When it comes to Jews the discount business is thriving, says David Baddiel
On Monday night Channel 4 gives the author and comedian the space to prove 'Jews Don't Count'. Brace yourself...
Brigit Grant is the Jewish News Supplements Editor
“If we controlled things wouldn’t we have better PR?” says comedy actor Sarah Silverman at the start of David Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count. It’s a salient point most Jews would agree with, but with just days to go until the documentary airs on Channel 4, the ‘not-counting’ of Jews, and ‘going Defcon 3’ on us, is almost too felicitous, to not be part of a campaign to promote the programme.
Of course Baddiel could never have known that Kanye West or Ye as his monosyllabic mates like to call him, would angrily spout antisemitic tropes about Jews or threaten them with a military defence term. Or that US stand-up Dave Chapelle would echo Ye’s targeted vituperation on Saturday Night Live (SNL).
Baddiel is equally unlikely to have known that a London theatre company was planning a Nazi-Jewish themed production of Romeo and Juliet, but it has not stopped it from being useful for a doc based on his best-selling book as it proves Jews (really) Don’t Count.
Their feelings certainly don’t, and this is expressed in the film by such familiar faces as Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, David Schwimmer, Rachel Riley, Ivor Baddiel and celebrated scribes; Howard Jacobson, Neil Gaiman , Patrick Marber who collectively believe that Jews are an oppressed minority, but ‘others’ don’t. The best example of an ‘other’ in this film is Labour MP Dawn Butler, but let’s not spoil it for you.
Jews not counting is illustrated with pertinent footage beginning with Baddiel filling out a form on which Jews are excluded from the minority tick list and the narrative expands into other reasons, such as the Jews being too white for Whoopi Goldberg to accept the Holocaust was about race, but not white enough for the Nazis not to mass murder them.
All of this and antisemitic anecdotes shared by contributors is seamlessly collated, well-lit and mostly interesting, even if the information isn’t new to you.
In the black and white to camera segments, Baddiel looks particularly handsome and is excellent at encapsulating how the rest of us feel, particularly about being denied racism membership which has been “ring-fenced by people of colour.”
And that is or isn’t us, depending on the history book you read, but as Baddiel’s doc just missed the furore around Ronald Dalton Jr’s Hebrews to Negroes:Wake Up Black America there’s a reason for him to make another.
He should because he is good on TV, but there’s no denying that in a film about discounting Jews (they’re not on sale), his atheism is the elephant in the synagogue and his lack of interest or link to Israel, while understandable will irk with Jews who donate generously to the country.
They count too and are more likely to watch this film than the ‘others’ who really should.
• Jews Don’t Count, Channel 4, Monday Nov 21 at 9pm
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