version I'm just not it doesn't feel like
• 43:30
  even Jewish to me
• 43:32
  the version that you associate with uh well some Israelis yeah
• 43:36
  I know I'd be like
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: other other
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm being generalizing now about Israelis, so I apologize.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely,
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: if we're going to generalize like that,
• 43:45
  I definitely feel more at home in the nerdy cry at the first
• 43:51
  sight of danger,
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: try to intellectualize my way out of it.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll probably be proven wrong in the long run.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's the guys with the guns who tend to win.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: I could talk about this stuff all day.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: I did want to,
• 44:02
  since you're king of the Jews and are the chief British judge
• 44:05
  of all things Jewish,
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: explain to you the background a little bit before we got on.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: This has to do with a channel called Dropout TV,
• 44:14
  I think a brilliant comedy channel that now has something like
• 44:17
  a million paid
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: subscribers.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: They do a lot of improv stuff.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're
• 44:22
  listeners will have the background by now but in 2024 amidst a
• 44:26
  lot of pressure from
• 44:28
  their audience that they had platform Zionists and the
• 44:31
  platforming Zionists means
• 44:34
  they had had a couple they had a couple of comedians on who are
• 44:38
  Jews who presumably
• 44:40
  well it's whether or not had those Zionists just been Jews or
• 44:44
  had they been Jews
• 44:45
  who actively said supportive things for the state of Israel I
• 44:48
  would I don't know
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer is they had said very little.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: They had not like openly supported as far as I've been able to find.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: They hadn't been like, yes, I think what now who's doing great.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, fuck the Gazans.
• 45:00
  It had been one of them had done a fundraiser for a hospital
• 45:03
  that I believe treated
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: victims of October 7th.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: The other had at one point talked about his own,
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: grandfather having helped to found Israel,
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: but had not said anything about the present conflict that was.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it was, I think, thin accusations.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: Either way, here's what they posted to their Instagram page.
• 45:19
  We've seen people saying that Dropout is platforming Zionists
• 45:22
  recently and we feel
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: it is important to respond.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: Where Dropout stands is here.
• 45:26
  Israel is committing genocide against Palestine and the people
• 45:29
  of Palestine deserve
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: to be free and safe.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: To our knowledge, no individual who has appeared on Dropout has
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Blocked and Reported jessesingal
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: I would put to you the question of, is this anti-Semitic?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is it just anti-Zionist?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: Can we separate the two?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Just these small, easily answered questions.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: number one is it's an internet Instagram post,
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: and it's written in that style,
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: in that slightly Stalinist courtroom style.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what's happened clearly,
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know the absolute background,
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: but I know instinctively is they've had some Jewish comedians on
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: who haven't
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: cleanse themselves enough in terms of making it clear.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: I say this somewhere in the book that as a Jew now,
• 46:54
  part of what I said earlier is you have to sort of cleanse
• 46:57
  yourself up front.
• 46:58
  You have to put your cards on the table and say,
• 46:59
  I don't support the state of Israel.
• 47:01
  I'm not as honest before you're allowed in sort of polite
• 47:04
  liberal conversation,
• 47:05
  right?
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's a suspicion that surrounds you unless you make it clear.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's a Stalinist thing to have to do.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: Which, as you mentioned, it does not apply to other groups.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: If they have an
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like, what do you think about Gaza and Hezbollah?
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: You would never get that.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, of course not.
• 47:18
  And indeed,
• 47:19
  and you would not get it with,
• 47:21
  like,
• 47:21
  as I say,
• 47:22
  a Hindu comedian.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be clear, Modi is a Hindu supremacist, right?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: And absolutely, you would not get that.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you'd get it with an Indian comic.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: and Reported jessesingal
• 47:48
  I'm Jewish but I don't support blah blah blah and which is
• 47:52
  absurd so and I know
• 47:54
  that they will have had like people on the internet complaining
• 47:56
  about this and they
• 47:57
  felt the need felt all this stuff about we feel it is important
• 48:00
  what they mean is
• 48:00
  we're frightened we're frightened that there might be a bit of
• 48:03
  an internet backlash
• 48:04
  and so we're trying to get ahead of the game by saying all that
• 48:06
  having said all
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: that
• 48:08
  it exposes something which is difficult in terms of my thesis
• 48:12
  which is I think when
• 48:12
  I wrote Jews Don't Count I have a brief bit where I talk about
• 48:16
  the use of the word
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Zionist to mean Jew and I talk about someone who wrote to me on Facebook
• 48:22
  line somewhere and at the time I said well it's obvious he
• 48:25
  means Jews because he
• 48:26
  says something like oh you Zionists you control the media you
• 48:29
  control the banks you
• 48:31
  Zionists blah blah blah and I said well obviously he
• 48:33
  desperately wants to say the
• 48:34
  word Jew now I think people would say no he doesn't and you're
• 48:39
  conflating the two
• 48:40
  things and I thought you were all about not you know what I
• 48:42
  mean like there's been
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: an upgrading
• 48:46
  of that interplay whereby people really can use the word
• 48:50
  Zionist in a very very
• 48:51
  kind of straightforward way that just insert the tropes that
• 48:55
  mean Jew use the word
• 48:57
  Zionist and if you complain about it as a Jew if you say I
• 49:00
  think you mean Jew you
• 49:02
  will be accused of conflating Jews and Israelis or Jews and
• 49:05
  Zionists and that makes
• 49:07
  a very difficult kind of intellectual vortex which this post
• 49:11
  kind of swims around
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: in
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: you'll also be accused of a certain lack of sophistication,
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: you don't understand these distinctions.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I've noticed that,
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: too,
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: where I'm not new to these debates,
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm especially not new to Jews debating these issues with other Jews,
• 49:26
  but the use of Zionist as a slur was something I'd always
• 49:31
  associated with,
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: mostly with European anti-Semitism.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the use of that term rather than
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: I would have felt really differently.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: Look,
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: if Dropout TV wanted to do a purity test,
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: like we don't want supporters of the BBNet and Yahoo government,
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: I still think that would have been weird.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: And to single out this one issue, it's like,
• 49:54
  you know pick your other conflict pick the other what about
• 49:57
  Iran why didn't you do
• 49:58
  anything about Iran and all the protesters who are murdered
• 50:00
  there but that to me
• 50:02
  would be very different from the Z word from Zionist so does
• 50:06
  this mean you're
• 50:07
  leaning toward not not what how the discourse has evolved but
• 50:11
  what king of the Jews
• 50:13
  David Baddiel thinks would you do you think this is
• 50:16
  anti-semitic or do you think
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: that's an overstatement this statement
• 50:19
  well i think it's definitely evocative of the jews don't count
• 50:22
  phenomenon the jews
• 50:23
  don't count phenomenon is not straightforwardly anti-semit well
• 50:26
  it is but it stems
• 50:27
  from anti-semitism but it's not the same as as i say active
• 50:31
  anti-semitism it's
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: leaving jews out of a certain type
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: and Reported jessesingal
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm
• 51:21
  you know people don't want to believe in that that's it's
• 51:23
  totally fine that is not
• 51:25
  necessarily anti-semitic it's not indeed anti-semitic
• 51:29
  necessarily to say that the
• 51:31
  state of Israel stupid phrase anyway has no right to exist
• 51:35
  right um it can be
• 51:37
  obviously lots of people are using it but if you break down the
• 51:41
  intellectual
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: element of that if someone wants to say
• 51:44
  yes mainly global Europe decided in 1948 out of collective
• 51:49
  guilt about the
• 51:49
  Holocaust to allow the Jews that had settled there to establish
• 51:53
  a state and that
• 51:54
  was very bad news for the Palestinians right and that created
• 51:57
  an ongoing terrible
• 51:58
  geopolitical situation of which they have been the main victims
• 52:02
  that's true right
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: and that's not anti-semitic
• 52:05
  yeah but the problem is that the shorthand which is what you're
• 52:11
  talking about which
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: is Zionist not really big about that long intellectual critique of the
• 52:16
  establishment of Israel but just being shorthand for Jews and
• 52:19
  their power that's
• 52:21
  the problem and it's very difficult now to sort it out and I
• 52:23
  would say you can only
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: sort it out by trying to dissect and deconstruct the individual statement
• 52:29
  What one this is going to bring us into the rank psychoanalysis
• 52:34
  of an individual we
• 52:35
  don't know but one part of this that I cannot resist mentioning
• 52:38
  is the CEO of this
• 52:40
  company dropout TV who's also he's brilliant he's also the host
• 52:43
  of one of their
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: most popular
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: Robert Reich has appeared on Dropbox
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: So to me,
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: there's another layer of complexity here,
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: especially what you're talking about,
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: where Jews feel a need to be like,
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm one of the good ones.
• 53:08
  The CEO of the company's own dad was a very powerful American
• 53:11
  politician who's
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: himself a liberal Zionist.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: I guess this would technically ban him from coming on ever again.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: It gets really tangled and complicated really quickly.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:20
  Yeah well there's another tangle which you've just brought up
• 53:22
  which is Jews who
• 53:24
  feel the need to be very anti-Zionist some of whom again I'm
• 53:28
  not going to say that
• 53:29
  all of them because they get very quickly classed by some Jews
• 53:32
  as self-hoathing or
• 53:33
  self-loathing or whatever and not necessarily you know there's
• 53:37
  a very strong
• 53:38
  tradition and also a very strong argument for some Jews to say
• 53:42
  that they think that
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: the state of Israel is
• 53:45
  certainly is doing terrible things now and maybe that who they
• 53:48
  feel that the state
• 53:49
  of Israel should never have been established but even that is
• 53:51
  complicated because
• 53:52
  some of those people are mad because some of those are mad
• 53:54
  religious people who
• 53:55
  think that this should have happened without the Messiah
• 53:57
  arriving so but circa but
• 53:59
  early 20th century or late 19th like when Zionism popped up as
• 54:02
  an idea I'm not
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: telling anything
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know,
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: but this was a source of huge debate among Jews,
• 54:07
  and especially a divide between Jews from the shtetl versus
• 54:11
  assimilated Jews in
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: London and New York,
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: who were,
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: a little bit more likely,
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: even though they had the money and the power to help establish Israel,
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: it didn't feel as urgent for them,
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: because they weren't fleeing from imminent danger.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: So none of these debates...
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm worried about overshooting the mark because I'm torn.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: I read the statement.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: It feels very creepy to me.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like putting an undue burden on Jewish performers.
• 54:33
  I also do regularly see accusations of anti-Semitism used to
• 54:38
  shield one very
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: particular Israeli government from criticism.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't like that.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to somehow address both of those, which maybe is impossible.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes,
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: well in terms of anti-semitism,
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean they weaponize,
• 54:50
  it's unquestionably the Israeli government are always
• 54:51
  weaponizing anti-semitism in
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: order to shield themselves from criticism,
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: they weaponize the holocaust,
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: there's no question about all of that happening,
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: but then again,
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: why should the Israeli government be any less cunty,
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: to use a word,
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: than any other government,
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 55:07
  And any less likely,
• 55:08
  sorry,
• 55:08
  I don't know,
• 55:09
  I presume in Blocked and Reported I can use that word.
• 55:11
  You can say cunty,
• 55:12
  it's one of our favorite words,
• 55:13
  we don't get to use it enough.
• 55:15
  yeah i mean because and most governments are most governments
• 55:18
  are always doing
• 55:20
  appalling things and also weaponizing things and involved in
• 55:23
  propaganda and i think
• 55:24
  it's you know that's what they're doing and jews who do not
• 55:28
  live there do not
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: support that government are not responsible for that um i
• 55:34
  I just wanted to get back briefly to the proper conversation
• 55:38
  about this gets in the
• 55:39
  way of people playing various trump cards and one of those
• 55:42
  trump cards say well
• 55:43
  he's Jewish or this guy he's Jewish so therefore what are you
• 55:47
  doing telling a Jew
• 55:48
  that he can't think this that or the other I think well I'm not
• 55:50
  telling a Jew
• 55:51
  anything I'm just saying that the fact that you're Jewish
• 55:53
  doesn't necessarily mean
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: that that post is not got things about it that are weird
• 55:58
  and here's the key thing about that post which is sort of what
• 56:01
  I said before it's
• 56:02
  performative the whole fucking world because of the internet is
• 56:06
  performative so
• 56:09
  what it's doing is trying to appease people who might want to
• 56:14
  have a sense that
• 56:15
  like sorry it's trying to it's trying to you said it you said I
• 56:20
  want to be one of
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: the good ones and I think
• 56:24
  that's always creepy and worrisome that there are going to be
• 56:28
  some Jews who think
• 56:30
  how can I put myself in the right camp where I'm not going to
• 56:34
  get attacked and that
• 56:36
  just gets in the way of sort of thinking clearly about this
• 56:38
  thing that's very hard
• 56:38
  to think clearly about already I also I mean the other reason I
• 56:43
  brought it up is
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: because when I hear the word Zion I'm look I'm
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: No
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: some of your friends over there who are mutual friends,
• 57:13
  like the folks who are on the left but weren't happy with the
• 57:16
  sort of cultural
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: revolution mindset of the 2020,
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: 2021.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: Some of the stuff you've responded to.
• 57:22
  I think there is a little bit of a blind spot in that group
• 57:25
  where like any
• 57:27
  expression of sympathy toward Palestinians or any sense of
• 57:30
  being disturbed by what
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: Israel has done is seen as like inherently wacky and far left.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think
• 57:36
  There's a blind spot there but when i hear the words i agree
• 57:41
  but i i mean i mean
• 57:44
  the prevailing wind in this country especially amongst young
• 57:47
  people yeah is is not
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: that the prevailing wind in this country is any expression of
• 57:54
  anything pro-israel is one of the things i can't i find very
• 57:58
  difficult is people on
• 58:00
  the internet and people in general implying that because of the
• 58:04
  enormous power of
• 58:04
  jews and zionists that therefore saying anything
• 58:08
  pro-palestinian is going to be
• 58:11
  very threatening to you and your career and etc etc and maybe
• 58:14
  in some circles it is
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: but meanwhile
• 58:19
  a woman wrote to me last year who is an Orthodox Jewish woman
• 58:24
  who was doing a show
• 58:25
  in Edinburgh that was cancelled because I'm not sure why but it
• 58:30
  was something to do
• 58:31
  with her being Jewish and the possibility that she might be
• 58:34
  thought of as being a
• 58:34
  little bit pro-Israel and so therefore it was all initially
• 58:38
  cancelled because of
• 58:38
  safety concerns and next thing you know it's cancelled because
• 58:42
  yeah so and you kind
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: of think like okay
• 58:45
  like at some point we have to acknowledge that because we live
• 58:49
  in a fragmented
• 58:50
  culture everything's fragmented so I agree that there are some
• 58:53
  Jews who you know
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: think that any expression of sympathy with Palestinians is a betrayal
• 59:00
  which is obviously nuts you know it's obviously clear that the
• 59:03
  Palestinians are in
• 59:04
  a terribly terribly grievous situation and should be supported
• 59:07
  I think in you know
• 59:09
  I don't know much about it either I don't know how to sort out
• 59:11
  an intractable
• 59:12
  terrible geopolitical situation but my sense is I was hoping we
• 59:15
  would be able to
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: resolve it during this conversation unlikely
• 59:19
  but i think supporting them and trying to trying that trying to
• 59:21
  hope that their
• 59:22
  lives become better is a good thing right yeah uh in the very
• 59:26
  small way that that
• 59:27
  might be a thing but i also think that the notion that the
• 59:31
  all-powerfulness of jews
• 59:34
  means that you know expressions of support for the palestinians
• 59:38
  are will lead you
• 59:39
  instantly losing your career and losing your whatever whatever
• 59:43
  completely ignores
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: the high power of progressive
• 59:46
  and indeed internet thinking whereby you'll be fucking bombed
• 59:52
  out of existence on
• 59:53
  the internet no I'm not going to use that phrase yeah you'll be
• 59:57
  fucked you'll be
• 59:58
  cancelled to fuck if you say anything pro-israel right by that
• 1:00:03
  section so what I'm
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: saying is it's all fragmented
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, there's communities where each occurs.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: in this case,
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: it's more of an American phenomenon,
• 1:00:11
  but dropout TV right now is so hot and popular that if you're a
• 1:00:16
  young performer,
• 1:00:17
  getting a chance to go on one of these shows could be a
• 1:00:20
  make-or-break career
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: moment.
• 1:00:21
  And the way I read this Instagram post was that if you're a
• 1:00:24
  Jewish performer...
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: and you've had any trace of what most Jews in the U.S.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: believe on your social media profile,
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: you might not be able to go on this show.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I find that disturbing.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: And just the one point I wanted to circle back to,
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: and I really appreciate your time,
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: is the use of Zionism in this way as sort of a slur.
• 1:00:45
  I've seen not just Zionism as racism,
• 1:00:47
  but Zionism is akin to Nazism,
• 1:00:50
  which is insane.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: Growing up in the US as a Jew,
• 1:00:56
  we're told a particular story about what is viewed as a
• 1:01:00
  liberation struggle.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think like a lot of stories of liberation struggles,
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: they sand off some of the rough edges,
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: they sand off the people who are displaced,
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: they sand off the worst things the most,
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: violent Jewish revolutionaries did.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: But
• 1:01:14
  I just sort of think we have a right to our own myth if every
• 1:01:17
  other group has a
• 1:01:18
  right to their myths and it's not entirely a myth and this idea
• 1:01:21
  that Jews are not
• 1:01:23
  allowed to believe this thing we were taught from a young age
• 1:01:26
  that was largely a
• 1:01:27
  response to the Holocaust and to pogroms in Eastern Europe the
• 1:01:33
  idea that we need to
• 1:01:34
  come out and publicly renounce that to have a career or to be
• 1:01:37
  able to go on a show
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: like Dropout that to me is like
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't sit right with me at all.
• 1:01:43
  And that to me is where if it was any other statement that even
• 1:01:47
  though it's not
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: overtly anti-Semitic correlated that much with a marginalized group,
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: it would have been a shit show.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: People would have been fired.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not calling for people to be fired.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: I love Dropout TV.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're brilliant.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're getting the credit and the claim they deserve.
• 1:02:00
  I think I'm just annoyed at the double standard because it's
• 1:02:03
  almost like and I'm
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: coining this phrase right now.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Jews don't count or something.
• 1:02:08
  Yes well Jews don't count in a much deeper way because if Jews
• 1:02:12
  did count it
• 1:02:13
  wouldn't be that Jews had to renounce Zionism it would be that
• 1:02:16
  Jews would be seen I
• 1:02:17
  know in American comedy this seems a bit weird but anyway as a
• 1:02:20
  marginalised voice
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_00: that needed to be promoted
• 1:02:24
  and so therefore there should be a Jewish space for Jewish
• 1:02:27
  comedy in a way that you
• 1:02:28
  know we definitely want to have a women comedian on it we
• 1:02:30
  definitely want to have
• 1:02:30
  black comedians on it there would be that that's Jews not
• 1:02:33
  counting right but the
• 1:02:34
  chances of that are so far away from where we are now
• 1:02:37
  definitely in America one
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_00: other thing which is we haven't talked about
• 1:02:41
  wait but you don't you don't think american comedy is jewish
• 1:02:43
  comedy to a certain
• 1:02:44
  extent not anymore not anymore it was in the 60s and 70s
• 1:02:48
  definitely it was the
• 1:02:50
  voice of american comedy and the 90s with seinfeld and larry
• 1:02:53
  david or whatever not
• 1:02:54
  anymore no like everything else the jews don't count phenomenon
• 1:02:57
  is to some extent
• 1:02:59
  about the fact that progressives decided round about 20 years
• 1:03:03
  ago the jews have had
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: their window
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they had the Holocaust.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_00: Briefly,
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: we sort of allied to them,
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: although we were the ways in which we weren't very happy about their,
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_00: the hangovers about stuff we thought about them being powerful.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and the Middle East was always a problem.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: But there was a sort of brief
• 1:03:20
  fief window where people understood that enormous killing
• 1:03:24
  enormous murder in Europe
• 1:03:26
  and whatever meant oh this group they are maybe deserving of
• 1:03:30
  some sympathy that's
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: when a while ago Jews were not at some level they weren't the fashion
• 1:03:36
  what an old fucking boomer thing it is to care about Jews right
• 1:03:40
  and to imagine that
• 1:03:41
  they're a marginalized group even though in 2018 11 Jews get
• 1:03:46
  killed in Pittsburgh
• 1:03:47
  right that's still a vulnerable group right that doesn't stop
• 1:03:52
  Susan Sarandon saying
• 1:03:54
  oh well maybe Jews can get to feel a bit like how Muslims have
• 1:03:57
  felt in America as
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: if Jews have never been threatened in America right
• 1:04:03
  that's so extraordinary I just wanted to mention you look at
• 1:04:06
  our hate crime
• 1:04:07
  statistics I feel safe day to day I absolutely do but it
• 1:04:10
  remains just objectively
• 1:04:11
  true Jews are targeted at a much higher rate than any other
• 1:04:14
  martialized group it's
• 1:04:15
  just the facts in the US sorry go ahead I just wanted to the
• 1:04:20
  Julian Casablanca
• 1:04:20
  thing I think is amazing because I think it's the specific
• 1:04:24
  thing of saying
• 1:04:26
  White American Zionists which is an interesting phrase itself
• 1:04:30
  there's a lot in my
• 1:04:31
  book about the white the perceived whiteness of Jews I call
• 1:04:34
  them Schrodinger's
• 1:04:35
  whites by which I mean they're sort of white or non-white
• 1:04:38
  depending on the politics
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: of the observer and the far right have always seen
• 1:04:41
  jews as non-white hitler very much saw jews as non-white that's
• 1:04:46
  why he killed them
• 1:04:47
  because he was after an aryan white race uh whereas i would say
• 1:04:50
  the left see jews
• 1:04:51
  as kind of super white because of the association of power and
• 1:04:54
  privilege and
• 1:04:55
  whatever uh and it's white is always the primary word you use
• 1:05:00
  when you want to say
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: this is a group not deserving of allyship
• 1:05:03
  they have power white is the key word always uh and there's a
• 1:05:08
  whole there's loads
• 1:05:09
  of bits in my book about that there's a whole bit about how
• 1:05:11
  Jessica Krug who's a
• 1:05:12
  kind of Rachel Dolezal type person came out as Jessica La
• 1:05:16
  Bombalera is that her
• 1:05:18
  that was her fake name and she had an amazing uh west side
• 1:05:22
  story fake Puerto Rican
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: accent
• 1:05:24
  okay uh but the key well it was very interesting when she came
• 1:05:27
  out it was revealed
• 1:05:28
  that she was not just white but white and Jewish as if the
• 1:05:31
  Jewish added white added
• 1:05:32
  whiteness to her whiteness right but so so but white American
• 1:05:37
  Zionists it's a
• 1:05:38
  really specific thing like let me just read these I have the
• 1:05:41
  exact quote here he
• 1:05:42
  said American Zionists get the benefits of white privileged
• 1:05:46
  people but talk like
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: they are black people during slavery
• 1:05:50
  Yes so I think partly why he's put American in there is I guess
• 1:05:53
  because he is
• 1:05:54
  really saying Zionist to mean Jews and I suppose if you
• 1:05:57
  included European Jews in
• 1:05:59
  that it may be in his head or not you think like okay well I
• 1:06:02
  guess I have to admit
• 1:06:03
  they did suffer something like not that long ago the European
• 1:06:07
  one so let's just
• 1:06:08
  let's try and specify it to Americans and then it's a very Jews
• 1:06:12
  don't count thing
• 1:06:13
  because what I'm talking about Jews don't count if you want to
• 1:06:15
  be very very
• 1:06:16
  sort of almost banal about it is a hierarchy of racism right
• 1:06:20
  where certain racisms
• 1:06:21
  are considered much more important than others and that phrase
• 1:06:24
  has become quite a
• 1:06:24
  toxic one since I wrote about it but within the hierarchy of
• 1:06:30
  racism there's a
• 1:06:31
  to which Jews are very very low on it for progressives and that
• 1:06:36
  racism against Jews
• 1:06:37
  hardly counts as racism and then the thing that is very high is
• 1:06:40
  obviously racism
• 1:06:41
  against black people and specifically slavery or whatever it's
• 1:06:44
  all that's all very
• 1:06:45
  very important so the notion that Jews could compare themselves
• 1:06:50
  in in some kind of
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: suffering way to that is obviously laughable and
• 1:06:55
  except it's not laughable for jews who've got holocaust
• 1:06:57
  backgrounds at all right
• 1:07:00
  and so that's where it's weird in a way that all of that can be
• 1:07:03
  dismissed through
• 1:07:04
  the use of the word zionist that the minute you've got zionist
• 1:07:08
  in there then it's
• 1:07:09
  all fine because you're just pumping up the power in fact it's
• 1:07:12
  three i know he
• 1:07:13
  didn't use this as one thing but he basically does because he
• 1:07:16
  uses the word white
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: american zionists is power times three
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_00: and if you believe that to be Jews what you're doing is taking away their
• 1:07:28
  vulnerability three times and that's how you say that that's
• 1:07:32
  how you how you make a
• 1:07:34
  group that might feel that they are under threat embarrassed
• 1:07:38
  and like silenced
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: about the fact of their threat of the possibility of that threat
• 1:07:44
  So you're saying that's sort of the rhetorical work being done
• 1:07:48
  by the term Zionist.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_01: You take a vulnerable group and you make them powerful.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's the key thing.
• 1:07:54
  Anything else on Jews before I ask you for just a more general
• 1:07:58
  closing note?
• 1:08:02
  uh no we've talked for quite a long time it's supposed to be 20
• 1:08:04
  minutes I seem to
• 1:08:05
  remember uh well I well one thing about this book uh that
• 1:08:09
  you've talked about and
• 1:08:10
  you finally read I mean for fuck's sake for five years after it
• 1:08:14
  came out is that my
• 1:08:15
  publishers have for a long time said to me please write another
• 1:08:17
  one which I would
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: call Jews still don't count
• 1:08:19
  okay well yes david i'm looking forward to reading jews still
• 1:08:22
  don't count uh
• 1:08:23
  presumably followed by jews continue to not count in 2028 why
• 1:08:28
  do jews not count oy
• 1:08:29
  vey we still don't count and on and on uh david baddiel thank
• 1:08:33
  you so much for
• 1:08:34
  joining us yeah we would like to have you back to have a a less
• 1:08:36
  semitic discussion
• 1:08:37
  but i i thought this was great and um very thoughtful so thank
• 1:08:40
  you for your time
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_00: all right katie what do you think about jews
• 1:08:45
  individual Jews are all Jews I will I you know what I'm gonna
• 1:08:48
  be I'm gonna be
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_02: honest with you for a second I like Jews
• 1:08:53
  Wow thank you Is Jana mouthing at you that you should say that
• 1:08:56
  Say you like Jews
• 1:08:58
  She's just got like one earbud in While she's like cooking you
• 1:09:01
  a five course meal
• 1:09:03
  Say that Jews are good I like Jews I have I think that Jews are
• 1:09:08
  I'm going to
• 1:09:08
  stereotype here But I think Jews are a good people A rich
• 1:09:13
  people Rich in spirit
• 1:09:15
  Rich in spirit You didn't let me finish You did not get to the
• 1:09:19
  spirit of what Badu
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: was saying
• 1:09:21
  the one thing that I do sort of struggle with with your
• 1:09:24
  conversation with Dave or
• 1:09:25
  your assessment of the of the dropout anti-semitism which you
• 1:09:29
  think is very overt
• 1:09:31
  is just the fact that they no no I don't think it's overt I
• 1:09:33
  think it's overt
• 1:09:34
  semitism would be that it's yeah I do think it's obvious yeah
• 1:09:37
  the one thing I
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_02: struggle with is just the fact that I am sure that they will allow
• 1:09:43
  Jews on the channel including samurai he's not he's not Zionist
• 1:09:47
  right so this is
• 1:09:48
  the part where I'm like is it anti-semitism to say that these
• 1:09:52
  the these Jews who
• 1:09:54
  not all Jews that these Jews who believe in our I mean and the
• 1:09:59
  other thing is like
• 1:10:00
  what does it mean to not be an anti-Zionist like does he think
• 1:10:03
  that Israel you mean
• 1:10:04
  not be not be Zionist to not be Zion like does he does he think
• 1:10:07
  that Israel has a
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_02: right to exist or
• 1:10:10
  the definition of Zionist is so confusing and muddy by some
• 1:10:15
  definition and they
• 1:10:16
  didn't define it right right like by some depth like my
• 1:10:18
  position on Israel is that
• 1:10:20
  it exists despite the like crazy despite the whatever sins and
• 1:10:26
  the founding of the
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_02: country
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_02: It exists.
• 1:10:29
  And to wipe Israel and the Israeli people off the map would be
• 1:10:33
  horrific,
• 1:10:34
  would be a crime.
• 1:10:35
  I also think that Benjamin Netanyahu himself is a war criminal
• 1:10:38
  who should rot in prison.
• 1:10:40
  And I think that the conservatives and the Israeli government
• 1:10:42
  particularly
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_02: who are allowing and orchestrating the takeover of the West Bank.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_02: I also think they are criminals and should rot in prison.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it is completely possible to hold those two things in your mind.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_02: So by that definition, am I a Zionist?
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_02: I completely oppose Benjamin Netanyahu.
• 1:10:58
  but israel exists it does exist and i like jews i think i'm a
• 1:11:03
  zionist by that
• 1:11:03
  definition well first of all thank you i mean i think that's
• 1:11:06
  part of what gives
• 1:11:07
  them some plausible deniability here is they don't define
• 1:11:09
  zionist uh the reason i
• 1:11:11
  think it's anti-semitic is this stuff is context dependent now
• 1:11:16
  i can't i can't
• 1:11:16
  remember if i had meant to make this connection in the other
• 1:11:19
  episode or actually
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_01: did but like in the primo episode yeah but like
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a club and you say no do rags or timberlands,
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_01: you can't then say,
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: we didn't explicitly say black people are excluded.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_01: The point I was trying to make with Badil...
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_02: So black nerds can come to the club.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Black nerds who like Dungeons and Dragons are allowed.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_01: The point I was trying to make to Badil is...
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_02: I see what you're saying.
• 1:11:42
  It's this very particular thing where if you are raised Jewish,
• 1:11:45
  it is extremely likely...
• 1:11:47
  that you will have some form of Zionism instilled in you for
• 1:11:50
  very understandable
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_01: historical reasons.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people are such assholes about ignoring the history.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like 600,000 people died in the Holocaust.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's horrific.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Almost 60,000 people died.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_01: To me,
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_01: this is anti-Semitic because,
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_01: like I said,
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_01: it places an undue burden and undue scrutiny on Jewish performers.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And,
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't mention this in the Primo,
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_01: but like Ben Schwartz,
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_01: who is one of the most famous people to have on the show...
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't really get into politics.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: You look at his background,
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_01: you look at where he's from,
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_01: you look at the fact that he did a Times of Israel interview in 2020.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the Jewish performers have some trace of Zionism in them.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying Ben Schwartz does, at least his parents.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And again, Sam Reich effectively
• 1:12:32
  I'm not saying that criticism of Israel or even criticism of
• 1:12:40
  Zionism as an ideal is
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_01: anti-Semitic.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying something that places such a specific unfair burden.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_01: and unfair scrutiny on Jews,
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_01: which is what this does,
• 1:12:50
  is and I promise you that there are talented Jewish performers
• 1:12:56
  who would love to be
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_01: on Dropout and who are now like,
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_01: fuck,
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I can.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And dude,
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_01: if we're doing any turnabout test involving Muslim performers,
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Arab performers,
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I would say the same thing.
• 1:13:07
  The other thing is if you put out a statement like this and
• 1:13:11
  Jews self-select off of
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_02: your channel...
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to have a content problem, folks.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, these days there's so many.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay,
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_01: first of all,
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_01: you need to talk to David Baddiel because you just did an antisemitism,
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_01: a positive antisemitism.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be curious if Rachel Bloom and Noah Grossman ever show up again.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so these are the performers who were...
• 1:13:35
  who were the crazy ultras online uh who were who were
• 1:13:40
  specifically calling out and
• 1:13:42
  yeah fuck and drop out listen to them to some degree if I were
• 1:13:46
  Rachel Bloom or Noah
• 1:13:47
  Grossman I absolutely would not be appearing on that channel
• 1:13:50
  again yeah I think I
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_01: think again what annoys me about this is
• 1:13:57
  I just think like Dropout is trying to have it both ways
• 1:13:59
  they're playing footsie
• 1:14:00
  with their craziest listeners and then they should just explain
• 1:14:04
  what happened like
• 1:14:05
  are you really gonna like keep Zionist off your network forever
• 1:14:09
  is Sam Reich's dad
• 1:14:10
  not I just find this whole thing very online and very obnoxious
• 1:14:15
  and not the way you
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_01: should do business
• 1:14:17
  The other thing is this is like to me this is analogous to like
• 1:14:20
  blaming Russians
• 1:14:22
  for the sins of Vladimir Putin or blaming Americans for the
• 1:14:26
  sins of Donald Trump
• 1:14:29
  like it's just it's not fair to blame people for things that
• 1:14:34
  people have not done
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_02: and may not support
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:14:37
  this gets into stretched territory because American Jews aren't
• 1:14:42
  obviously just
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_01: American Jews.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's who's been sort of targeted here.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_01: It gets complicated.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying to have a litmus test on one issue framed so broadly,
• 1:14:55
  framed that it really could just mean you think Israel in its
• 1:14:57
  current form should
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_01: continue to exist,
• 1:15:00
  just clearly discriminatory because you're not doing that for
• 1:15:02
  any other issue or
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_01: any other group.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's all I'm saying.
• 1:15:04
  I wonder if they would have an Israeli who hates Benjamin
• 1:15:07
  Netanyahu on the show I
• 1:15:09
  don't know how much I want to get into this but there's a lot
• 1:15:11
  of this whole like
• 1:15:12
  hunting for Zionist thing really treats anyone in the orbit of
• 1:15:17
  Israel or anyone who
• 1:15:18
  has ever said a positive word of it as an undifferentiated mass
• 1:15:21
  whose only goal is
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_01: to just murder Palestinians which is not
• 1:15:25
  uh does not account for some of the complexity here does not
• 1:15:28
  account for the fact
• 1:15:29
  that again whatever the sins of Israel this is a nation made up
• 1:15:32
  largely of refugees
• 1:15:33
  from elsewhere both people like Eastern European Jews and then
• 1:15:37
  the Jews who were
• 1:15:37
  expelled from the Middle East around the time of Israel's
• 1:15:40
  founding um I just find
• 1:15:45
  I just this rise of the word Zionist as a slur I find pretty
• 1:15:50
  disgusting and I find
• 1:15:52
  it incredibly disingenuous that these people who go on and on
• 1:15:56
  about inclusion and
• 1:15:57
  will give you a trigger warning if a character is going to
• 1:16:00
  vomit because seeing
• 1:16:01
  someone vomit makes people so upset will then throw around the
• 1:16:04
  word Zionist like
• 1:16:05
  this will then imply they have some sort of blacklist of
• 1:16:07
  Zionist and then just
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_01: disappear that post like nothing happened and not really post much of an
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_01: explanation so
• 1:16:14
  I'll just I'll just end by saying that like to me whether or
• 1:16:17
  not you think the post
• 1:16:18
  is anti-semitic per se um drop out fuck this up so badly and if
• 1:16:24
  they just and if
• 1:16:25
  they had any like decency on this front if they don't want to
• 1:16:27
  fall into this Jews
• 1:16:28
  don't count trap they should just they should explain it
• 1:16:31
  they've never explained it
• 1:16:32
  and I'm sure there are Jewish performers who are very
• 1:16:34
  uncomfortable now and either
• 1:16:36
  Jews count or they don't count either David Bedell's right or
• 1:16:38
  he's not and um
• 1:16:40
  you know I suspect dropout will not do anything about this we
• 1:16:42
  will not be the ones
• 1:16:43
  who nudged him to revisit something from a couple years ago I
• 1:16:46
  was just pretty
• 1:16:46
  disgusted by this well they probably won't be listening to this
• 1:16:49
  podcast you know
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_02: why Jesse why
• 1:16:51
  Jews don't count Jews don't count alright on that note anything
• 1:16:55
  else no that's it
• 1:16:56
  thank you Katie for being such a friend of the Jewish people
• 1:16:59
  and for being one of
• 1:16:59
  the biggest supporters I know of the Likud party and the state
• 1:17:03
  of Israel herself
• 1:17:04
  alright so we go way way deep into the dropout story the
• 1:17:09
  history of dropout the
• 1:17:10
  history of this cancellation and more and another cancellation
• 1:17:13
  that has to do with
• 1:17:15
  not Jews but cops cops the Jews of the Jews of civil servants
• 1:17:19
  yeah you know that
• 1:17:20
  SPEAKER_01: didn't really work
• 1:17:22
  I wonder if there are more Jewish cops or more Jewish NBA
• 1:17:26
  players that might be
• 1:17:27
  that might be equal I don't think that's just in New York City
• 1:17:30
  alone there's more
• 1:17:31
  Jewish cops that they have a whole like um Hasidic sort of unit
• 1:17:34
  to interface with
• 1:17:35
  that community Jews don't count Jews don't count so if you are
• 1:17:37
  interested in this
• 1:17:38
  story go check out that one it is up on our Substack page
• 1:17:41
  Blocked and Reported dot
• 1:17:42
  org and we should include a link to the show notes because
• 1:17:44
  that'll be up by the
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_02: time this is up yes oh and and
• 1:17:48
  on May 8th Helen Lewis is going to be joining me for a Gentiles
• 1:17:54
  only chat at
• 1:17:55
  Substack Live we're going to be talking about a Jew book Lena
• 1:17:58
  Dunham's new memoir
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_02: that is going to be at 8 a.m.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Pacific time that's 11 a.m.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Eastern and I don't know what that is in the UK 4 p.m.
• 1:18:07
  I believe so please join us this is for primos only but we
• 1:18:10
  would love to see you
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_01: there scheduled well
• 1:18:15
  I'll be preparing for a flight and that's anti-smitty hey if
• 1:18:18
  you can join us from
• 1:18:19
  the airport you're welcome to watch I'm gonna join you from the
• 1:18:23
  cockpit of my plane
• 1:18:23
  you'll see um this has been Blocked and Reported as always
• 1:18:27
  we're produced with help
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_01: from Jessica the 80s baby thank you for listening bye bye