Judaism and journalism collide in Tim Franks’ autobiography

Tim Franks arrives for our interview apologising profusely. He is three minutes late. This rather reveals the intensity and precision of a man who now presents Newshour, the flagship show on the BBC World Service, after decades in various foreign postings, notably the Middle East.

It was that role that saw the central themes of his book The Lines We Draw – Judaism and journalism – collide

The occasional conflicts between the two key factors in Franks’ life are clear from the outset. The author recalls undertaking hostile environment training at the BBC during which the trainer advises the group that should they be taken hostage by Islamists they should say they believe in God and be specific about which faith they are part of.

“I’m Jewish.” Franks tells her. “Ah. That’s different,” came the reply.

Indeed it is. And being different was something a young Tim Franks had to get used to. He grew up not in the heart of bustling Jewish life in north-west London, or even in Manchester or Glasgow, but in the tiny community in Birmingham. “There was quite a lot of antisemitism when I was growing up and you sort of kept yourself to yourself,” Franks tells Jewish News.

The journalist and author writes about his family as something of a self-contained unit. None of his grandparents were alive as he grew up “so it was difficult to sort of trace the lines”. A combination of this and journalistic instinct prompted Franks to go back and put together a family tree that begins in not Russia, as he had expected, but in the 1700s in Spain and Constantinople. (There are links to Bevis Marks Synagogue in London too.) The discoveries were “revelatory. It was fascinating,” he says, with the kind of enthusiasm journalists reserve for landing a big scoop.

Not being aware of his family history, nor having these direct links to the past, did not disconnect Franks from his Judaism. He is a regular at shul who says that “Judaism has been phenomenally important to me”. Indeed, he reveals that early on in his BBC career he declined to go to a drinks event for trainees, going to shul for the Rosh Hashanah evening service instead, despite being warned that his absence would be noticed.

His connection to his religion and culture is clear, but writing “deepened my sense” of being part of a wider story, he says.

Franks’ book is all about using that story to tie together his life as a Jew and his life as a journalist. “I think the reason that I was drawn to journalism in the first place… was partly because of the family in which I grew up and the parents that I had, and partly growing up as a as a practising Jew in an in an absolutely minuscule Jewish community,” he reflects

Franks, as one might expect from a highly accomplished broadcaster, is a lucid and engaging person to have a conversation with, although it is clear he is not that comfortable being the interview subject and occasionally shifts into interview mode during our conversation. He is loquacious and remains so even when challenged about the BBC’s alleged bias against Israel, declining to shut the topic down.

Instead, the presenter says he does not believe that there is an anti-Israel bias at the corporation and insists he wouldn’t remain there if he did. Unsurprisingly, Franks also declines to criticise colleagues such as Jeremy Bowen, whose reporting on the Gaza war has provoked criticism from many in the community. Whether this is all sincere or Stockholm Syndrome is hard to tell.

While Franks acknowledges that nobody can leave their opinions at the door when they arrive for their shift at Broadcasting House, he believes “most people that I work with also understand that there is a job to do. He adds:

“I’m not an automaton in terms of Gaza. It’s a phenomenally difficult story to tell… It is Ground Zero of that old thing about competing narratives. But our job is to ask the questions and to try and cut through as much of that as possible.”

The “just asking questions” defence is unlikely to dampen the fury felt by vast sections of the Jewish Community who, post October 7, feel the BBC’s coverage of Israel has veered between frustrating and outright dangerous.

So how has the last 20 months been for him as a Jewish journalist? For many of us, it has been exhausting. Franks is more positive. “At least I get to ask questions,” he says. “I think a lot of the arguing that people feel inside and outside the Jewish community is there’s that sort of sense of a complete lack of agency.”

There is undoubtedly something about covering a difficult issue that personally affects you as a journalist – whether it is antisemitism, Israel’s war with Iran or something else – that gives you some semblance of control that others do not have.

Perhaps this is why Tim Franks was so keen to write a book that consolidated both his identity and his family’s history. It gave him a sense of control over his story, something that has not always been possible:

“It was just a fact of being Jewish… especially a Jewish journalist who deals with the Middle East. Lots and lots of people have very strong ideas about what that means both inside the Jewish community and outside the Jewish community. For good, for ill. Whether they think it’s a sort of physical impossibility for me to be a Jew and a journalist.”

Far from being impossible, it makes for the basis of a fascinating story.

The Lines We Draw is published by Bloomsbury, £18.