Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / Jewish Comedy at the Bondi Attack

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Jewish Comedy at the Bondi Attack · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:03
  G'day humans!
• 0:04
  Welcome to Safe Space for Dangerous Ideas.
• 0:07
  Have you ever found anything out about your family history or your ancestry that made you rethink who you are and what you do?
• 0:17
  Imagine finding out that you're actually secretly Jewish.
• 0:22
  And if you're a comedian who's never thought of themselves as Jewish, imagine finding out that your great-grandfather was actually one of the great comedians of his day, a so-called Hebrew comic, as they were called in the 1800s, who performed with the Marx Brothers and peddled in various Jewish and even anti-Jewish stereotypes
• 0:41
  How would that change the way you think about your own comedy, especially if now, as a Jewish comic, many audience members expect you to account for Gaza, something you've never really thought about until now?
• 0:55
  That's the story of today's guest, David Rose, who's a comedian who, shortly after the Bondi Beach terrorist attack against Jews, staged a one-man show at the Bondi Beach Pavilion in the city.
• 1:07
  about his great-grandfather and him, about Jewish comedy before and after the Nazis, Jewish comedy before and after Gaza.
• 1:14
  It's called Nepo Great Grand Baby, and as David stepped off a plane from performing it at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and doing other stand-up gigs in the UK, he was kind enough to swing by the studios and...
• 1:26
  wrestle with comedy and Gaza and Zionism and trigger warnings and offendedness and all the other things that we love to talk about here on the show.
• 1:34
  David has further performances of his show in Sydney and Melbourne in September.
• 1:38
  I hope you enjoy as much as I did the one and only David Rose.
• 1:49
  David Rose, Jewish Australian comedian extraordinaire, fresh back from the UK.
• 1:54
  Did you say yesterday?
• 1:55
  Yeah, I think I flew in.
• 1:56
  I mean, it's all a blur, but I think it was yesterday.
• 1:58
  You know, was it within the last 48 hours?
• 2:00
  Right.
• 2:01
  So you were lying when you said yesterday, and now I've caught you out.
• 2:03
  It was like the day before yesterday.
• 2:05
  Today is Wednesday in Australia.
• 2:08
  It's Tuesday in the United States.
• 2:10
  Yeah.
• 2:11
  So you already, you've trapped me.
• 2:12
  Yeah, yeah.
• 2:13
  This is journalistic training.
• 2:15
  I brought you here under the pretense of talking to you as a comedian, but this is actually an interrogative interview into your long history as a liar.
• 2:22
  Yeah, about your international travels.
• 2:25
  So Edinburgh...
• 2:26
  Yeah, I did Edinburgh for a week and then I was in London doing the comedy clubs in London.
• 2:30
  Then I did one last gig in the Netherlands before I came back.
• 2:33
  Oh, wow.
• 2:34
  Which was great.
• 2:35
  Everyone told me the comedy club there, it's designed, it's the best built comedy club in the world, but it's completely wasted because it's Dutch people in the audience.
• 2:43
  Yeah, but they all speak English.
• 2:44
  Yeah.
• 2:44
  Yeah, but they laugh like this.
• 2:46
  They go, huh.
• 2:48
  Right.
• 2:48
  A lady literally, she came up to me afterwards and she goes, that was so funny.
• 2:51
  I laughed out loud.
• 2:54
  And she said it like three times.
• 2:55
  She's like, you don't understand.
• 2:56
  I laughed out loud.
• 2:57
  Yeah, this was the first time in my whole life I ever did laugh out loud.
• 3:01
  You could see my teeth.
• 3:03
  Right.
• 3:04
  Yes.
• 3:06
  Who's the most raucous?
• 3:07
  Where are the most raucous crowds?
• 3:09
  Cruise ships in Australia.
• 3:10
  Yeah, right.
• 3:11
  Which I've done plenty of.
• 3:13
  A lot of booze.
• 3:13
  They can get pretty crazy, especially around New Year's.
• 3:16
  Because it's the kind of person that wants to be on a boat in New Year's with super cheap booze.
• 3:23
  They let loose pretty much.
• 3:24
  I mean, super cheap booze.
• 3:25
  They've probably bought the all-you-can-drink package, and they've got a little bracelet.
• 3:28
  Yeah, man.
• 3:29
  So I did a ship, when was this, like last year, and there's a guy in a wheelchair, like a young guy.
• 3:34
  He's like 20, and he's got all these 20-year-olds with him.
• 3:37
  And I'm like, oh, this is cool that they brought their friend.
• 3:39
  This is accessible or whatever.
• 3:40
  I get talking to him.
• 3:41
  It turns out the guy in the wheelchair had bought the drinks package and on the first night had fallen over, cracked his spine.
• 3:47
  Oh, my God.
• 3:48
  He wanted to, the carnival wanted to airlift him.
• 3:51
  He boarded the ship not in a wheelchair.
• 3:53
  Yeah, exactly.
• 3:54
  And then the company wanted to airlift him off because they have like a responsibility to not.
• 4:00
  And he was like, but I've paid for the drinks package.
• 4:02
  And so he found all these other young guys and he said, I'll share my drinks with you if you push me around the ship.
• 4:07
  Fabulous.
• 4:07
  Oh, so he didn't even know those guys.
• 4:08
  He didn't know.
• 4:09
  They were just there for the booze.
• 4:10
  Yeah.
• 4:11
  I mean, good for him.
• 4:12
  They were taking him to the bathroom and stuff.
• 4:13
  And I was saying to him, like, you need to get the hell off this boat.
• 4:16
  No.
• 4:16
  And he's like, yeah, but I paid.
• 4:17
  Why would I?
• 4:18
  I mean, spinal injury or none, I've got the drinks package.
• 4:22
  It's only a permanent injury.
• 4:23
  Yeah.
• 4:24
  That's right.
• 4:24
  I mean, it is.
• 4:25
  So he's got a point.
• 4:26
  What are you going to do in the next five days?
• 4:28
  I guess so, yeah.
• 4:28
  You know, I've got to live with this for the rest of my life.
• 4:30
  Yeah.
• 4:31
  So, okay, the Netherlands.
• 4:33
  And then flew back from Amsterdam.
• 4:35
  And then came back from Amsterdam.
• 4:36
  And Edinburgh is just a crazy, febrile, hysterical, over...
• 4:41
  I mean, I've only been once and I didn't perform there, but I was sleeping on a very well-known Australian comedian's couch.
• 4:50
  Husey?
• 4:51
  It wasn't Husey.
• 4:52
  You know who it was.
• 4:52
  Mate, I've negative geared that couch.
• 4:55
  I told you who it was before we started, but I don't know if he would want me to say.
• 4:59
  I don't know why.
• 5:01
  And I just remember that the reason I was on the couch was because to get a hotel room in Edinburgh during the festival costs approximately one million pounds.
• 5:11
  I think I looked at an apartment for the month and it was 15,000 Australian dollars for the month.
• 5:17
  I mean, that sounds cheap for a month, actually.
• 5:20
  In the middle of Edinburgh, I mean, it can get pretty... That was a bad apartment.
• 5:24
  And it's just... You can go out at three in the morning, can't you?
• 5:27
  And the streets are packed.
• 5:29
  There's gigs every second of the day.
• 5:31
  So, like, I would wake up at my first hour, because I did my hour twice a day.
• 5:36
  My first hour-long show was at midday.
• 5:38
  Yeah.
• 5:38
  And then I would do another one at, like, 2 o'clock.
• 5:41
  And then from two o'clock until, I don't know, 2 a.m., I would have a gig every hour on the hour just doing spots.
• 5:48
  Yeah, it's pretty crazy.
• 5:50
  I was talking to a friend about how, you know, like in like evolution, you have a trait that's successful and then every other creature in that thing develops that trait over time because it's like peacocks develop the big mating ritual with the feather and stuff.
• 6:06
  And everything just gets more and more...
• 6:11
  Yes.
• 6:12
  Because evolutionary, that's what's worked.
• 6:14
  That's like the posters in Edinburgh.
• 6:16
  The posters used to just say like David Rose comedy show, but now everyone's doing a show.
• 6:22
  So now you've got to have the screen painting like...
• 6:26
  Oh, yeah, yeah, like the Edvard Munch screaming face.
• 6:29
  Yeah, yeah, or like every show is called like, that time that I punched my dad in the face and then he sent me to hospital, and then like the show name is like- You're saying this as if you're not guilty of this, but let me read to the listener what the name of your show is, because I've seen the poster of it.
• 6:46
  So David Rose presents Nepo Great Grandbaby.
• 6:51
  My great-grandfather was a vaudeville comedian in the early 20th century.
• 6:58
  A century later, here I am in the same job asking the same questions.
• 7:03
  It's sort of a subtitle of the title.
• 7:06
  That's on the poster to get people to read the poster.
• 7:08
  But the show is called Nepo Great Grandbaby.
• 7:10
  Yes.
• 7:11
  Cheekly transgressive, says Chortle.
• 7:14
  Yeah, I think that was part of a larger review where he said a lot of comedians do this.
• 7:19
  You take a pull quote from a bad review.
• 7:22
  Yes.
• 7:23
  So I think what he said, he said, David Rose is a master at comedy, dot, dot, dot, and a master of self-deprecation and ruining the show or something like that.
• 7:33
  Yeah, well, you can do a lot with an ellipsis when you're quoting things.
• 7:36
  Yeah, that ellipsis worked real hard.
• 7:38
  You can be like, you know, David Rose is, and if the original review says David Rose is absolutely not a world-class talent, you can just say David Rose is a world-class talent.
• 7:48
  The most famous one was, I think it was the Scotsman in Edinburgh gave someone one star, and the next year they put on their poster, a star, the Scotsman.
• 7:59
  Although I must say,
• 8:01
  Intentionally hamming up what a terrible review you've had is also a good thing.
• 8:04
  It's like, you know, it's a little bit like everybody hates me.
• 8:07
  I'm so edgy.
• 8:08
  Like those, those lame libtards at the times of London thought they couldn't handle this level of, yeah, you, you want the wall humor.
• 8:16
  You want a one star or a five star.
• 8:18
  And what also people have now started doing is there's a, now the advertising strategy is, Hey, look how no one came to my show.
• 8:24
  And then they put up a picture of them looking glum in an empty room and they go, I spent all this money.
• 8:29
  I came to Edinburgh and no one came, but I'm following my dream.
• 8:32
  And then that goes viral.
• 8:33
  That can't work.
• 8:34
  It's worked for multiple people.
• 8:35
  Really?
• 8:36
  Yeah.
• 8:36
  Who wants to go to a show out of pity?
• 8:39
  It sells tickets.
• 8:40
  Someone.
• 8:40
  I'll take a pity.
• 8:41
  Enough.
• 8:41
  Yeah, yeah.
• 8:42
  Okay.
• 8:43
  I loved also the exchange that you posted here with...
• 8:47
  a lady on Instagram.
• 8:50
  It just goes to show what a great place Instagram is for conversations because she says to you, you're out there calling people anti-Semitism.
• 8:59
  It's ridiculous that in 2026, that's what you take your time on.
• 9:02
  Defending the undefendable only makes you come across as inhumane, BTW.
• 9:08
  to which you say, hey, thanks for the message.
• 9:10
  Hope you're also having a great day.
• 9:12
  What do you mean by people like me, by the way?
• 9:14
  Australians?
• 9:15
  And she says, people who take a concept and distort it to fight for the wrong cause, not Australians.
• 9:21
  And you say, what cause?
• 9:23
  And she says, defending the Jews.
• 9:27
  Like that's the point.
• 9:28
  And you say, oh, should I stop doing that?
• 9:30
  And she says, when it's obviously not, maybe you should consider facts.
• 9:34
  And you say, sorry, we'll stop ASAP.
• 9:36
  Hate them now.
• 9:37
  Going to be an awkward discussion with my wife.
• 9:40
  And she says, I mean, it's not a joke.
• 9:44
  People are suffering and they have been.
• 9:45
  It's not a joke.
• 9:46
  And you say, absolutely not.
• 9:48
  It's very important to hate Jews.
• 9:50
  Some great countries are founded on it.
• 9:52
  And she says, see, hate Jews?
• 9:55
  Yeah.
• 9:55
  And you say, I really appreciate you setting me on the right course.
• 9:59
  And she says, I actually strongly believe Hitler knew what they were like, even if your wife is a descendant.
• 10:05
  And you say, oh, now we're getting to the brass tacks.
• 10:07
  And she says, look at earth now.
• 10:10
  And you say, so you do hate Jews.
• 10:11
  That makes more sense.
• 10:12
  Are you in Edinburgh?
• 10:13
  Come and see my show.
• 10:14
  You'll hate it.
• 10:15
  And she says, I speak four languages.
• 10:17
  Fuck off.
• 10:18
  And you say, say it in the other four.
• 10:21
  Um, my biggest gripe with that is I should have said, say it in the other three.
• 10:26
  You're a stickler for, yes, for logical pedantry.
• 10:30
  The craziest part of that is I actually shortened that exchange just for the sake of brevity.
• 10:38
  That was like a 25-minute discussion back and forth.
• 10:41
  What happened was, which I'm sure you've seen a lot of, there are these content creators who talk all about how you can't talk about
• 10:50
  the jews anymore yeah which is why i'm not allowed to talk about it in front of my audience of millions of people so there was this person in america who i think he's american his whole shtick is he takes a lemon off of a tree peels the lemon and then talks about politics so every video begins with him taking a lemon off a tree it's i mean it's like i was talking about in edinburgh like everyone's now competing evolutionary you gotta have something you gotta have your thing yeah and he says uh
• 11:15
  something about the Israelis have detained an Australian activist who's been assaulted on a flotilla, and you haven't even heard about it because they control the media.
• 11:26
  And so I just said, well, if they control the media, how did you hear about this?
• 11:31
  And I've read The Guardian, The New York Times.
• 11:33
  That story was in those papers.
• 11:34
  So, like, who's they?
• 11:36
  Who are you talking about?
• 11:37
  And then that lady messaged me from there.
• 11:38
  Oh, I see.
• 11:39
  Yes.
• 11:40
  I got a lot of shit for that comment.
• 11:41
  Yeah.
• 11:42
  Right.
• 11:42
  I mean...
• 11:45
  It's also, that is a story that we have heard about.
• 11:48
  What do you mean we haven't heard about it?
• 11:50
  Who has not heard about the alleged Israeli abuses of detainees from the flotillas?
• 11:55
  And what is the media now?
• 11:57
  Because they'll say, oh, the traditional media.
• 11:59
  And you go, you're on a platform with like a third of the world's population on it.
• 12:04
  You are sharing this content to millions of people.
• 12:06
  At what point is this not legacy media?
• 12:09
  Well, I mean, they would have a right to say, like, the only reason why we're able to say this is because, like, we're fearless truth speakers who are not, you know, constrained by.
• 12:19
  On the app owned by a Jewish guy created by a company that also is full of Jewish people.
• 12:25
  Well, see, they do control everything.
• 12:27
  You're admitting it.
• 12:28
  Well, yeah, there you go.
• 12:29
  I've been trapped again.
• 12:30
  Also, even if, like, I think that it would... Maybe this is a little bit, you know, playing with fire, but maybe we should be more able to talk about why Jews are successful in media and entertainment and finance.
• 12:43
  You know, like... My father-in-law would love to have this discussion.
• 12:45
  I'm sure he would.
• 12:47
  Like, there's a...
• 12:49
  I don't think we do ourselves any favours by being, like...
• 12:52
  No, no, no, no, no.
• 12:53
  There's nothing to see here.
• 12:55
  You know what I mean?
• 12:55
  Because they can just roll out a list of like, look at all of the people who are Jewish who are in senior positions of power in Hollywood and the media.
• 13:05
  Don't you think that's a little bit curious?
• 13:06
  And if we say...
• 13:08
  Stop asking questions.
• 13:09
  That seems fishy.
• 13:10
  But if we say... Gefilter fishy.
• 13:14
  I hope not gefilter fishy.
• 13:15
  That's slimy, malodorous junk.
• 13:18
  If we say, like, yeah, okay, well, let's look at that.
• 13:22
  Like, Jews care a lot about education.
• 13:25
  They've been traditionally, you know, marginalized.
• 13:28
  So they have entered into careers that traditionally weren't professions because they were excluded from getting the licensing to become, you know...
• 13:37
  what my father-in-law would say.
• 13:39
  So I married a Jewish woman.
• 13:40
  I didn't grow up Jewish at all.
• 13:42
  So this is an identity I found out about much later in my life, then happened to marry a Jewish woman, hit my father-in-law.
• 13:48
  But you are still genetically a filthy yid.
• 13:51
  Yes, and that's how I phrase it.
• 13:53
  Great.
• 13:53
  Yeah, that's actually on the poster.
• 13:55
  Filthy yid.
• 13:55
  No, I just saw the poster.
• 13:57
  You're trying to hide it.
• 13:58
  So my father-in-law would say, you know, Jews, we had to move around the planet all the time.
• 14:03
  So the only things we could take with us were our knowledge and our abilities.
• 14:07
  That's a very bad impression of him.
• 14:09
  But it's perfect to me because I've never heard him speak.
• 14:12
  So he would say that a big part of Jewish people controlling, not controlling the media, but being in positions in which knowledge is the value that you're bringing is because we kept getting kicked out of places.
• 14:25
  Yes.
• 14:26
  And we're also just, we're a Talmudic people.
• 14:29
  We like poring over things and arguing about things and wrestling with ideas.
• 14:33
  Some people just are like that.
• 14:34
  I tried a joke once.
• 14:35
  It didn't really work because I don't think enough people knew the context.
• 14:38
  Or maybe they were just uncomfortable with me.
• 14:40
  People get really uncomfortable when you talk about Jews.
• 14:43
  Except for Jews.
• 14:44
  Jews love talking about Jews.
• 14:45
  Especially in live, yeah.
• 14:46
  In a live environment, it can get weird.
• 14:48
  But I was saying that, like, you know, what are the stereotypes about Jews that people say?
• 14:51
  They control the media.
• 14:53
  They control the weather.
• 14:54
  And I'm like, this is all Moses' fault.
• 14:55
  He parted the Red Sea and then turned up with tablets and he was like, read these.
• 14:59
  Right.
• 15:00
  He invented the media and controlled the weather.
• 15:02
  Yes.
• 15:03
  But you need to get into finance.
• 15:05
  Yeah.
• 15:05
  You need the finance component in that joke.
• 15:08
  I think what I would say about the entertainment part of it, which I think goes back to why I do it and possibly why you do it, I don't know, maybe you have a stronger sense of self than me, but I just want people to like me.
• 15:19
  Right.
• 15:20
  So if you're a part of a people that people keep talking shit about, you want to be like, no, we're actually all right.
• 15:25
  Let me, here, let me dance on the stage in front of you to make-
• 15:28
  That might be a David Rose thing rather than a Jew thing per se because that would only be an explanation if Jews were always entertaining non-Jews.
• 15:39
  But even in the shtetls in Poland, they were supposedly a very entertainery, theatrical, humorous people amongst themselves, even when they were insular.
• 15:52
  And you don't see that among the Amish.
• 15:54
  So there is something about that particular culture
• 15:59
  that prizes argumentation, humour, satire.
• 16:03
  Yeah, I think there's, I mean, that's possibly true.
• 16:05
  I mean, maybe we don't see it with the Amish because there's no...
• 16:08
  Yes, exactly.
• 16:09
  There's no cameras.
• 16:09
  Video cameras or phones.
• 16:11
  It's a real riot in Amish country, if only you can actually see it.
• 16:15
  I've met a few Amish people because my wife's from New Jersey and there's like an Amish market that you can go to.
• 16:22
  They seem pretty chill.
• 16:23
  They're definitely chill.
• 16:24
  I mean, nobody's worried about the Amish taking the world over by sword.
• 16:29
  No.
• 16:30
  Yeah, there's not that many conspiracies about the Amish.
• 16:33
  Yeah.
• 16:34
  Speaking of people taking the world over by sword, you did this show in Bondi shortly after, I mean, months after the terrorist attack.
• 16:43
  And this was a show about...
• 16:44
  So you've got your stand-up, and then you've got your one-hour show, which is about your great-grandpappy.
• 16:51
  I should give context.
• 16:52
  So...
• 16:53
  Basically, I started doing comedy when I was 18.
• 16:55
  And then my grandmother, who's passed away now, but she took me out to lunch and said, you shouldn't do comedy because you had a great grandfather that did comedy and it ruined his life.
• 17:07
  And I said, who the hell are you talking about?
• 17:09
  And she said, Julian Rose.
• 17:11
  Your great grandfather was a comedian.
• 17:13
  My father's called Julian Rose as well.
• 17:15
  And his father's called Julian Rose.
• 17:16
  So I'm the...
• 17:17
  First non-Julian in the family in three generations.
• 17:20
  Okay.
• 17:20
  And then I did some- Were these Americans, by the way?
• 17:23
  Yeah.
• 17:23
  So they were born in- Julian was born, my great-grandfather Julian.
• 17:27
  Which Julian?
• 17:28
  Exactly.
• 17:28
  This is so confusing.
• 17:29
  Yeah.
• 17:29
  There was Julian- Julian the Elder.
• 17:31
  Julian the Elder Elder.
• 17:32
  Okay.
• 17:32
  Great-grandfather.
• 17:34
  He was born in Philadelphia in 1868.
• 17:37
  Which is crazy that my great-grandfather was born in 1868.
• 17:40
  Like most people my age, their great-grandfather was maybe born in like... Yeah, 1900.
• 17:45
  Yeah.
• 17:45
  So he had my grandfather late and then my grandfather had my father late and then my father.
• 17:50
  Right.
• 17:50
  So, you know, it's all stretched out.
• 17:52
  And he was a German-speaking Austro-Hungarian immigrant.
• 17:58
  And he used to do impressions of his uncle, this like Russian uncle, around the dinner table.
• 18:03
  His brother was an actor and his brother starts doing Bordeville.
• 18:07
  and brings Julian along with him as his opening act, doing this impression of their uncle.
• 18:12
  And suddenly Julian becomes the biggest star in the United States of this.
• 18:15
  It was called Hebrew comedy at the time.
• 18:17
  Right.
• 18:18
  And he became really, really famous.
• 18:19
  In like the 1880s or the 1890s.
• 18:22
  I brought this along.
• 18:22
  So part of the reason I was in England is because he ended up moving there.
• 18:26
  Okay.
• 18:26
  And he had kids there.
• 18:28
  And one of the kids stayed in England.
• 18:30
  And then my grandfather, Julian,
• 18:32
  The only reason I asked if he was American is because naming your child the same name as you, it strikes me as much more common in America than it is here.
• 18:40
  Here it would be regarded as a bit weird.
• 18:42
  Also, from what I understand, not very kosher.
• 18:46
  Is that right?
• 18:47
  Apparently you're not meant to name your children after a living relative.
• 18:50
  Well, good.
• 18:50
  In Judaism?
• 18:51
  I don't know.
• 18:52
  I mean, I think that's probably not a religious thing just as much as good old-fashioned Jewish common sense.
• 18:57
  Yeah.
• 18:58
  Like it's going to be complicated if there are three Julians in the household.
• 19:01
  My father still talks to Telstra as his father when they send letters because he just couldn't be bothered changing the account.
• 19:09
  This is the telecommunications company.
• 19:11
  Yeah, so Telstra will send them a bill and Dad will call and they'll say, what's your name?
• 19:14
  And he goes, Julian Rose.
• 19:15
  He must be 130 by now.
• 19:17
  Yeah, right, and they don't care.
• 19:19
  Yes, they don't bother cross-referencing.
• 19:21
  What have you brought?
• 19:22
  So when I went to England, my great...
• 19:26
  Aunt Dorothy stayed in England and my grandfather Julian moved to Australia.
• 19:31
  Okay.
• 19:32
  And Dorothy had a daughter and I met her.
• 19:35
  No one's seen her since the 70s in my family.
• 19:37
  Turns out she had a whole bunch of family records and I thought you would enjoy this.
• 19:41
  Okay.
• 19:41
  This is the original script of my great-grandfather Julian Rose's routine, Levinsky at the Wedding.
• 19:47
  Oh, my goodness.
• 19:48
  And it's hand-annotated too.
• 19:49
  A hand-annotated, an old piece of parchment.
• 19:52
  I feel like this is, you know, like I'm holding Dumbledore's original Gryffindor screed or something.
• 20:00
  The day behind yesterday, I was out in the street.
• 20:03
  I met a good friend of mine by the name of Levinsky.
• 20:06
  I said to him, what's the matter with you, Abraham?
• 20:07
  You look so bad in the face.
• 20:09
  He said, I got trouble with my wife.
• 20:12
  My wife, she run away from me.
• 20:13
  I said, you call that trouble?
• 20:14
  I wish it would happen to me.
• 20:16
  Yeah, it's like old schtick vaudeville.
• 20:19
  I love it so vaudeville.
• 20:20
  As well.
• 20:21
  So he would do it in this.
• 20:23
  The other day I'm walking down the street, I see the men need this exaggerated Eastern European accent.
• 20:28
  Right.
• 20:29
  And so he toured all through the United States with this act, ended up in the UK, and he did this as the script, I believe, for the Royal Command performance for the King and Queen of England.
• 20:38
  You get out.
• 20:38
  Yeah, from 1930.
• 20:39
  They had a vaudeville Jew at the Royal Command performance in 1930?
• 20:45
  And apparently they did not understand a word of it.
• 20:47
  I'll bet.
• 20:48
  To make matters worse, he would wear a fake nose.
• 20:50
  He would literally...
• 20:52
  He brought clay with him and he would make a fake nose before the stride bald cap and he talked about money and stuff.
• 20:58
  Too soon.
• 20:58
  Too soon.
• 20:59
  I mean, this was before the Holocaust, so I suppose you're allowed.
• 21:01
  This is exactly soon enough.
• 21:03
  Yeah.
• 21:03
  In some ways.
• 21:04
  Maybe the Holocaust was because of this, because of your great-grandfather caricaturing Jews in this crude world.
• 21:11
  The argument he made, because I found this, because he was very, very famous as newspaper articles where he's being interviewed.
• 21:17
  And one of the things he said was that when he was a young man, the Jewish people were in the rag trade.
• 21:23
  They were poor people who'd come from Europe.
• 21:24
  Yeah.
• 21:25
  So in America, at least, they looked at Jews as filthy, lower class people.
• 21:29
  He made a conscious choice to portray a character who had a lot of money.
• 21:33
  Right.
• 21:34
  And made shrewd business decisions and was successful because he wanted to counteract.
• 21:39
  that prevailing myth that Jews were these dirty people.
• 21:42
  So he created the stereotype of the money-hungry Jew.
• 21:44
  Yeah, and then what happens?
• 21:45
  You become successful and people go, look at these wealthy Jews.
• 21:48
  Yes.
• 21:49
  Which I guess the lesson is that the hatred is not tempered by the facts on the ground.
• 21:53
  No.
• 21:53
  I mean, you have to be either...
• 21:55
  If you're poor, then you're a snivelling succubus.
• 21:59
  And if you're rich, then you're a puppet master controlling everything.
• 22:03
  You have to be just right.
• 22:04
  Right.
• 22:05
  It's like you, they're also, thank you.
• 22:07
  That's fascinating.
• 22:07
  I know.
• 22:08
  It's so cool as well to see from a comics perspective, because you can see here where he's crossed out a line or he's like, oh, no, this would be funnier if I said this.
• 22:16
  What was this thing?
• 22:18
  During the ceremony, the rabbi spoke to the happy couple.
• 22:20
  He said, you are born, you get married.
• 22:22
  There is nothing left for you to do now but die.
• 22:24
  Then with a voice full of sediment, he said, the poet says, love is blind.
• 22:28
  If you take this Schlemel for a husband, you must be cockeyed.
• 22:31
  But he's crossed out there where you should like cockeyed and he's moved it around to make the punchline better, which is great.
• 22:38
  I look, I'm like, oh, this is what I do now.
• 22:40
  Yeah, but it's interesting.
• 22:42
  What does it tell you about like how comedy, how our sense of what will make us laugh has also evolved?
• 22:48
  Like comedy does not age well.
• 22:51
  Oh, my God.
• 22:52
  I mean, even just that style of humor.
• 22:54
  What was I saying the other day?
• 22:55
  It was like an old...
• 22:57
  It was kind of a vaudeville-style bit, like a Jackie Mason type, you know... Take my wife, please.
• 23:04
  Yeah, exactly.
• 23:05
  My wife said she wanted to go somewhere she'd never been for the holidays.
• 23:09
  I said, how about the kitchen?
• 23:10
  You know, it's like that kind of...
• 23:13
  To us now, that kind of a switch, that kind of a set-up and a payoff is just too obvious.
• 23:21
  It's like, yeah, I can sort of see where you're going with it halfway through.
• 23:24
  Well, it's funny.
• 23:25
  When you go to the Edinburgh Fringe, I mean, I do a lot of club comedy.
• 23:28
  So I like the comedy that ends in a punchline.
• 23:31
  And you do sometimes do gigs where people go, they roll their eyes, they're like, oh, a joke, really?
• 23:35
  Right, yeah.
• 23:36
  You want to do a joke right now?
• 23:37
  Yeah, yeah.
• 23:38
  Haven't you seen Hannah Gadsby?
• 23:39
  You're not supposed to do laughy.
• 23:41
  Yeah, I like that because when I read that stuff, I'm like, oh, this is the craft of joke writing.
• 23:47
  This is like watching a songwriter write out the notes on the cleft or whatever.
• 23:52
  I mean, that's generous of you.
• 23:54
  It is like songwriting, but it's like writing Mary Had a Little Lamb or Three Blind Mice instead of a symphony.
• 24:01
  You can still have jokes, but I feel like now the joke has to be...
• 24:05
  Instead of A to B, it has to be like A, then bypassing B, heading towards C, and then taking a left turn and landing on D. But, like, you can have the punchline and the laugh, but it has to be genuinely unexpected.
• 24:19
  It has to be conversational now.
• 24:21
  So, like, I used to have this old joke where I go, I met my wife on an app.
• 24:25
  It was, like, people are always embarrassed by the apps they meet on, like...
• 24:29
  Angry Birds or Dictionary.com or Ancestry.com.
• 24:32
  That was the original joke.
• 24:33
  Right.
• 24:34
  And now I just go, I met my wife online on Ancestry.com.
• 24:37
  And it works better because people, you haven't set up expectations.
• 24:42
  You've just led them down the garden path and then switched out.
• 24:45
  Yes, exactly.
• 24:46
  And you can't see that you're about to pull a rug out from under us because everybody has a shared understanding of what kind of app you would meet with.
• 24:54
  romantic partner on uh yeah the first one doesn't work because you're sort of building up to it too much like you have to yeah and you can it's like taking a big breath in and then waiting for the exhale whereas if you're just conversationally funny uh people yeah but that's still a punchline
• 25:12
  It is still a punchline, but it's not a punchline that people...
• 25:15
  It's just a punchline that you can't see coming.
• 25:17
  Yeah, exactly.
• 25:18
  People feel like you're just having a chat and then you've subverted it.
• 25:22
  Yes, that's right.
• 25:23
  Instead of, hey, look, I'm putting together all the pieces that you need to be aware of in order for the payoff to occur.
• 25:29
  Yeah, that's right.
• 25:31
  But, I mean, there is still definitely craft in finding those.
• 25:34
  I mean, you can call them punchlines or not, but...
• 25:37
  those punctuated moments where the shift is rapid enough that it actually elicits the shock of a laugh rather than merely sort of whimsical, funny stories.
• 25:49
  You know, because, like, it is a sort of novice comic thing to do, to go, I've got a, you know, this is what I used to do when I was starting out doing stand-up when I was, like, 16 years old.
• 25:58
  I've got a bunch of really funny ideas.
• 26:00
  Let me go up and talk about those funny ideas.
• 26:02
  Not enough.
• 26:03
  Not enough to get it...
• 26:04
  Funny idea does not equal laugh.
• 26:06
  Funny idea plus punchline equals laugh, but punchline has to be completely unexpected.
• 26:13
  The funny thing is as well is that the longer I do comedy, the more there are things that I would have brought to stage that now I'm like, maybe someone's not going to believe this or it actually, when it occurs in the moment, is too structured.
• 26:28
  It feels too much like a joke.
• 26:30
  So literally this morning I was at a cafe that a friend of mine owns...
• 26:34
  And there was a girl in there talking to him and she wasn't trying to be funny, literally said the sentence, I'm not dyslexic, I won a smelling bee.
• 26:44
  She literally said that.
• 26:45
  And I was like, that won't work if I say that on stage.
• 26:48
  Yes, right.
• 26:49
  Because no one will believe it.
• 26:50
  That's right.
• 26:50
  Even I don't believe it.
• 26:51
  Did it happen this morning?
• 26:52
  It didn't happen this morning.
• 26:53
  You don't even know when you flew in from the UK.
• 26:55
  I'm flying my arms tight.
• 26:56
  Yeah, that's right.
• 26:58
  So getting back to Great Grandpappy, he's the vaudeville comic.
• 27:03
  You realise that you're actually going in the footsteps of a family member, a long dead family member.
• 27:09
  And does that discourage you or inspire you?
• 27:11
  Both.
• 27:12
  Both.
• 27:13
  So, I mean, taking full circle back to the question about Bondi is that he was basically dressing up like Fagin.
• 27:20
  Yeah.
• 27:20
  And doing jokes about being miserly.
• 27:23
  By the way, just a little quick aside about Fagin.
• 27:26
  I showed the kids Oliver for the first time.
• 27:29
  Oh, the original?
• 27:29
  The original musical, yes.
• 27:31
  I mean, the movie from the 60s or whatever it is.
• 27:34
  With Alec Guinness?
• 27:36
  Yeah.
• 27:37
  Does Alec Guinness play?
• 27:38
  Alec Guinness played him in the 30s.
• 27:40
  No, no, no, not the 30s.
• 27:41
  In my show, I have a picture of him and it's the most obscene.
• 27:45
  It looks like something out of Hitler propaganda.
• 27:48
  Right.
• 27:48
  No, I did not know there was a 30s Oliver.
• 27:52
  The one that I grew up with was the one from the 60s with...
• 27:56
  I'm blanking on the name of who plays Fagin.
• 27:59
  But...
• 28:00
  The amazing thing is, like, I was completely clueless about the sort of Jewish stereotype that the British establishment was imposing into the role of Fagin.
• 28:09
  And then I watch it with my kids.
• 28:10
  And I loved the character of Fagin when I was a kid because he's kind of alluring and he's got a heart of gold, but he's also troubled and he's also mean and he's dangerous, but he loves you.
• 28:21
  And what I noticed was when Fagin's talking as a person, he has a normal English accent.
• 28:30
  He's just a normal Englishman when he's talking.
• 28:33
  And the moment he starts singing about how what a greedy, snivelling rat he is, he starts taking on an Eastern European Jew accent.
• 28:44
  There's a lot of like...
• 28:49
  And then he stops the song and he just starts talking in an English accent again.
• 28:52
  Normal person equals English.
• 28:55
  Like filthy, sniveling, greedy, shyster equals Jew.
• 29:00
  So I'll tell you two things about Fagin because it's actually in the show I talk about this.
• 29:03
  Do you know what he was originally called?
• 29:05
  No.
• 29:05
  Okay.
• 29:06
  The first version of Oliver comes out of the book.
• 29:09
  Comes out in 1838, 30 years before my great-grandfather was born.
• 29:14
  And Fagin is called... Julian.
• 29:16
  The Jew.
• 29:18
  Oh.
• 29:18
  250 times in the original.
• 29:20
  He's only called Fagin like 30 times.
• 29:22
  Okay.
• 29:23
  And then Dickens sells his house...
• 29:25
  to a Jewish woman.
• 29:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:27
  And in the process of selling it, she's like, what the fuck's up with this, the Jew thing?
• 29:32
  And he's like, what are you talking about?
• 29:34
  It's like, it was good enough for Shylock.
• 29:35
  Yeah.
• 29:35
  What's the problem?
• 29:36
  And she goes, you need to fix this.
• 29:38
  Right.
• 29:38
  And so he republishes it and takes the Jew, the phrase, the Jew, out of it.
• 29:44
  Right.
• 29:44
  He didn't do much else to hide the stereotype.
• 29:47
  No.
• 29:48
  But I'm glad that he stopped calling it the Jew.
• 29:50
  Yeah.
• 29:50
  It's like the way people use the word Zionist now, or like that, you know, the lady who was- He probably would have been called the Zionist.
• 29:56
  The Zionist.
• 29:56
  The Zionist.
• 29:57
  Yeah, exactly.
• 29:58
  He's like, I didn't use the J word, so clearly Fagan is kosher.
• 30:01
  Yeah.
• 30:02
  Okay, so yes, continue the thought.
• 30:04
  So Julian, when he moved to the UK, I think a big part of it was that Oliver Twist had been published there.
• 30:10
  Because there are three Julians, can we just call him the Jew?
• 30:12
  Yeah, that's called The Jew.
• 30:14
  So your great-grandfather, henceforth known as The Jew.
• 30:19
  Yeah.
• 30:20
  He moves to the UK and I think a big part of that.
• 30:22
  I mean, it's a long and tortured story.
• 30:24
  But a part of it is I think that he turns up in England with his fake nose talking about his money.
• 30:30
  And the English go, oh, it's a Jew.
• 30:32
  We know what that is because they've read Oliver Twist and they've got a preset template for what he is.
• 30:38
  Yes.
• 30:38
  I mean, it goes further than that.
• 30:39
  Probably not just because they read Oliver Twist.
• 30:40
  You can go back to Shylock and all that.
• 30:42
  Dickens, yeah, Dickens didn't make it up.
• 30:44
  No, he's building on a narrative that was already there, but I think his act in particular, the Eastern European-style act, it meshed with Oliver Twist in a way that, you know, it was kismet.
• 30:57
  So when you got up in Bondi just months after the attack, was that with or without a giant fake clay nose?
• 31:04
  And were you...
• 31:07
  well i'll tell you what's worse the money i'll tell you what's worse i got up with my arm in a cast oh yes you emailed me that you were injured i fell off a lime bike and broke my arm fairly badly it's still a lime bike is one of these uh stupid rental bikes that like the city bike in new york but here instead of having actual depots where you deposit the bike at the end of a ride you just throw it in the ocean dump it in a canal yeah yeah pretty much and it's amazing the
• 31:37
  lack of sympathy people have had for me once I tell them how it happened.
• 31:41
  They go, oh, you broke your arm?
• 31:42
  How'd that happen?
• 31:43
  Line bike.
• 31:43
  Oh, you're an idiot.
• 31:44
  No one cares immediately.
• 31:45
  You're the problem.
• 31:47
  So this is a few months after the terrorist attack.
• 31:50
  I'm a Jew, erstwhile Jew, doing a show about my Jewish great-grandfather, and I'm standing where there's been a terrorist attack wearing a...
• 31:59
  I mean, look, the optics of it were like...
• 32:02
  I was walking around Bondi in this thing, and I felt like people were going...
• 32:07
  Was he a victim?
• 32:08
  Yeah.
• 32:09
  It was very bizarre.
• 32:12
  It was actually beautiful, the shows.
• 32:15
  There's a bit at the end of the show where I had to hastily rewrite the ending of the show because of...
• 32:20
  Bondi, because the whole show is really about me wrestling with, am I Jewish?
• 32:24
  Am I not Jewish?
• 32:25
  I wasn't raised with it.
• 32:27
  I have a foreskin that I found.
• 32:29
  It's one of the jokes.
• 32:33
  I was just about to beat you to that joke.
• 32:35
  It's reminiscent of a Stephen King has a gag, not known for his humor.
• 32:40
  Stephen King?
• 32:41
  Yes, the reauthor, the horror author.
• 32:43
  who says that when people ask him where he gets his ideas from, he says that he just has the brain of a small boy and he keeps it in a jar by his bed.
• 32:54
  Yes, so you have a foreskin that you keep in a jar.
• 32:58
  Right.
• 32:58
  Well, my favorite joke in the show, which I'm going to spoil, is I have a bit where I'm basically forced to talk about Israel because it's just a thing that you have to talk about now if you're talking about being Jewish.
• 33:11
  And I go, I don't have a strong opinion on it.
• 33:14
  I did a DNA test.
• 33:15
  I'm 15% Jewish.
• 33:17
  I asked for a birthright flight.
• 33:18
  They sent me to Adelaide.
• 33:21
  15% of the way to Israel.
• 33:23
  Exactly.
• 33:25
  So I did that show at the Bondi Pavilion a few months after the shooting, and I was very nervous about it.
• 33:32
  And in fact, I actually posted- Oh, at the Pavilion.
• 33:34
  So this is literally on the beat.
• 33:37
  Could not be.
• 33:38
  At the beat.
• 33:38
  You can see the site of the attack from where you were.
• 33:41
  Yeah, could not be close, really.
• 33:42
  Yeah, right.
• 33:43
  And I was nervous about it.
• 33:44
  I actually posted, there's a few Jewish groups on Facebook for the different cities.
• 33:49
  And I posted in one for Sydney and said, look, I'm doing this show.
• 33:53
  I would love people to come down.
• 33:54
  I would appreciate if you had any thoughts about the show.
• 33:57
  There was one lady who was very insistent that I shouldn't do the show there.
• 34:01
  personally because she had followed me on instagram and she thought that my material was anti-semitic despite the fact i talk about being jewish and having jewish heritage at least but she was like you don't support israel so you shouldn't do the show here don't worry i've heard this shtick uh been the target of it enough myself yes yeah you're a self-hating jew
• 34:23
  Ended up doing the show there.
• 34:24
  Yeah.
• 34:25
  And I had to rewrite the end of the show to reference what had happened.
• 34:29
  And I gave the crowd...
• 34:30
  I don't normally...
• 34:31
  I'm not really a big fan of trigger warnings, but I was aware that this is a very traumatic thing that has just happened.
• 34:36
  Yeah.
• 34:37
  So I said, look, the last...
• 34:38
  20 minutes of this show is going to be talking about this event.
• 34:41
  If this is too close to home for you right now, if you don't feel capable of laughing, I'm not making jokes about it, but there are, there's a story I want to share.
• 34:49
  Cause I went down there and I met a rabbi down at the, at the beach and he ended up doing a bar mitzvah on the beach with me.
• 34:55
  Um, like two days after it happened.
• 34:57
  What do you mean with you?
• 34:59
  Well, I mean, so I go down there and there's a rabbi there and he goes, what's your name?
• 35:03
  And I go, David Rose.
• 35:04
  And he goes, are you Jewish?
• 35:05
  And I'm like, a little bit.
• 35:07
  And he goes, have you had a bar mitzvah?
• 35:08
  And I go, no.
• 35:09
  And he goes, let's do it now.
• 35:11
  So he puts the tefillin in my arm and just says the stuff in Hebrew.
• 35:15
  And then he goes, you know.
• 35:17
  muzzle tov you're in now you're bar mitzvah you're part of the tribe wow and uh so the story is about that moment and when that happened did you feel your skin tingle like i levitated my stock portfolio yeah you were like i suddenly have a hunger for the blood of arab babies and also money it was pretty remarkable wow i can't wait for this to get clipped up yeah this would be great
• 35:39
  So you get bar mitzvahed on the spot ad hoc and then some months later, so this was just after Bondi that you got bar mitzvahed and then you went on and did the show?
• 35:48
  This was two days after.
• 35:49
  I went down there two days after.
• 35:50
  I mean, I went down there.
• 35:51
  I'm not certain that this is the case, but I'm fairly sure because I was on a cruise ship when it happened.
• 35:58
  docked in Sydney.
• 35:59
  Have you ever not been on a cruise ship?
• 36:01
  Is this the first day in your life?
• 36:04
  One day I hope to not be on a cruise ship.
• 36:05
  Okay.
• 36:06
  And I go down there and it was so soon afterwards.
• 36:08
  And now I think this is correct, but I couldn't be positive.
• 36:13
  I saw, I was down actually just down the road where my friend's cafe is.
• 36:17
  And there was red liquid on the street that I thought looks like blood.
• 36:23
  I'm not sure.
• 36:23
  I mean, it could have just been cordial or something like that.
• 36:26
  But it was two days afterwards.
• 36:28
  A nice block.
• 36:30
  It was pretty harrowing when I went down there.
• 36:32
  Yeah.
• 36:32
  And then had this sort of beautiful...
• 36:34
  I'm not religious.
• 36:34
  Yeah.
• 36:36
  But, you know, it seemed to mean a lot to this guy.
• 36:37
  Anyway, I talked all about that.
• 36:39
  And I just said, look, if it's too soon to hear laughter in that context, you're welcome to leave now.
• 36:46
  You haven't missed anything.
• 36:47
  And one lady left and she waited until after the show.
• 36:50
  And I was expecting her to scream at me about it.
• 36:53
  And she actually came up and she said, thank you.
• 36:55
  You know, like I was there.
• 36:57
  I really enjoyed the show.
• 36:58
  I didn't feel ready to laugh at it.
• 37:00
  I really appreciate you saying that you were going to talk about it.
• 37:02
  So you didn't catch me off guard.
• 37:04
  and, you know, love the show, whatever.
• 37:06
  And then a group of other people came up who had been in the show and they said, hey, we wish you hadn't done that because we were there and we got really anxious about what you were going to say.
• 37:16
  And it turns out you just shared a nice story.
• 37:17
  Right.
• 37:18
  So you made us way too tense.
• 37:20
  Well, this is the problem with trigger warnings, isn't it?
• 37:22
  It's like, yeah.
• 37:23
  I mean, if it doesn't then pay off as badly as you sort of, as the trigger warning implied that it would...
• 37:29
  then everyone is a little...
• 37:31
  It's like you've set yourself up for something and made a promise that you don't then deliver on.
• 37:35
  It's like, I was really expecting some serious, heart-wrenching stuff here, and all you did was allude to it.
• 37:40
  I remember when I did my law degree, they gave a trigger warning before criminal law.
• 37:47
  They said, hey, we're going to be talking about rape and sexual assault.
• 37:50
  If there's anyone that's triggered by this, you can... And I was like, well, I think you kind of have to know about that.
• 37:55
  You sort of do have to know about that.
• 37:56
  For criminal law.
• 37:57
  Yeah, what happens if you just leave every class and then you want to go on to become a defense lawyer?
• 38:02
  I guess you don't.
• 38:03
  You don't.
• 38:03
  But I also wondered, like, to me, the trigger warning thing has always been confusing.
• 38:07
  Because if you go, hey, trigger warning, I'm going to talk about murder.
• 38:10
  If you know someone who's been murdered, then when someone says the word murder, don't you then immediately, isn't the trigger warning itself?
• 38:18
  A trigger.
• 38:18
  A trigger.
• 38:20
  Yes, it could be.
• 38:21
  Yeah.
• 38:21
  But also it does, I mean, I do, this is a very, like, you know, self-indulgent first world problem, but I do get frustrated that it also teases what's about to come in the thing that I'm about to see, which may actually be a surprise.
• 38:35
  I was just watching a show.
• 38:37
  It was the Apple TV remake of Cape Fear.
• 38:41
  I don't know if you've seen this.
• 38:42
  It's actually really good.
• 38:43
  Javier Bardem plays the Robert De Niro character.
• 38:48
  And, um...
• 38:49
  One of the episodes, and it's a really high stakes, this is like the penultimate episode of the show, and at the beginning it says, this episode contains depictions of suicide.
• 39:00
  And I'm like, well, don't give me that.
• 39:01
  Yeah, well, now I know.
• 39:02
  Now I know that someone's going to...
• 39:05
  Now that's ruined for me.
• 39:07
  Have you been watching Apple TV where someone smokes and Apple now puts up a warning that says smoking causes cancer?
• 39:13
  Yes.
• 39:14
  It just pulls you straight out of the show because now you're like, well, that's probably not a real cigarette, though.
• 39:17
  It's a prop cigarette.
• 39:18
  Exactly.
• 39:18
  It's not smoking a real cigarette.
• 39:19
  Also, I mean, have you seen, like, you watch the...
• 39:21
  I showed the kids...
• 39:25
  uh pinocchio the original disney pinocchio and disney now puts up a thing at the beginning of the movie that says uh this this film contains outdated depictions of race with a big long nose tobacco no they don't mention the jews actually but like you know the depictions were wrong then and they are wrong they are still wrong today or something like that
• 39:49
  Yeah.
• 39:49
  And I mean, look, that's actually to go back to my great grandfather, something I thought about because I have a couple of photos of him from like wearing his stage makeup and stuff like that.
• 40:00
  I was going, do I warn people that this is going to look pretty intense when I, but now I'm like, you know, people are adults.
• 40:07
  They're here to see a show.
• 40:08
  They already know the context of the show, hopefully.
• 40:10
  Yeah.
• 40:10
  So it would be stupid to... Like, it was the soft bigotry of low expectations that I think these people are so incapable of experiencing a complex emotion that I have to soften it before I show it to them.
• 40:23
  Yeah.
• 40:24
  No, I mean, I think there's so much of that at the moment.
• 40:26
  I mean, it's like, you know, using offensive language as well.
• 40:29
  It's like, can you not understand that when I'm saying...
• 40:33
  I mean, it reminds me of the whole debate that we had about the N-word 10 years ago.
• 40:37
  Like, if you say the sentence...
• 40:40
  the N word is a terrible word and should never be used.
• 40:44
  It's the worst word in the world, so don't use it against anybody.
• 40:48
  If you said the word in that sentence, are you assuming that black people are too dumb to understand that you're not using it in the bad way, but you're just mentioning it?
• 41:01
  Is it the same level of offendedness to just hear the mouth sounds like you're saying Voldemort and you can't say it?
• 41:09
  Well, what I'm sure you've encountered, because I've encountered it, and it's a funny thing about Jewish identity in particular.
• 41:16
  So my wife grew up Jewish, went to Hebrew school.
• 41:18
  She grew up in this Jewish bubble where she really never experienced anti-Semitism.
• 41:23
  I never experienced Jewish culture.
• 41:26
  The only part of Judaism that I've really experienced is the anti-Semitism.
• 41:31
  So it's like we're two pieces of a puzzle.
• 41:33
  How does that show up, the anti-Semitism?
• 41:35
  What do you mean by that?
• 41:37
  Well, to give one example and talking about words having the power of almost incantations, last year I was doing a spot at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and I have this joke where I talk about Israel, and we have one Jewish country that everyone's mad at, and I go, here's my solution for world peace.
• 41:55
  We get a second Jewish country going, so we have another option.
• 41:58
  We buy New Zealand, we rename it Jew Zealand.
• 42:02
  which is the set up.
• 42:02
  And then I go, because they won't have a good slogan.
• 42:04
  They won't have from the river to the sea.
• 42:06
  They'll have from the Pacific to the Pacific.
• 42:08
  We should be more specific.
• 42:09
  It's a series of puns, essentially.
• 42:12
  But I got a very, very angry email.
• 42:14
  And in fact, this person came up in person before she sent the angry email to the venue because I'd said the phrase from the river to the sea.
• 42:21
  And she said, you know, you're an anti-Semite because you said from the river to the sea.
• 42:26
  I'm talking about the phrase.
• 42:28
  I'm lampooning it.
• 42:29
  Yes.
• 42:30
  In a way.
• 42:30
  I mean, if you want to take it that way, you can say I'm taking the power out of it because I'm showing it silly.
• 42:35
  Or if you want to go the other way, you can say it.
• 42:37
  I mean, that joke is almost like a Rorschach test for your political ideology.
• 42:40
  Well, I mean, yes.
• 42:41
  There's like linguists are not idiots.
• 42:44
  They understand the difference between mentioning a word or a phrase and using the word or a phrase.
• 42:49
  But things have gotten so heated now that for a lot of people, it's like...
• 42:54
  I hear the phrase and it's like the lizard brain is on, the prefrontal cortex has gone off and I'm in fight or flight mode.
• 43:00
  But I mean, what you should say to that woman is, do you think that it's okay to say from the river to the sea in the sentence, the phrase from the river to the sea is a terrible anti-Semitic thing to say?
• 43:12
  Yeah, I mean, we didn't get that far.
• 43:14
  She just came up to me and she said, you're disgusting.
• 43:16
  Yeah, and she dropped a smoke bomb and then disappeared.
• 43:18
  So I put my pants back on.
• 43:21
  So now, speaking of your putting your pants back on and all the foreskins you like to keep around the house, why didn't Julian the Jew III raise you as a Jewish child with proper medical attention to your nether regions, proper bar mitzvahs and so on?
• 43:38
  What happened to dilute and betray Jesus?
• 43:41
  My father was told growing up that if the Nazis came back, they would kill him.
• 43:45
  Right.
• 43:45
  Which, I mean, I always thought...
• 43:46
  It's technically true.
• 43:47
  You're in Melbourne.
• 43:48
  Yeah.
• 43:49
  Like...
• 43:49
  But I think they mean if the Nazis came back in Melbourne, right?
• 43:52
  Yeah, I don't know.
• 43:53
  Yeah.
• 43:53
  So they told my father... My grandparents told my father, you're not Jewish, and if anyone ever says you are, you deny it.
• 44:01
  Right.
• 44:02
  So when my great-grandfather died, he died in 35, right before the Second World War.
• 44:08
  My grandfather...
• 44:09
  Good time for a Jew to die.
• 44:11
  Good time to go.
• 44:12
  I always think about that.
• 44:13
  It's like there was probably at least one guy who worked in the World Trade Center who just coincidentally had a heart attack the day before.
• 44:19
  Yeah.
• 44:20
  September 11th.
• 44:21
  Yeah.
• 44:21
  September 10th, everyone was like, man, how tragic.
• 44:23
  Yep.
• 44:24
  He just skipped it by a day.
• 44:25
  Good time to go.
• 44:26
  Yeah.
• 44:27
  So after the Second World War, my grandfather marries a shiksa.
• 44:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 44:33
  A non-Jew.
• 44:34
  A non-Jew.
• 44:35
  And they raised my father Catholic.
• 44:36
  So that's the end of the Jewish story and that side of the family.
• 44:40
  Right.
• 44:40
  So they were as genocidal as Hitler was, really.
• 44:43
  I mean, they put an end to the Jewish line.
• 44:45
  Yeah.
• 44:46
  In a small way.
• 44:47
  In a conscious way.
• 44:48
  Yeah.
• 44:48
  They decided to assimilate.
• 44:49
  My mother, it turns out, is also Jewish.
• 44:52
  Oh.
• 44:52
  Which we did not know until... Did she know?
• 44:55
  Yeah.
• 44:56
  Yeah, so apparently her great-great-grandmother is a woman called Sarah Abrahams, who was- Pretty dewy.
• 45:02
  Whose father was Abraham Abrahams.
• 45:04
  Right.
• 45:05
  She's like, were there two names available?
• 45:07
  Again, stop with all the same names, people.
• 45:10
  Like Abraham Abrahams, we're lucky he didn't call his son Abraham.
• 45:14
  Yeah, Abraham, Abraham.
• 45:15
  Abraham, Abraham.
• 45:16
  So they came over with the first wave of European settler colonialists.
• 45:21
  Right.
• 45:22
  To Australia or to Israel?
• 45:24
  To Australia.
• 45:24
  But there were no Jews around.
• 45:25
  So Sarah Abraham is married to Catholics.
• 45:28
  So my mother's side of the family ends up Catholic.
• 45:30
  My father's side of the family ends up Catholic.
• 45:32
  Now I'm going...
• 45:33
  We're Jews.
• 45:34
  Yeah.
• 45:35
  And my father is really pissed off about it.
• 45:38
  Why?
• 45:38
  And he said, you've outed me.
• 45:39
  Yes.
• 45:39
  I didn't want anyone to know.
• 45:40
  Right.
• 45:41
  He goes, I'm not a Jew.
• 45:42
  And I'm going, do your DNA.
• 45:44
  You're probably more Jewish than I am if you want to go by percentages.
• 45:47
  And he goes, because apparently a friend of his said, did you know you're a Jew?
• 45:50
  I didn't know you were a Jew, but I heard your son talking about it.
• 45:53
  So you're a Jew.
• 45:53
  And dad, like to him, that's like the worst thing.
• 45:56
  Yeah.
• 45:56
  Insult in the world.
• 45:58
  It is a bit, you know, off, isn't it?
• 46:00
  The word Jew.
• 46:01
  I mean, there's just something like I usually talk about Jewish Australians or, you know, Jewish Americans because it sounds a bit softer than...
• 46:08
  When you say a Jew as well.
• 46:09
  He's a Jew.
• 46:10
  Yeah.
• 46:11
  Yeah.
• 46:12
  There's a scene in... Have you ever seen the... Is it Ed Norton in that movie where he plays a neo-Nazi who doesn't... American History X?
• 46:19
  No, there's another one.
• 46:20
  Wow.
• 46:21
  It's not Ed Norton.
• 46:22
  It's Ryan Gosling.
• 46:23
  I was going to say, if he's done it twice, that's a bit...
• 46:25
  These two movies get blurred in my brain.
• 46:27
  American History X is a great movie.
• 46:29
  The one I'm thinking of is a less great movie.
• 46:31
  Jess, can you Google whether or not there's a Ryan Gosling movie when he was young where he plays actually a neo-Nazi who is secretly Jewish, but he's self-hating.
• 46:41
  Talk about the self-hating Jew.
• 46:42
  Like Clayton Bixby kind of thing with Chappelle?
• 46:45
  Clayton Bixby?
• 46:45
  Chappelle has that character who's a blind black man who's a...
• 46:49
  I forgot what he's saying.
• 46:50
  who's a member of the Chappelle show.
• 46:53
  Yes, that's right.
• 46:53
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 46:56
  So he, no, this guy knows, but he hates himself for it.
• 47:01
  And I can't remember why I just started.
• 47:06
  Oh, that's right.
• 47:06
  There's a whole thing where he's ranting.
• 47:08
  He's talking about the word Jew to a bunch of people.
• 47:12
  And he's saying like, even just, even you, he's talking to Jews about it.
• 47:15
  Like you, even you know how like despicable,
• 47:20
  you are, even when you hear the word, like the Jew, a Jew.
• 47:24
  Like, don't tell me it doesn't do something in you as well when you hear that word.
• 47:29
  You understand innately how, like, depraved Jews are.
• 47:34
  There's a theory in comedy that hard consonants are also funnier than soft sounds.
• 47:39
  So, like, kike.
• 47:41
  kuh yeah kike is or fuck or like all these hard kuh sounds uh like they they pack more of a punch and jew i always feel like that it's a hard sounding yes yes christian has more of a flowy it's more it's a more christian word what do we do we find it jazz
• 48:00
  The Believer is the name of the movie.
• 48:03
  Worth, you know, six out of ten, says Zeps.
• 48:07
  Yeah.
• 48:07
  Six out of ten.
• 48:08
  It's worth looking at.
• 48:10
  So that's why you...
• 48:11
  So you've outed your father.
• 48:13
  I've effectively outed my father and myself.
• 48:15
  Yeah.
• 48:17
  And it's... Part of me is like...
• 48:20
  Really should have thought more before taking that genie out of the bottle.
• 48:23
  Because there are, I mean, my name's already David Rose.
• 48:26
  I'm already doing comedy.
• 48:27
  So like probably I was going to get shit for it anyway.
• 48:31
  Why?
• 48:32
  For being, what's wrong with David Rose?
• 48:33
  Well, it's just a very Jewish sounding name.
• 48:36
  Yeah.
• 48:37
  I mean, it's better than like David Jewenstein.
• 48:39
  Yeah.
• 48:40
  Yeah.
• 48:40
  You know, Rose is ambiguous.
• 48:41
  I had this joke a friend of mine talks about, he goes, um, I'm not filling out the census.
• 48:46
  I don't want the government to know I'm a Jew.
• 48:47
  This is a real conversation I had.
• 48:49
  Um, he said, I'm not filling the census out.
• 48:50
  I don't want, don't want the government to know I'm a Jew, a Jewish person.
• 48:53
  And I go, yeah, but your last name is Goldstein.
• 48:56
  You live in Bondi.
• 48:57
  They're going to put two and two together.
• 49:00
  Yeah.
• 49:00
  Yeah.
• 49:02
  But it's an interesting thing because there are definitely opportunities, some opportunities in comedy that were explicitly taken away because I talk about being Jewish.
• 49:13
  I mean, I got literally blacklisted from a gig because they thought I was a pro-Zionist.
• 49:18
  I never talk about Zionism.
• 49:20
  No, but I mean, you know what?
• 49:21
  It's code for.
• 49:22
  Yeah.
• 49:22
  But I was doing a joke at the time about left-wing people at rallies who only go to impress other left-wing people.
• 49:29
  This is coming from a left-wing person myself.
• 49:30
  Yeah, right.
• 49:31
  My joke was just about, you know, I'm just going to get laid, really.
• 49:34
  That's why I'm really there.
• 49:36
  And that was enough to be blacklisted from one gig.
• 49:38
  Yeah.
• 49:38
  And then just little things like you find yourself having to have fights you don't even want to have.
• 49:44
  Like, so after Bondi last year, I was doing my show at the Comedy Festival, and I asked them, hey, do you have any security?
• 49:51
  You know, because this is a Jewish show.
• 49:53
  And they said, yeah, we don't, we're not going to offer you any security.
• 49:56
  There's nothing we can do for you.
• 49:58
  We don't offer bespoke arrangements to...
• 50:00
  performers and you know like then you get all conspiratorial because you're like is that right or if this had been a different group that had been targeted would this be the same reaction like if it had been a mass shooting at Mardi Gras would they have had the same reaction or would they have yeah at gate which is what we call gay pride so yes and if there was and if there was a flamboyantly gay or if the you know heaven forbid the Christchurch massacre of Muslims had taken place and then there was a person a
• 50:29
  a woman who wears a headscarf who was doing a show about being Muslim and she'd asked for security.
• 50:34
  And you find yourself running counterfactuals in your head because that hasn't happened.
• 50:40
  So you don't have any proof.
• 50:42
  And it's interesting, like with the Royal Commission, I've seen criticism where people will say...
• 50:47
  The Royal Commission is the big government inquiry into anti-Semitism.
• 50:50
  You're doing your job very well.
• 50:52
  We have a global audience.
• 50:53
  Bringing context.
• 50:54
  Yes, with the inquiry into anti-Semitism that was launched after the Bondi attack.
• 50:58
  People who have submitted to that have said things like, I feel afraid when I go into the city and there's a protest.
• 51:03
  And then I've seen criticism of that that says, yeah, but nothing has actually happened.
• 51:08
  This is a Royal Commission into people having hurt feelings.
• 51:11
  Yeah.
• 51:12
  But it's like you can't run the counterfactual of like,
• 51:16
  Yeah, but would this still be a valid thing if something did happen?
• 51:21
  I think both things are true.
• 51:23
  I think the criticism of the Royal Commission is valid in the sense that any inquiry that is mostly interested in how people feel rather than things that have actually happened...
• 51:36
  is hostage to the most paranoid group of people, right?
• 51:41
  But also when there has been a literal mass shooting.
• 51:44
  Yes, but hang on, let me finish the second half of the conjunction, which is that for the past 10 or 15 years, we have been assured that the correct social justice thing to do
• 51:57
  is to not focus only on objective things that are happening, but on how things land and how they are felt and interpreted by certain communities.
• 52:08
  And, like, we've taken it as a given that the man in the workplace doesn't get to slap a woman on the...
• 52:14
  bum and call her toots and then say, oh, that actually wasn't sexist, don't worry about it.
• 52:20
  I wasn't meaning to be demeaning to women.
• 52:22
  The fact that she feels intimidated when she walks into that workplace is sufficient for us to say, that's a hostile work environment and he has to change his behavior.
• 52:32
  And similarly, using racial slurs or stereotypes or something like that, doesn't matter if we don't intend it to be demeaning.
• 52:41
  If a black person or an Asian person feels like they're in a racist environment, the social justice orthodoxy says the rest of us have to take that to the bank.
• 52:50
  It's only when Jewish people complain about feeling hard done by that everyone's like, why are we paying attention to stupid feelings instead of focusing very, very literally on the objective facts of the matter?
• 53:04
  Yeah, yeah.
• 53:05
  And to that point, when I messaged asking for a security, which, by the way, I don't really even think is a great setup for comedy.
• 53:14
  Hey, I'm going to go see a comedy night.
• 53:15
  There's some armed guards out the front.
• 53:17
  It's a bad vibe.
• 53:18
  Yeah.
• 53:19
  And an email I got back, which I thought was astounding.
• 53:22
  They put it in writing.
• 53:22
  They said, have you considered removing the Jewish elements of the show?
• 53:26
  Yeah.
• 53:26
  They literally said this so that people don't know.
• 53:29
  Right.
• 53:29
  And the part that really stumped me was they said, you know, the same way that queer artists have to do that.
• 53:36
  And I was going, what festival are you talking about?
• 53:38
  What?
• 53:39
  Because I don't know a single queer artist who does hide their identity.
• 53:43
  And I would be horrified if they had to.
• 53:45
  I would be marching on their behalf.
• 53:48
  If they had received an email saying, hey, you want to just put this gay shit to one side?
• 53:52
  Yeah.
• 53:53
  What do they even mean by that?
• 53:54
  That's ridiculous.
• 53:55
  There's so many gay comics who talk about being gay.
• 54:00
  Yeah.
• 54:00
  And I'm glad they are.
• 54:01
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 54:02
  And what I find troubling is that I've, and I've noticed it within myself, that you have an instinctive like, oh, well, fuck them because they're getting better treatment than...
• 54:12
  Me.
• 54:12
  Right, right.
• 54:13
  And so I've seen people then move further to the extremes, which has been very interesting for me because, again, I didn't grow up in the Jewish community.
• 54:22
  So I'm coming to it as an outsider.
• 54:25
  And I've had Jewish people come up to me, Australian Jewish people come up to me and say, for example, you shouldn't be making fun of Pauline Hanson because she's on our side.
• 54:34
  This is the populist.
• 54:36
  I'm just going to do my translation.
• 54:39
  I really need like, you know how you have like the sign language person standing next to you?
• 54:44
  I think for this show I should just get someone who, a gentleman who just stands behind both of us, who can just lean forward and interject.
• 54:52
  Maybe someone dressed like a butler with a top hat and a three-piece suit.
• 54:56
  Your due interpreter?
• 54:57
  Yeah, who's just a Jew interpreter.
• 54:58
  Well, just an Australia interpreter, really.
• 55:00
  You can just lean forward and go, for the benefit of international listeners, Pauline Hanson is the right-wing populist anti-immigrant.
• 55:09
  In my opinion, she doesn't deserve that level of care and attention.
• 55:14
  Okay.
• 55:14
  I would just say demagogue.
• 55:17
  We're not going to alienate.
• 55:18
  This is how we got Donald Trump, by calling everyone deplorables.
• 55:22
  They're great people, the One Nation voters.
• 55:25
  We find people on both sides.
• 55:26
  They are on both sides.
• 55:28
  But what I find contemptible is that people, because they view themselves as part of a group that is being subjected to mistreatment or not receiving the same treatment as other groups, that they then dislike or envy those other groups
• 55:42
  for receiving the adequate amount of social protection, which I think is a recipe for disaster.
• 55:49
  Yes.
• 55:49
  It also depends whether what is in dispute is the adequate amount of social protection or whether it's mollycoddling.
• 55:57
  Like, it's all difficult.
• 55:58
  We just have to agree on the same standards for everybody, right?
• 56:02
  Like, of course, gay comics or Muslim comics should have all of the same protection that a Jewish comic would want.
• 56:13
  At the same time, should it be the case that Muslim comics and other Muslim activists are entitled to have Islamophobia inserted as a concern into every expression of criticism of all forms of bigotry or prejudice...
• 56:38
  Because that's unworkable then, because that is also a sort of a left-wing thing, right?
• 56:42
  The moment people say like, well, we denounce anti-Semitism, there's a certain type of lefty politician and activist who finds it very hard to just stop talking.
• 56:53
  after the word anti-Semitism, they feel the need to go dot, dot, dot, and Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and prejudice.
• 57:01
  And gluten intolerance.
• 57:02
  In a way that they wouldn't if they were just, if it was post, you know, an anti-Muslim attack by white supremacists, they would just say...
• 57:10
  Islamophobia is not okay.
• 57:12
  They wouldn't feel the need to then go, and by the way, anti-Semitism is also really bad.
• 57:17
  So it's just about consistency.
• 57:20
  And if you're setting up a rule for some groups that is impossible to apply to all, then it's probably not a good rule.
• 57:26
  But what's difficult is then you get these inter, not inter-nice, exactly.
• 57:30
  I don't know the word I'm exactly thinking of, but inter-group squabbles when really what you require is you require the same level of care to be directed to both.
• 57:44
  Like, I don't, I'm not particularly fond of the idea that Jewish people should start resenting Muslim people.
• 57:50
  Definitely not.
• 57:56
  people for their beliefs.
• 57:58
  Or for anything.
• 57:59
  Or for anything, right?
• 58:01
  But you do see that now.
• 58:02
  People are like, hey, look, we're not being taken care of.
• 58:04
  There's this really vocal person on the extreme right, in this case, in Australia, who is saying all the right shibboleths about protection of Jews.
• 58:15
  So I'm going to run to the extreme right because that's the only person who is saying the stuff about my specific ethnic group.
• 58:24
  and how they're going to be protected.
• 58:25
  Yes, I hear what you're saying.
• 58:25
  But it's going to come at the expense of every other group.
• 58:27
  Yes, yes.
• 58:29
  No, absolutely.
• 58:29
  The solution is not to just be a moth to the flame of whoever is saying the nicest thing about your particular group at any given point in time, but rather to uphold...
• 58:40
  Old-fashioned, liberal, universal principles of tolerance.
• 58:46
  I mean, anti-Semitism, when you say that you've experienced anti-Semitism as a Johnny-come-lately Jew, Jew, just to make it clear, that, I mean, anti-Semitism is a weird word, and I wonder if we should retire it, along with words like Zionism, just because...
• 59:07
  Is it illuminating anything anymore?
• 59:08
  Like, if someone asked me whether I've been a victim of anti-Semitism, I would probably say no.
• 59:15
  I don't think I ever have.
• 59:17
  But that's because I think of anti-Semitism as, like, a rather 19th century idea.
• 59:24
  Like, basically, what Julian the Elder Jew was peddling in the 1880s
• 59:31
  was kind of anti-Semitism.
• 59:32
  It was like an ethnic caricature that believed that the ethnicity of Jews had certain characteristics.
• 59:41
  I don't think anyone has deprived me of opportunities because they believed that, right?
• 59:48
  But the way that the double standards and distaste for the Jewish problem, shall we say,
• 1:00:02
  kind of rises to the surface in the 2020s is the same way it always has, which is it kind of just preys upon the most popular fears of the elite opinion makers.
• 1:00:17
  And Jews become...
• 1:00:20
  sort of guilty of whatever the worst things that elite opinion makers think humans are capable of at any given point in time.
• 1:00:27
  So in, like, interwar Europe, that's, like, cosmopolitanism, and in Tsarist Russia, that's, you know, capitalism or whatever it might be.
• 1:00:36
  Like, the...
• 1:00:37
  Throughout time, there's always just a tendency to think that those fishy Jews are up to something, and the something that they're up to is always whatever the worst thing that elites think people are capable of.
• 1:00:50
  And today, the worst thing that people are capable of is being white, racist, colonial, genocidal fascists in the eyes of the elite.
• 1:00:58
  And it doesn't help that the current Israeli government is giving people every possible opportunity to affirm that prejudice,
• 1:01:06
  But the level of antipathy and hostility and singling out and double standards and exclusion of Jewish Australians and Jews in the diaspora from the normal logic of social justice is what I would say is not exactly anti-Semitism because I'm not sure that it's helpful to call it that, but some kind of bias that functionally operates as...
• 1:01:37
  I think that, I mean, there's, there's so many things to unpack in there.
• 1:01:42
  I think that for one thing, I mean, if you look at the, the history of the term antisemitism, it was almost like a, uh, scientific term that when it was originally called, it was to describe the irrational hatred of Jews.
• 1:01:56
  Right.
• 1:01:57
  And then it became a racialized term when it, obviously the Nazis racialized you.
• 1:02:03
  I mean.
• 1:02:04
  To an extent, the project of Hitler was to define Jews as a race rather than as a culture.
• 1:02:12
  And that project has been largely successful because I still look at my DNA test and go, I'm 15% Jewish, which isn't really how it's meant to function.
• 1:02:23
  I think Jew hatred is maybe an easier way of
• 1:02:26
  Yeah.
• 1:02:26
  Describing it.
• 1:02:27
  But I don't think it's as simple as, oh, the elites have these things that are despised and they project those traits onto Jews.
• 1:02:37
  Because it's not just the elites, it's also the common people.
• 1:02:39
  And sometimes there are two different forms of it operating at once.
• 1:02:43
  And you find yourself...
• 1:02:45
  Having to defend things you don't want to defend.
• 1:02:48
  I actually have no interest in Israel or Netanyahu.
• 1:02:50
  I'm not Israeli.
• 1:02:52
  I didn't grow up in Israel.
• 1:02:53
  I didn't grow up being told about Israel because I didn't go to Hebrew school or whatever.
• 1:02:58
  I don't give a shit about it.
• 1:03:00
  But I find myself having to defend things like when you say they control the media, look at this horrible thing Israel did and you didn't hear about it because they control the media.
• 1:03:09
  And I'm like, God, now I...
• 1:03:10
  Now I have to...
• 1:03:11
  Right, I'm being enlisted.
• 1:03:13
  I'm being enlisted, right?
• 1:03:14
  The other one I notice a lot is people say the Epstein class, which to me is a form of...
• 1:03:23
  Very subtle antisemitism because you could just as easily say that billionaire pedophile elites.
• 1:03:29
  Yeah.
• 1:03:29
  But you're saying the Epstein class, like there's a racialized Jewish element to it.
• 1:03:37
  What do I want to defend Jeffrey Epstein?
• 1:03:39
  I got no interest in this project, but I can see how you're using the fact that he's Jewish to accomplish other...
• 1:03:45
  Yes, I think that's the thing that is useful to try to inject into the conversation rather than banging on about anti-Semitism or not anti-Semitism is does this dialogue or discourse or worldview or set of priorities exist?
• 1:04:04
  contribute to a dynamic that is anti-Jewish, a dynamic that is functionally, that functions in the 2020s here as an anti-Jewish dynamic, as a dynamic that makes Jewish people feel like they're being singled out.
• 1:04:23
  And my question would always be, is this a horrible thing that a Jewish person has done?
• 1:04:27
  Or is it a thing that a person has done because they are Jewish?
• 1:04:30
  Like, has the identity of Jewishness been the motivating factor that causes terrible thing to happen?
• 1:04:40
  Yeah, that's useful.
• 1:04:41
  That is maybe an arguable thing when you come to some of the things that, for example, the settlers are doing in Israel.
• 1:04:48
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:49
  Yes, that's a good point.
• 1:04:51
  Or if you want to take an even broader view of it, if you believe the entire project of Israel is essentially a Jewish project, that's an argument you can have.
• 1:04:59
  I mean, obviously.
• 1:05:00
  Yeah, right.
• 1:05:01
  But then, you know, when people, for example, talk about Jeffrey Epstein, I'm like, I don't think he was a pedophile because he was Jewish.
• 1:05:08
  I think he was a...
• 1:05:10
  that was Jewish.
• 1:05:11
  Yes, that's interesting.
• 1:05:12
  I don't think he was trafficking them like, oh, good, this will be great for Yahweh or whatever it is.
• 1:05:17
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:18
  That's interesting.
• 1:05:19
  I mean, the similar icon to Epstein is George Soros, who, you know, the financier, who looms very, very large in the imagination of...
• 1:05:32
  conspiracy theorists who believe that there's a globalist cabal of bankers who control the world.
• 1:05:39
  And it's always – it used to be the Rothschilds and now it's George Soros.
• 1:05:45
  There's always a single Jewish benefactor who becomes the icon, the stand-in, the –
• 1:05:54
  What's the fancy word for it?
• 1:05:55
  Synecdoche or something?
• 1:05:56
  For the whole, like the one thing that represents the entirety that you can lift out and sort of make your emblem.
• 1:06:05
  It's never, well, not never.
• 1:06:07
  It's rarely just a normal, you know, non-Jewish person.
• 1:06:13
  In all of these conspiracies, it ends up being a Jewish person, but it enables people to imply that the Jews are doing it without actually saying so.
• 1:06:19
  Yep.
• 1:06:20
  And then when you, again, just to come back to my great grandfather, because I have a show to sell.
• 1:06:27
  Jew.
• 1:06:28
  That's one of my favorite things is to just say something banal and then just go Jew.
• 1:06:33
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:34
  But he would turn up to places that had literally never seen a Jewish person before.
• 1:06:40
  And so he would become that for them.
• 1:06:42
  New Zealand.
• 1:06:43
  New Zealand.
• 1:06:44
  New Zealand.
• 1:06:45
  New Zealand.
• 1:06:45
  He toured South Africa.
• 1:06:47
  Actually, there's a lot of Jews in South Africa.
• 1:06:48
  But he would tour like- And they were all in Australia.
• 1:06:50
  Little podunk towns.
• 1:06:51
  Yeah, they're all in Perth now.
• 1:06:52
  He would tour like little podunk towns in the Midwest US.
• 1:06:56
  And he would become that for them.
• 1:06:58
  This guy talking about money with the big fake nose.
• 1:07:01
  Yeah.
• 1:07:01
  And that to them would then be like, oh, well, I guess that's what the Jews are.
• 1:07:05
  Yep.
• 1:07:05
  Yep.
• 1:07:06
  And so you're also consciously or unconsciously contributing to the stereotype.
• 1:07:12
  I think he must have felt that because I also found that he would do these fundraisers for Jewish charities.
• 1:07:17
  He would be, when he was in, I think, South Africa, he did a fundraiser for a Jewish orphanage with the Marx Brothers.
• 1:07:26
  What?
• 1:07:26
  Yeah.
• 1:07:27
  He performed with the Marx Brothers?
• 1:07:28
  They were all contemporaries.
• 1:07:30
  Yeah, but still.
• 1:07:31
  I mean, that's like someone in 100 years being like, David Rose performed with Jerry Seinfeld, and me being like, well, they were contemporaries.
• 1:07:40
  Yeah.
• 1:07:41
  Well, they came up on the vaudeville scene together.
• 1:07:43
  Right.
• 1:07:44
  But I think he must have had a bit of a sense of maybe this is like blood money.
• 1:07:49
  That I've made my fortune by selling out my people.
• 1:07:52
  Yeah.
• 1:07:52
  So he is a bit back.
• 1:07:54
  Yeah.
• 1:07:55
  It's funny, isn't it, when you think about just hanging out with the Marx Brothers and the Marx Brothers being actual people instead of icons of the past.
• 1:08:04
  I was thinking about that just as I was driving in here.
• 1:08:06
  I can't remember what I was thinking about, but something about just the passage of time and the fact that the people... Oh, I was thinking for some reason about Sir Robert Menzies, the longest serving Australian prime minister who served for like... Oh, it was because of Trump.
• 1:08:18
  I realized...
• 1:08:20
  So here's my thought.
• 1:08:20
  This is my ADHD brain, like bouncing around when I'm in the car, okay?
• 1:08:24
  I'm thinking, Canada and the United States are in this trade standoff that has collapsed and now the Canadian Prime Minister is standing up against Trump.
• 1:08:34
  And then I'm like,
• 1:08:36
  how far into the Trump, how much more of this do we have to put up with, this Trump administration?
• 1:08:41
  And then I realize he's only, he's not even halfway through his second term.
• 1:08:48
  So there's quite a long time.
• 1:08:49
  And he's got a whole third term to go.
• 1:08:52
  Exactly.
• 1:08:53
  And we just have to grin and bear it.
• 1:08:55
  And then I think...
• 1:08:57
  what must it have...
• 1:08:58
  It's amazing how quickly four years can go by, actually, because his first term now just sort of seems like a distant memory to me.
• 1:09:08
  And then I thought, what must it be like to live with a leader who isn't just leader for four years or eight years, but like 20 years?
• 1:09:17
  And then I thought, well, we had that here because we don't have term limits in Australia.
• 1:09:19
  So...
• 1:09:20
  Menzies, I think he served for 21 years or something.
• 1:09:24
  Howard was... Yeah, something like that.
• 1:09:28
  Thereabouts.
• 1:09:30
  John Howard was an Australian... John Howard, the butler steps forward.
• 1:09:33
  John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia.
• 1:09:36
  And then I thought...
• 1:09:38
  Like when Menzies was prime minister, people didn't think, oh, here we are in the old fashioned era of Sir Robert Menzies as prime minister with our funny black and white television sets and our colonial ideas about things.
• 1:09:53
  They were like, we are at the cutting edge of modernity.
• 1:09:57
  And everything in the past was old and fuddy-duddy, like Julian the Jew back in the past.
• 1:10:03
  And we are the most advanced humans who've ever existed.
• 1:10:08
  And now we look back on them and go, oh, they're all a bit fuddy-duddy.
• 1:10:10
  And then in 50 years' time, everyone will be looking back on us like we're characters in a 1950s sitcom.
• 1:10:16
  As they should, by the way.
• 1:10:18
  No, they should regard me as the pinnacle of human achievement for all time.
• 1:10:21
  Well, look at you.
• 1:10:22
  You're very well-dressed.
• 1:10:23
  Exactly.
• 1:10:24
  You look great.
• 1:10:25
  menzies was a bit of a trump figure himself if you i have a book at home called the wit of sir robert menzies and some of the things he said were like uh pretty cunty i don't know if we're allowed to say well you can now well i already did yeah um like there was there's a there's one where he's at some town hall and someone says what are you gonna do about housing and he goes housing i will put an h in front of it housing
• 1:10:48
  And you're like, that's so close to, I'm going to put an H in front of it.
• 1:10:52
  Yeah.
• 1:10:52
  Yeah.
• 1:10:53
  Yeah.
• 1:10:53
  Although I don't think Trump would be criticizing people's pronunciation of things, but I take your point.
• 1:10:57
  Yeah.
• 1:10:58
  Not, not exact.
• 1:10:59
  Way to engage with the issue, Menzies.
• 1:11:01
  And Menzies as well.
• 1:11:02
  He had his own Mark Carney, Trumpy standoff with Churchill.
• 1:11:06
  Because Churchill wanted us to send troops over to the UK to fight.
• 1:11:10
  And Menzies was like...
• 1:11:11
  I think you'll find we did send a lot of troops.
• 1:11:14
  But Churchill wanted more.
• 1:11:15
  And Menzies was like, no, we've got to protect Australia.
• 1:11:17
  The Japanese are right there.
• 1:11:18
  They're going to come and invade.
• 1:11:20
  And they had a big shit fight about it.
• 1:11:21
  I mean, Churchill must have really wanted a lot because I think Australia sent more as a per capita than almost any other country.
• 1:11:30
  I think he wanted everyone.
• 1:11:32
  My favourite bizarre Churchill story is that...
• 1:11:35
  So I actually just went to the Imperial War Museum.
• 1:11:37
  Oh, isn't it great?
• 1:11:38
  It's amazing.
• 1:11:38
  Yeah.
• 1:11:39
  But it's very interesting when you walk through and there's this whole history of the Second World War.
• 1:11:42
  And then right off in the little corner there, there's this...
• 1:11:45
  little little thing that's like yeah by the way uh three million bengali started this famine because churchill didn't want to send them any food sorry about that anyway the second world war like they just subtly are like and we really yes the indians yes um churchill he wanted a uh pick me up for the british people he wanted something that would make them feel good in this time of war so he wrote to the australian government and he put acid in the water and everybody was psychedelic for the next
• 1:12:11
  six months this idea that he had is almost psychedelic he said uh the british people need to pick me up i would like you to send a platypus oh and the australians went you want us to ship you a platypus in the middle of the war and he goes yep send one over and they go well you can't just send a platypus they have really sensitive inner ears there's bombs going off everywhere if we just put a platypus on a boat and send it it's gonna die before yeah also the war is gonna be over by the time it gets to the other side of the world
• 1:12:37
  So they train a platypus to deal with the constant going off of depth charges.
• 1:12:42
  This is a real story.
• 1:12:43
  You can look it up.
• 1:12:44
  Wow.
• 1:12:44
  They train this platypus.
• 1:12:46
  They put it through like military training to deal with the horrors of war or whatever, put it on a boat, send it all the way up to the UK.
• 1:12:54
  And right as it's about to get there, it dies regardless.
• 1:12:58
  Heart attack.
• 1:12:59
  I don't know.
• 1:12:59
  Yeah.
• 1:13:00
  Old age.
• 1:13:00
  Whatever.
• 1:13:01
  So he has it stuffed and mounted on his desk.
• 1:13:03
  Wow.
• 1:13:03
  Yeah.
• 1:13:04
  Yeah.
• 1:13:04
  I think there's a movie in this.
• 1:13:06
  Yeah, Churchill's Platypus.
• 1:13:08
  Churchill's Platypus.
• 1:13:09
  It's about the...
• 1:13:10
  Starring...
• 1:13:11
  Starring Steve Coogan.
• 1:13:12
  Hugh Jackman as the platypus.
• 1:13:14
  As the platypus.
• 1:13:15
  Steve Coogan as Churchill.
• 1:13:16
  Yeah.
• 1:13:17
  I think... Or the platypus is animated with Hugh Jackman's voice.
• 1:13:21
  Yeah.
• 1:13:21
  And it's a...
• 1:13:22
  It's going to be pretty tragic when he dies, though.
• 1:13:24
  You change the ending.
• 1:13:26
  Hitler wins.
• 1:13:27
  The platypus survives.
• 1:13:28
  The platypus storms Normandy with the troops.
• 1:13:30
  He's got a cute little hat on.
• 1:13:31
  I like it.
• 1:13:32
  The platypus dodging all of the depth charges and learning.
• 1:13:35
  It becomes essentially, what do you call those, extremely talented seal divers, like the frogman.
• 1:13:42
  It's a frogman tale.
• 1:13:45
  The counterpoint to that, the British one, the museum is so serious.
• 1:13:50
  Have you ever been to the Second World War Museum in New Orleans?
• 1:13:56
  No.
• 1:13:57
  It's incredible.
• 1:13:57
  I mean, it's one of the best museums I've ever been to.
• 1:14:00
  But they have a gift shop, and they have the Normandy landings in Lego.
• 1:14:04
  So they've got little Lego German soldiers shooting at little Lego guys with their little Lego legs blown off on the beaches.
• 1:14:10
  Little Lego legs blown off.
• 1:14:11
  Yeah.
• 1:14:12
  And I was just thinking, like, imagine if you could go back and tell these guys, like, they're going to make a Lego out of this.
• 1:14:19
  Oh, my God.
• 1:14:20
  Saving Private Ryan.
• 1:14:21
  In 80 years' time, there's going to be a little Lego.
• 1:14:24
  I don't like that.
• 1:14:26
  I feel like that's somehow strangely disrespectful.
• 1:14:28
  I saw you catch that thought halfway through.
• 1:14:30
  It's disrespectful, isn't it?
• 1:14:31
  Well, it is now.
• 1:14:32
  Too soon.
• 1:14:33
  You can buy a Titanic Lego.
• 1:14:34
  That's fine.
• 1:14:35
  You know what's a great place to go that the War Museum runs in the UK as well is Churchill's... Churchill War Rooms?
• 1:14:44
  The War Rooms, yes.
• 1:14:44
  I went to them.
• 1:14:45
  Which is also great.
• 1:14:46
  I went there last time I was in London as well.
• 1:14:47
  It hadn't been for years and years.
• 1:14:49
  But they've basically taken the bunker that was built under London from where they ran the war and where Churchill slept and ruled and did his broadcasts.
• 1:14:59
  And they've sealed it off.
• 1:15:01
  And they had...
• 1:15:04
  And they didn't know they were going to preserve it, but they abandoned it at the end of the war.
• 1:15:09
  And then it was back in the 60s or 70s, much later, that they were like, oh, we should probably not just dig it all out and refurb it or fill it all in.
• 1:15:21
  And then it was actually in the 80s that there was a very enthusiastic MP who appealed to Margaret Thatcher as prime minister and appealed to her patriotism and said, we should not just leave it.
• 1:15:34
  restore it and make it nice and open it to the public.
• 1:15:37
  And then it was only in the 80s that they started opening it up.
• 1:15:41
  I was just near there the other day because I was in London.
• 1:15:44
  And it's actually right near... You were there yesterday.
• 1:15:46
  You were actually there this morning.
• 1:15:47
  Yeah.
• 1:15:48
  And boy, my arm's tied.
• 1:15:49
  Yeah.
• 1:15:51
  there's all these really fancy clubs around there.
• 1:15:54
  So I'm a member of the RACV, which is the Royal Automotive Club of Victoria.
• 1:15:59
  It's my gym.
• 1:16:00
  Basically the AAA.
• 1:16:01
  AAA.
• 1:16:01
  Yeah.
• 1:16:02
  It's a hundred bucks a month to use the gym there, but it gives you access to all these fancy, fancy clubs all around the world.
• 1:16:08
  A hundred bucks a month for the gym.
• 1:16:10
  That's good, isn't it?
• 1:16:10
  It's pretty good.
• 1:16:11
  And it's got a pool.
• 1:16:12
  I'm not advertising the RACV now.
• 1:16:14
  I just like the gym.
• 1:16:15
  And so there's all these.
• 1:16:17
  So the East India Trading Company went from being this sprawling global empire and it's just been reduced and reduced and reduced down to a single building now that's just down the road from the Churchill War Room.
• 1:16:29
  What?
• 1:16:30
  I went in there.
• 1:16:30
  They have a cigar room.
• 1:16:32
  Are you allowed in there because of your RACV membership?
• 1:16:34
  Exactly.
• 1:16:35
  I walk in as this disgusting Australian.
• 1:16:37
  I'm, g'day, can I use your bathroom?
• 1:16:39
  And they're like, ugh.
• 1:16:40
  I didn't know that this came with such perks.
• 1:16:42
  I know.
• 1:16:42
  Practically every Victorian is a member of the RAC event.
• 1:16:45
  You get access to that?
• 1:16:46
  Yeah, you get access to the nicest clubs in the world.
• 1:16:49
  I went to the one called the Hurlingham Club, which is where they invented polo.
• 1:16:53
  Wow.
• 1:16:53
  Yeah.
• 1:16:54
  Okay, I've got to get me a membership.
• 1:16:55
  It's pretty good.
• 1:16:56
  Yeah.
• 1:16:56
  And they hate me turning up.
• 1:16:58
  They hate Jews?
• 1:16:59
  They hate Jews.
• 1:17:00
  Sorry.
• 1:17:00
  They do.
• 1:17:00
  That's actually part of the membership.
• 1:17:01
  Yeah.
• 1:17:02
  Yeah, right.
• 1:17:03
  You have to show them your foreskin before they will let you in.
• 1:17:06
  And they made me wear a little star.
• 1:17:08
  It was a whole thing.
• 1:17:08
  Okay.
• 1:17:09
  But the – what is it?
• 1:17:12
  The –
• 1:17:14
  the east india club yeah nigel farage is a member oh so he was giving a talk was he there he wasn't there when i was there but he was giving a talk at the east india which is like it's like it's like darth vader giving a talk in the death star yes it's like of the of course he's at the east india
• 1:17:32
  But that would have been Churchill's local because he would have gone straight from the war rooms and they're just around the corner.
• 1:17:38
  He could have walked up the road and had a pint at some of these old clubs.
• 1:17:41
  I mean, he wouldn't have.
• 1:17:42
  There's one called the Army and Navy Club.
• 1:17:43
  You walk in, there's a big picture of Churchill, a painting of Churchill when he was a young man because he fought in the Boer War.
• 1:17:49
  Yeah, right.
• 1:17:50
  You hear the most incredible conversations because, you know, I'm privy to them.
• 1:17:54
  I'm not meant to be in there.
• 1:17:55
  No.
• 1:17:56
  There was one guy.
• 1:17:57
  And he's with this Asian, he's an older man.
• 1:18:00
  He's got this Asian bride.
• 1:18:02
  So you're immediately like, how did that happen?
• 1:18:05
  And he's holding his baby and he looks at his wife and he goes, well, it's a little too Chinese, isn't it?
• 1:18:11
  That's not true.
• 1:18:11
  That's true.
• 1:18:12
  Really?
• 1:18:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:18:13
  It's a little too Chinese.
• 1:18:14
  It's a little too Chinese.
• 1:18:17
  Wow.
• 1:18:17
  And then I tried, again, I tried to tell it on stage, no one believed me, but I was going, what you don't know is, but in 25 years, that's going to be the perfect amount of Chinese.
• 1:18:25
  Yeah.
• 1:18:26
  Yeah.
• 1:18:26
  Yeah.
• 1:18:27
  I don't think that works as a joke because it's too, it's...
• 1:18:31
  It's obscene.
• 1:18:32
  Well, it's obscene and also like not...
• 1:18:37
  It's not plausible.
• 1:18:38
  Like, I can't believe that that person exists.
• 1:18:41
  No, I mean, this is why I like going.
• 1:18:43
  Even if he was thinking it in his head, why would he say that to anyone?
• 1:18:46
  Because he's in this bubble.
• 1:18:48
  He's in this protected, wealthy bubble.
• 1:18:50
  There's not meant to be a 32-year-old Australian comedian there listening to him.
• 1:18:55
  Only a 32-year-old Australian comedian finds it ridiculous to be grading the comparative racial phenotype of one's children.
• 1:19:05
  And then he looked at me and he said, that's way too much Jude.
• 1:19:09
  Exactly.
• 1:19:10
  Good night, everybody.
• 1:19:11
  All right, David.
• 1:19:13
  Good luck with the return of the show.
• 1:19:17
  Yeah, which you're doing in Sydney and in Melbourne.
• 1:19:19
  It's at the Sydney Comedy Store on September 10th, I believe.
• 1:19:23
  It's just called David Rose Encore.
• 1:19:25
  And then I'm doing it once more in Melbourne.
• 1:19:27
  I'd like to do it in London, actually.
• 1:19:28
  I was just over there and there's a big Jewish community.
• 1:19:31
  You should have asked David Farage.
• 1:19:33
  I should have.
• 1:19:33
  David Farage.
• 1:19:35
  Nigel Farage.
• 1:19:36
  Yeah, that's when he and I merge, when we finally become one.
• 1:19:39
  You're just the Jew to me.
• 1:19:40
  Yeah.
• 1:19:40
  Yeah.
• 1:19:41
  I would like to do it in London again because it's also where Julian ended up.
• 1:19:44
  The Royal Command performance was at the Palladium.
• 1:19:47
  Yeah, right.
• 1:19:47
  It'd be fun.
• 1:19:48
  Oh, that'd be good, wouldn't it?
• 1:19:49
  Go to the Palladium.
• 1:19:51
  Bring it all full circle.
• 1:19:51
  Do it there, full circle.
• 1:19:53
  Yeah.
• 1:19:53
  And the ghost of Julian, the elder Jew.
• 1:19:56
  Yeah.
• 1:19:57
  We'll be so proud of you.
• 1:19:59
  Yeah, but for now it's just Sydney novel.
• 1:20:01
  Excellent.
• 1:20:01
  Thank you, David.
• 1:20:02
  Lovely to talk to you.
• 1:20:03
  Thanks for having me.