Ashamed to Admit
Are you ashamed to admit you're not across the big issues and events affecting Jews in Australia, Israel and around the Jewish world?
In this new podcast from online publication The Jewish Independent, Your Third Cousin Tami Sussman and TJI's Dashiel Lawrence tackle the week's 'Chewiest and Jewiest' topics.
Ashamed to Admit
Episode #13 Ashamed of Nothing with David Baddiel
British David Baddiel is a rare breed: a comedian, author, screenwriter and songwriter with an unflinching commitment to telling the truth. In his latest books, My Family and The God Desire, Baddiel shares his strange and dysfunctional upbringing and his private yearnings for the existence of a god and 'cosmic justice'. He's in Australia for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, and joined ATA for a wide-ranging conversation about parenting, golfing memorabilia and antisemitism post-October 7. Plus, Tami shares her newfound admiration for Sydney-based klezmer outfit Chutney. And Dash dives into the nitty-gritty of Australian census data, revealing fascinating insights about the Jewish community's shifting demographics.
TJI articles relevant to this week’s episode:
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/quiz/tji-quiz
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/chutneys-debut-album-is-a-klezmer-tasting-jar
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/melbournes-new-inclusive-klezmer-school
More from David Baddiel:
See David speak at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas on Sunday, 25 August. Read My Family: The Memoir or The God Desire, or listen to A Muslim and a Jew Go There.
Email your feedback, questions, show ideas etc: ashamed@thejewishindependent.com.au
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Are you ashamed to admit that you're not across some of the issues affecting Jews in Australia, the Middle East and the world at large? I'm Tammy Sussman and in this podcast series I ask journalist, historian and TJI's Executive Director, dr Dashiell Lawrence, all the ignorant questions that I, and maybe you, are too embarrassed to ask.
Speaker 2:I'm Dash Lawrence and I'm going to attempt to answer most of Tammy's questions. Sometimes I might have to bring in an expert and sometimes I might have a few questions of my own.
Speaker 1:But together, Dash and I are going to try and cut through the week or month's chewiest and jewiest topics.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast A Shame to Admit. Hello Melbourne, hello Sydney, london, hello Tokyo. This is our third episode of season two of A Shame to Admit, aka episode 13. I'm Dash Lawrence from the Jewish Independent.
Speaker 1:And I'm arthritic, acidic and philo-semitic. I'm Tammy Sussman, that's me.
Speaker 2:We are recording on August, the 14th 2024.
Speaker 1:That's right. On this day in 2003, britney Spears, madonna and Christina Aguilera performed at the MTV's VMAs, and you might recall famously, britney and Madonna, what did they do? Dash.
Speaker 2:They kissed on stage. They did.
Speaker 1:Do you remember that?
Speaker 2:Of course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with the tongue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was an iconic moment.
Speaker 1:It was.
Speaker 2:God was that 21 years ago now.
Speaker 1:Dash. Are you a fan of Madonna, britney and Christina?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't have described myself as a fan. No, okay, I am beautiful, no matter what they say. Is that it?
Speaker 1:Okay, please don't ever do that ever again. The reason I'm bringing this up it'll become clear in a moment. This week I've been listening to Chutney's album Ajar.
Speaker 2:The Sydney-based group yes.
Speaker 1:And I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't know much about them until I met their violinist, ben Adler, a few months ago at Limord in Sydney. So I listened to the album and it's really good, and there's appearances from Sydney JCom Darlings, deron Chester, sarit Michael and Ilan Kidron, and TJI's assistant editor Ruby wrote a piece about them earlier this month too. The reason why it's relevant to Britney Spears yes, thank you.
Speaker 1:I was a bit lost there, it's because there's one song in particular which is called Toxic Moonlight, and this is the song that got a write-up in Rolling Stone Headline song. You need to know chutney, toxic moonlight. Did someone ask for a daring mash-up of Britney Spears and Beethoven?
Speaker 2:Should we play that as the closer for today?
Speaker 1:I think we should. So how did I do incorporating today's date with Britney Spears?
Speaker 2:Very, very, very long bow to draw. Okay, so, tammy, yeah, On the topic of very specific niche dates, what were you doing on the evening of the 10th of August 2021?
Speaker 1:I don't know why I'm getting nervous.
Speaker 2:So it was August 2021 and I believe that in 2021, sydney and parts of New South Wales and, in fact, a lot of Australia, were in lockdown, so I expect that that's where you were at home.
Speaker 1:I would have been. I was pregnant with my second sniffly nose, I probably had a headache. I was probably a bit nauseous, a bit gassy, probably had some reflux, so I was probably I don't know kind of fermenting on the couch. Where's this line of questioning going?
Speaker 2:Well, it was the night of the last Australian census, which I get really excited about, right, as someone that takes a lot of interest in demography and social statistics. Like census night for me comes around once every five years. I'm really excited about the prospect of-.
Speaker 1:Are you genuinely excited about the census Of?
Speaker 2:course. Well, it's vital data that we all need to better understand our country, our communities, our economy. Yeah, it's pretty nebbish, isn't?
Speaker 1:it. It's really nebbish, but it's really cute.
Speaker 2:So for our international listeners, I'm sure you probably have a census that you complete in your country, but here in Australia, every five years the Australian Bureau of Statistics gets all Australians to complete a I don't know, it's probably a couple of dozen pages long form. Well, it's now online as well.
Speaker 1:Like a survey.
Speaker 2:Correct, answering a whole range of questions about you and your family, your household, on that evening. So everyone who's in your household, you have to account for them, their age, you know their income, how they get to work, their level of educational attainment, yada, yada, yada. Now the interesting stuff comes once all that data is gathered together from across Australia and statisticians and researchers break down the data and we start to learn much more about the country and the people in it and how they where they come from and what languages they're speaking and how many people are having babies and who's not. And I can see slowly just the capacity and the willingness to concentrate has just gone.
Speaker 1:The eyes are glazing over, okay, so.
Speaker 2:I don't know why, but I find it fascinating.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm really happy for you.
Speaker 2:I am, I'm really happy for you. Thank you. So, for those people who work within the Australian Jewish community or with an interest in the Australian jury, we're very lucky that the JCA, the Jewish Communal Appeal of New South Wales, releases, after the census, every five years, a report which you know summarises and captures all the essential information that you would want to know about how the Jewish communities across Australia are evolving and changing. But it certainly gives you some insights into some of the social trends that we're seeing.
Speaker 1:Okay, so is this the 88-page document that you emailed me.
Speaker 2:Correct. What do you think?
Speaker 1:I'm ashamed to admit I didn't read it, and can you TLDR it?
Speaker 2:Is that what the kids call it? Yeah, so look, I think we will get an expert at some stage who can talk in a bit more depth about the highlights, the low lights, the things that we should all be aware of when it comes to the Australian Jewish population. I'm not the man for that job. I don't feel.
Speaker 1:But just for today. Are you going to give me your top three bits of triv?
Speaker 2:I will give you my top bits of triv Like. I don't think this is earth-shattering news to people, but the proportion of married Jews who are inmarried that is, jewish people partnering up with other Jewish people and getting married has been steadily declining over time. In 2001, 83% of all Australian Jews that were married had a Jewish spouse, compared to in 2021, most recently, 75%.
Speaker 1:So still a big proportion.
Speaker 2:It's still a big proportion, but if you see the numbers, over time, steadily, it's a decline. Over time, steadily, it's a decline. The proportion of married Jews with a spouse reporting no religion has been climbing from 4.8% in 2001 to 12.4% in 2021. So, again, still large number of Australian Jewish people, be they married, be they partnered, are partnered with other Jews, be they married, be they partnered, partnered with other Jews. But the intermarriage rate is increasing, as I'm sure many would be aware of, and for the first time, tammy, in 2021, the number of married Jews with a spouse who reported no religion was larger than the number with a spouse reporting a non-Jewish religion.
Speaker 1:I tuned out. What do you mean?
Speaker 2:a spouse reporting a non-Jewish religion, I tuned out. What do you mean? Well, it used to be that if you had a non-Jewish partner, they would be Christian or they would identify as another religion. But increasingly they're not identifying as any other religion, they're just no religion.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's a shame that we can't spend longer on this, because I would love to know how you feel as someone who is married in. You're actually one of those people whose partner is Jewish. Our listeners are still confused, even the ones who listened to the entire first season. I still sometimes get a text saying so is Dash, or isn't he?
Speaker 2:It's very confusing. I get confused as well.
Speaker 1:So I'd love to know how you feel about that data and whether you look at the data and you think, oh, that's a shame that Jews aren't really marrying fellow Jews, and then you remember that you're not Jewish. Is that what happens?
Speaker 2:No, no, I think it's a conversation that the community should be having, because the reality is that the numbers have been increasing for a number of years now, and the opportunity is to, I think, is to expand the notion of what is a Jewish household. And just because both members of both parents may not be Jewish, I don't think, necessarily means that the children are not Jewish and that Jewish continuity is somehow cancelled out. I think the opportunity is there now for the Jewish community to rethink how they conceive of Jewish children and Jewish families, and we'll have a conversation about it at another stage, tammy, because it's, you know, it is a really interesting one. The Australian community is probably, you know, a really interesting one. The Australian community is probably quite a few years behind in this in the way that the United States, with a much larger Jewish population and much more expansive notion of what a Jewish family is and looks like, has reckoned with this for many decades.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. Thank you for synthesizing that humongous document into a bit of fun trivia for us this week. And if you listeners would like some more trivia, TJI has a weekly quiz.
Speaker 2:Correct, that's right. It comes out every Tuesday. You'll find it in our free e-newsletter, which comes out on Tuesdays and Fridays. You can also find it on social media 10 curly Jewish questions to test you. Share your score with your family members, put it in the WhatsApps and I think next week we've got a question from the census, so there's a good incentive to get your head around the latest census results.
Speaker 1:Oh, one last bit of triv. On this very day, the 14th of August in 2010, British comedian and writer David Baddiel hosted his last ever episode of his radio show, David Baddiel's Absolute Radio Show. A tidbit which would normally be a little bit irrelevant, except that Dash.
Speaker 2:We just interviewed him ahead of his appearance next week at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney.
Speaker 1:And if you're ashamed to admit that you don't know who David Baddiel is, you should be. He is an award-winning comedian, author, screenwriter, podcaster and television presenter. He has written 10 hugely successful children's books, four critically acclaimed novels and in 2021, he released the Sunday Times Politics Book of the Year, his polemic Jews Don't Count, which has changed the whole conversation around modern identity politics and antisemitism. He co-hosts a podcast called A Muslim and a Jew. Go there with politician Syeda Wasi.
Speaker 2:David will be appearing at this year's Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney on Sunday, the 25th of August. He'll be talking about his 2023 book, the God Desire. His hilarious memoir my Family will be released in Australia next month. Tammy and I have both read it and both loved it and highly recommend it, and we know you'll love this conversation with David Baddiel.
Speaker 1:Thank you, David Baddiel, for joining us.
Speaker 3:I'm really happy to be here. Hello Tammy, hello Dash.
Speaker 1:Before we go on, david, we should probably address the fact that you're on a podcast called A Shame to Admit and yet you claim to have skipped the shame gene Dash and I have both read your memoir my Family, in which you openly discuss your lack of shame gene. Can you tell our listeners how that plays out in your life?
Speaker 3:I think that throughout my life I've been someone who kind of like the way that I've dealt with I guess you'd call it shame, I would call it just sort of emotional complexity stuff in your life where you think this is not straightforwardly something that is just, you know, a bland part of existence. It's got all sorts of pitfalls and ways of thinking about it that maybe some people would find cringy or difficult or not something they want to talk about or whatever. My tendency, my instinct in fact, is to rush towards it, to talk about it, and that's partly just straightforwardly through being a comedian. I mean, it's hard to know what came first and probably what came first was the instinct to rush towards it. But I definitely then became honed through being the type of comedian I am, which is essentially someone who puts himself out there, sometimes in a slightly incontinent way, and just talks about what's happened to me. That is a type of comedy. It's called confessional comedy and confessional comedy uses a process whereby you sort of say that I've been a twat, I've done this stupid thing, I've done this really quite, you know, maybe shameful thing, but here's how I redeem myself. I make it funny, and I make it funny and I make you feel less alone in your twatiness and your sense of shame, because we're all laughing together at what flawed human beings we are.
Speaker 3:And when I wrote the book it was a sort of extension of that, because I wanted to address the kind of shame that people sometimes feel about families. So the book is about two things. It's about my mum's affair with a golfing memorabilia salesman and my dad's dementia. Both of those things are things that might be swept under carpets, and the book begins at my mum's funeral where people are doing that. People areizing of my mother is damaging to her and to my memory of her, because it's much, much more complicated than that and because you, the mourner, or maybe just don't know, but are also too worried about shame and public shame to say anything else, you're erasing her a second time through idealization and blandness. So I do genuinely believe I do quote it in the book. It's quite a well-known quote, but I quote leonard cohen saying the crack is where the light gets in, and my, my strong belief is that all human beings are flawed. Therefore, what we should do is amplify the flaws, amplify the cracks, and that's a way of all being human together.
Speaker 1:what a long answer I was hoping you'd actually mention all of that, because one of the things that I loved is how you've spoken about you know fame hasn't really changed you. You already you had an already fixed personality when you became famous and you also think that your early life was so idiosyncratic and odd that even the most the bizarre world that fame presents has little on it.
Speaker 3:Here's the thing in terms of your podcast, in terms of like, shame is, I think, almost while these things are happening, and simply when I found my mother's book of erotic poetry is another good example of it, which is very much featured in the book my mother's erotic poetry to her lover, which is extremely graphic A lot of people would shut that book and say, right, I'm never looking at that again. That's appalling. You know, as a comedian and as someone who likes to talk about myself, I think that's a funny story. This is funny. It's awful in some level that it's happened, but immediately the awfulness is exercised by the possibility that it might be funny.
Speaker 1:When Dash and I were prepping for our interview with you, Dash mentioned like he interpreted some of your experience that you shared in your memoir as difficult, traumatic, and I said that's really interesting because that wasn't my takeaway at all. You say I wouldn't even class them, your memories, your upbringing, as damage, more accidental sculpture, and this is what makes this book different from, say, Spare. So I mean, I'm just curious to know if you're trying to create Broigus with Prince Harry to play the algorithm.
Speaker 3:Well, would be good. I'm glad you've mentioned Prince Harry because in the book I just assume people know what spare is and I say that this is what makes this book different from spare. When I've said that when I've been interviewed I've noticed I've had to say by Prince Harry to get a massive laugh no, I don't want to have a Broigus with Harry Harry, is you know? I don't want to have a brood just with Harry Harry, is you know? I'm sure a very nice chap Never met him, but I think his memoir is an interesting example of something that is really not like mine. I mean, weirdly, there are similarities, right, he came from a dysfunctional family. He came from a broken family which actually my parents never split up, but there was affairs as there were in his background, obviously, obviously, obviously more terrible things happened in his childhood, including as well. Of course, he was obviously much more well in his childhood, completely much more under the public spotlight than I ever was. But there are similarities because his book is an attempt to make sense of his childhood and it's very angry, it's keen on his anger and kind of like bitterness and resentfulness and some of that is kind of leads to an interesting book, I would say, and very unusual for a member of the royal family to do that.
Speaker 3:But my position is that my background, my upbringing, which was very dominated by my mum having this affair For anyone who hasn't read the book which we most people my mum had an affair with a golfing memorabilia collector when she was in her 30s, when I was like I and my brothers were sort of early teens, and then just transformed our lives over to golf and golfing memorabilia, became the golfing memorabilia queen of north london, became obsessed with golfing memorabilia, had never, never played golf, never been interested in golf, ended up writing five books about golfing memorabilia. Our house was covered in statues of Lee Trevino I still don't know anything about golf, so that's a guess and it was like mad and obviously to do with the fact that she was having this affair which my dad somehow managed to ignore right in an extraordinary sort of feat of kind of impressive, I think, self-denial. And that's just the beginning of it. You have to read the book to really see how drill down into the detail of how this became crazy. But I see it now, certainly. I think I saw it as this very early on, even almost while it was happening, but certainly now as kind of not a subject of great rancor in me and of like I need to attack my mum for it.
Speaker 3:But there's something rich and strange and unusual and funny and hilarious and poignant, because my mum was a refugee from the Nazis when she was very young and, I think, had in her mind a very glamorous life that she would have had had it not been for Hitler, because she came from quite a rich family who by the time she was born they had lost everything.
Speaker 3:But she would have had had it not been for Hitler, because she came from quite a rich family who by the time she was born they had lost everything. But she would have known that that was where her family would have gone without the Nazis and couldn't have that anymore but tried to find it in this sort of North London suburban 1970s world and the best she could do was this golfing memorabilia guy. And for my mum, who was quite damaged by her upbringing, this involved an absolute immersion in golf memorabilia. She couldn't just like have an affair, she had to become the golfing memorabilia queen of North London and all of that is immensely dysfunctional but kind of brilliant and, yes, that is what makes my book different from Spare?
Speaker 1:It is. She's amazing. She's my new hero. She's also aspirational your story's aspirational because I'm in my 30s now and I don't intend on having an affair the picture you know, with a golfing memorabilia salesman.
Speaker 3:I would advise it leads to all sorts of complications I think every day that I'm fucking up my kids.
Speaker 1:And then I read your memoir and I was like, well, david Baddiel is a success. And his mum like look what she did. So I think my kids are going to be okay yeah, I think that's probably true.
Speaker 3:It's probably quite a good self-help book for anyone who does worry. I mean, there is another worry and I was on a show yesterday that we talked about this. I was with a comedian, russell Howard, if you know him, but he's a british comedian who's just had a kid, and we talked about something which is actually quite, I think, in a way quite a well trodden idea but let's talk about it which is that if you give your kids in reaction, say, to a dysfunctional upbringing which I think maybe I have a really lovely upbringing I don't know if they would agree, but I think they basically would. They certainly had a much better, nicer upbringing than I had, and my parents were, as well as all this, had kind of Olympian levels of neglect. You know, essentially had no idea what we were doing at any point in time because they were so busy having affairs or, in my dad's case, being angry. You know, they've had a really idyllic childhood.
Speaker 3:I think I think they would agree, and yet I guess the worry with that is like does that lead to a kind of complacency in life where you, you know, I guess, part of what I've done and being successful and all of that must be connected to. You know, whatever I've needed to do to get over my childhood, including the fact that I think it's a great and amazing childhood, but I know it's also a damaging childhood. I just think I'm a person who thinks damage is hardwired, it's priced in to the kind of person. I am right For them. They're both lovely, by the way, my children not lazy, and both want to do amazing stuff with their life. So let me be clear about that. But I guess you could say I don't know what the answer is to this, but you could say that you know you need a bit of dysfunction in your life to be an artist, I guess for sure is it perhaps too much of a step to say that this was the thing you needed to do to get over that childhood?
Speaker 3:well. So I did a show, which, in fact, I toured in Australia in 2018, which this book is a sort of it's sort of the book of the stage show although it's more than that, I think and the stage show was called my family, not the sitcom and I wrote that almost as soon as my mum died. I mean, the spur to it was the thing that happened at the funeral, but also finding the book of erotic poetry and just immediately thinking and this is a very Nora Ephron, everything is copy response thinking this is too good to not to share. But I did that show and the show was unquestionably a way of processing. I mean, it was really funny, but it was a way of processing for me that my mum died, because I think that my mum you know as, as you can tell from the book, I mean my dad too.
Speaker 3:Both of these people were very big characters. They were not small people. They were very broad, primary colours in my imagination characters, and so, whether or not they were good parents which they kind of weren't the fact was, when my mum died, it felt very disorientating to me that someone so part of my life was not there anymore and she died very suddenly in a very horrible way, and so I was, I think, trying to come to terms with that. It's the only way I knew how, which was by talking about her in a very, very, very kind of 360 degree, every single thing way, every single thing way.
Speaker 3:And there's a bit in the book where I talk about how my brothers had not been sure about that. And then my older brother came to the first show and I said afterwards, as I came out for an encore, ivor, what did you think? And he said oh, I loved it, because it felt like she was in the room and I that did feel to me like artistic and psychological job done, because that's what I was trying to do was really make this person live again, because I think I hadn't said goodbye to her properly and I think all of that was there. But I think you're probably right, dash, whilst I'm doing that, whilst I'm dealing with her death, I'm also making sense of my childhood.
Speaker 2:In that show they're also helped by quite a lot of therapy which you you speak to in the book as well.
Speaker 3:I have had quite a lot of therapy, but I wonder if the comedy has been more therapy for me than therapy if you see what I mean the comedy, partly because the comedy is that.
Speaker 3:The comedy I mean I was, I'll be honest, I was pretty funny in therapy and I think that comedy is a way of me talking to myself, about me, and especially that part of it about everything I do now on stage tends to be very personal. I've done three shows actually over the last and they've all been recorded for Sky, so hopefully they'll be coming out in Australia. I recorded them all for Sky quite recently and the first one is my family, not the sitcom. The other one is about fame, and then there's another one about social media, and the first one is my family, not the sitcom. The other one is about fame, and then there's another one about social media, and the one about social media, interestingly, is not so personal and I am able to do comedy about stuff that isn't just about me.
Speaker 3:But I like talking about me because it feels, you know I am obsessed with truth and the one thing I know I can be truthful about is that I know I can be truthful about, is that I know I can be truthful about myself, and I guess that's what therapy is as well. Dash, therapy is about trying to get to some truth about yourself which might not be immediately available to you when you're walking around. If you see what I mean, we don't actually know the truth of ourselves and it's quite hard to find it.
Speaker 1:Therapy is about all of that, and it's quite hard to find it.
Speaker 3:Therapy is about all of that and it's also about being your therapist's favourite. Yeah, that's true. I do tell a joke in the book which is true. All my jokes are basically just true things that happen to me, which is that I always found it very difficult to split up from people. I was always like both women and other relationships that I'd been in I'd always found it very difficult. Relationships that I'd been in I'd always found it very difficult. I don't really like confrontation of that sort, and so one of the things I used to talk about in therapy was how difficult it was for me to split up and how that led me to the wrong relationships in my life and to hanging on there. And after about 10 years in therapy, I realized I couldn't split up from my therapist and told her that, and they were still there for another year trying to work that out, and so, yeah, you're probably right. I'm sure that is part of it.
Speaker 2:David, in the God Desire, you describe God this way God is this, an archetype, a super projection of a parent who can be both blissful and terrifying. So what we wanted to know was do you think there's a connection between people rejecting God and religion and therefore rejecting the authoritarian or, you know, perhaps even just lackadaisical parenting that they experienced?
Speaker 3:Do you think there's a relationship between my atheism and the fact that I had this dysfunctional parental upbringing? Because I think there is. I think, so, just to be clear, the God desire, which is what I'm actually supposed to be talking about at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. I'm not sure the Festival of Dangerous Ideas quite understand the book, I'll be honest with you, because I think they think the book is about how an atheist thinks that there's many, many great lessons in religion and that's kind of too simplistic. It's really about how, my own yearning for there to be a God, my own sense that I would love there to be a God, ie, I would love to be immortal, I would love to meet my loved ones after I die, I would love there to be some kind of cosmic justice to the universe, some meaning to life, all the things that we all want. We all know we all want those things.
Speaker 3:Cs Lewis says that the fact that we have those feelings means God must exist. Otherwise why would we have them? And I think that's amazingly odd way of thinking. My way of thinking is we have those feelings and so we've invented God to answer them, to solve those yearnings. And another way of looking at it is we are children and remain children throughout our lives, even though we grow older. But in our souls we are children and what we're missing is a parent, a pet, someone who will witness us, someone who will tell us that everything will be okay, someone who, when, will provide a kind of magic sense that that our life has meaning.
Speaker 3:That's a parent does that, and we're constantly, you know, whether we have parents or whether we have dysfunctional parents, or whether we've lost our parents or whatever. We have in our mind, this super parent. I think I mean it's pretty Freudian at some level what I'm saying here, but we have this ideal of a parent who can be frightening as well, because we sort of want that. You know, we want them to be strict, as we want them to be wonderful and we want them to be all sorts of things, and God does that for us, and it's partly I think, why, you know, traditional ideas of god tend to anthropomorphize god, so that god does have a kind of human sense to to them. Anyway. It might be true I'd never thought about it, dash that my atheism is linked to not having had parents who are very godlike. It's possible.
Speaker 1:Dash and I are in our 30s. We have really small children and now it's really fashionable to not be authoritarian and to almost not be frightening or scary. But I guess there's like this movement away from religion and in the same way there's also this movement away from religion and in the same way there's also this movement away from authoritarian parenting and maybe that has. Maybe the two are linked, Like we don't want to parent our kids in the way that our parents were perhaps parented with frightening parents, in the same way that we don't want to have this notion of this frightening being who controls everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe I mean God. You know, the idea of God takes in many different things. The frightening parent is pretty Jewish ie Old Testament but you know, that's one of the things, one of the reasons why and I talk about this in the God Desire why Christianity is so much more successful than Judaism in terms of adherence and in terms of you know, I know Judaism is not an evangelical religion or a proselytizing religion, but nonetheless there's a reason why, essentially, the child that Judaism gave birth to, ie Christianity, is a much more successful religion and that is partly because it created a star, like a human being that you can relate to for your idea of god, and also one who is deeply forgiving, who is not angry all the time, and that's that's another thing. You because you want your parent to be many things, I think, and that's another idea of a parent. But I think maybe you're right about how a turning away from religion is involved with a different type of parenting. It's a really complicated idea.
Speaker 3:My dad was always cross. I describe him in the book as saying he's a man who likes food, football and shouting who the fucking hell is this now? Every time the phone rang and he was in a constant state of high irritation, aggravation in a constant state of high irritation, and I don't aggravation, aggravation, constantly. Everything was aggravation for him. He never hit us, he wasn't physically violent, but we were all frightened of him, and I think that you're not condemned to repeat the way that you were brought up. I think quite often you can go the other way, which is is, like you know, I'm pushing back against it, or even psychologically unable to be angry with my children, because it was so uncomfortable for me when my dad was angry. So maybe there are times when I should have been stricter with them, but I find it very difficult to do that.
Speaker 1:How interesting.
Speaker 3:So I think that, in terms of the God desire, that's already interesting, because there might be ways in which you project that super parent which has nothing to do with the way you were parented.
Speaker 1:In your book the God Desire, you are very upfront with the fact that you identify as a fundamentalist atheist. Yeah and I'm ashamed to admit that I have been identifying as agnostic for the past few years without really understanding what it meant now that I've read your book.
Speaker 3:It's good that you've used the phrase ashamed, to admit, though it's good that that's finally come into the podcast. To be honest, I guess I should say I'm an agnostic, because no one does know the truth of the stuff I'm talking about in the God Desire. So an agnosticism, as far as I understand it, means I just don't know if there's a God or not a God or whatever. So that's my position, but I think it's a slightly pointless position and certainly I'm writing a polemic. Jews Don't Count is much more of a polemic. By the way, the God Desire is really just a thoughtful little essay, whereas Jews Don't Count is much more of a polemic. By the way, the God Desire is really just a thoughtful little essay, whereas Jews Don't Count is a political statement. But in my philosophical essay I feel it's got more force and more power and more interest. If I take the position, which is entirely what I think, which is no, god does not exist, I sort of know that God doesn't exist and I do feel like I know it. You know what I say in the God Desire, which is I am not very bothered about long, interminable conversations about what came before the Big Bang or, you know, evolution or whatever I mean. All of that is interesting enough, but my basic reason is psychological. My basic reason is knowing just how much people want God to exist and knowing it because it's in me and because I'm a Jew and because all the rest of it, I feel it. I feel it very strongly. Most atheists don't. This is what makes this little book slightly different from books by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, which is that they like, in a very macho way, to completely dismiss religion as a waste of time. They like, in a very macho way, to completely dismiss religion as a waste of time and slightly like you know.
Speaker 3:Bertrand Russell said I scorn those who would shiver at the thought of oblivion. I think, why are you scorning them, bertrand? What do you know? Surely you are frightened of oblivion? Stop pretending that you're not. So I'm. I own the fact that I have divine yearnings within me, and in a slightly depressive way, a slightly glass-half-empty way, I think, and that means that God doesn't exist, because I know that I would love those to be fixed by God existing. For me, that is almost a proof, a bigger proof, because you can't have another proof that you know, when Stephen Hawking says that quantum events mean that creation happened without any cause and effect, that you can't think in those terms. I think, okay, maybe. I'm sure that's true, stephen, but that's not a proof for me, of course non-existence. What is a proof for me is the psychology of religion.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, even though you're atheist, you're still moved by the Jewish religion. One of the parts of this book which almost moved me to tears is when you included a quote Simon Sharma's Televised History, the Story of the Jews.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's very moving.
Speaker 1:He talks about exile of the Jews from Spain in 1492, and he says this about how the diaspora survived. There were some things that could not be taken from the Jews their language, their music, their poetry, their richly spiced, gorgeous cooking and, above all, of course, inside their heads, inside their hearts, inside their little books, inside all the things designed for portability and endurance, their religion yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3:Actually the bit I think really makes me want to cry is the bit that follows that way he talks about, about how you could hear as jews were being exiled from spain in whatever it was, in 1490. Uh, you could hear as the boats left the harbours, them singing the Shema.
Speaker 3:And it comes from a bit where I also talk about how I'm at a funeral of a child and his father, who is a man of science and an atheist, says the Kaddish. And I then I don't think I'd ever actually looked to see what it was. I quote what it means in English and in English it means the same thing that prayers always do, which is God, you're so great, god. And in English it means the same thing that prayers always do, which is God, you're so great, god, you're marvelous, thank you, god. All this stuff, that is just the endless, endless neurosis of sort of praise that we do in prayers to try and make our super parent think that we're his favorite, and that isn't moving.
Speaker 3:But what is moving, I found, is Yid Kadal, the Yid Kadash, shema Rabah, because of the pure sonics of it, the pure sound of it.
Speaker 3:It's so ancient, it so connects you, I think, with, as I say in the book, centuries of tradition and survival and defiance, and I think survival is really important in that, because I was thinking about how you know I use sometimes when I'm talking about it.
Speaker 3:I say this is why, richard Dawkins and this may be very unfair, by the way, I know Richard Dawkins, but not very well. But in my mind, the reason that Richard Dawkins cannot quite connect with what is powerful about religion and why people are so connected to religion, is because his Church of England, which is just a fairly bland default in Britain, that has had very little persecution I mean none in Britain really since the Reformation, and so there isn't this sense of struggle associated with the religion and I think you have to have a sense of struggle as an atheist to be moved by it because it is moving. It's moving that this you know, know sonic poetry this commitment to god whether or not I believe god exists, that is really a commitment to identity, to cultural identity has survived for so long against so many odds. That's what's moving me. When I'm hearing it said at a funeral, I think it's nothing to do with belief in a supernatural being.
Speaker 1:Same Samesies.
Speaker 3:That's great, I can't believe. I just said that to David Baddiel. I love that you said that, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you came up, I think in episode one or two David, this is before I'd read Jews Don't Count and Tammy kept talking about racism against Jews and I said you mean antisemitism. What is this racism against Jews? And I said you mean antisemitism Like what is this racism against Jews? And so you appeared very early on in the show Cool.
Speaker 1:I'm glad I was trying it out.
Speaker 2:Tammy was trying it on for size, and she's been doing it ever since. Actually, I think it appears every couple of episodes. So with that in mind, speak a bit more to it.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean to be honest with you. I use the phrase anti-Semitism because, much like I do a podcast called A Muslim and a Jew Go there which has been very successful actually in Britain but it's available in Australia it is In which I've talked to Saeed Avarsi, who's the Muslim in that, about the word Islamophobia and about how that's a complicated word and doesn't really describe anti-Muslim racism. But it's the word that you know the culture has coined and it's difficult to change that. And similarly with antisemitism Antisemitism is a weird word. It was invented by antisemites in Germany in the 19th century and it sometimes leads to a weird thing on the internet where people start saying, oh, it's nothing to do with Jews, because Semites are Arabs and all this nonsense. The thing about it is the reason why I in Jews Don't Count said I would prefer the term anti-Jewish.
Speaker 3:Racism is, I think, is simpler than that, which is simply that the nursery slopes of my position on anti-Semitism is that anti-Semitism is racism. It's not religious intolerance. This relates to the God desire. It hasn't been religious intolerance since the 14th century and even then I would say it has an element of racism which I can explain if you want, but it would take too long. But if you want to know how I know, that's true, I'm an atheist, as I've been saying on this podcast for a number of times. And yet that would make no difference, I can promise you, to the Gestapo, and it would also make no difference to the white supremacists in America. Chanting the Jews will not replace us. They would not ask if I kept kosher before burning down my house, and that demonstrates very clearly that antisemitism is nothing to do with religion.
Speaker 3:But if you call this category of hate something different from racism, people start to think well, it must be to do with something else. And because Jewishness is involved with religion, people think well, it's obviously religious intolerance. And the trouble is that religious intolerance is a much lesser crime and also a misunderstanding of what that category of hate is. But I do use it because that's the word that people use. I find it very complex.
Speaker 3:I do find it very complex and it happens still now all the time that during the height of the Corbyn years, there was always this thing of saying we stand against anti-Semitism and all other racisms and I always thought that setting anti-Semitism in a position where it's sort of not one of these racisms and different from it and, like all racisms, there are differences. Racisms, there are differences. There are differences in the way people hate Jews and the way that racists hate black people and indeed, the way that homophobia people hate gay people. Whatever, there are differences, but it is a form of racism and calling it a different word is problematic. So that's why Tammy was doing it, because she'd read my book, in which I'd said that, but it doesn't mean that I don't use the phrase.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you for explaining that, because I tried to in season one and I butchered it. So I'm glad that we have the man himself.
Speaker 3:Okay, I mean, I personally would prefer to say anti-Jewish racism definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But in the end I use the words interchangeably.
Speaker 1:Very good.
Speaker 2:On the topic of Jews Don't Count. That book came out in 2021, but since October the 7th, what you've had to say in that book has proved, I think, to be all too prescient here in Australia and no doubt, for you in the UK. So I was just wanting to know a little bit about how you've looked on at events, perhaps in your own country, with your own Jewish communities, and you know, no doubt, what you've heard about other Jewish communities around the world and the types of attacks that they've been under and experienced since October 7th.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I mean, a lot of people have said to me that they found the book very prescient and kind of prophetic, and I think it kind of has been in terms of the way that the world particularly has not been that bothered about the intimidation of Jews, about Jews feeling frightened and being attacked and all the rest of it around the world since October the 7th, that there's been this sort of sense of well, that's to be expected and understandable, given the war in the Middle East. And what's very complicated about that in terms of my book is, as I'm sure you know, the book has a very small section about Israel, and that in itself is mimetic of something that I feel, which is that anti-Jewish racism should not be seen as purely incumbent upon or related to what happens in the Middle East, and that that itself is a Jews don't count phenomenon, that most minorities would not be in the position of constantly having to square who they are in Australia or Britain or America or whatever with what's happening in, as it were, their heritage country. So I mean this is a point that I'm sure you've heard me many times but a British Chinese person, my friend, phil Wang the comedian, is not someone who I or any progressive person would ever go up to and say can I just find out how you feel about what the Chinese government are doing with the Uyghurs at the moment? You know how do you feel about that? And his answer would somehow or other prove whether or not he was an acceptable person to you know. Carry on having a conversation with. But that is the case for Jews, that Jews have to sort of say how they feel all the time about Netanyahu or whoever it might be Jews around the world I'm talking about here. But it seems to me like that conversation has become mad.
Speaker 3:Now I mean, I did the thing which I don't normally do immediately after October 7th, which is I did speak about my own feelings about it, my own feelings about it. I normally don't comment about Israel because I think that's part of the problem is that Jews are expected first and foremost to be talking about Israel. But I felt it was a complicated thing, actually really interesting, but very complicated emotionally and intellectually which is to do with I can perhaps explain it this way the book had in fact not come out in Israel, and then it did come out in Israel after October the 7th, and I was doing an interview with Haaretz and I said has it not come out in Israel before this? Because, basically, israelis are pissed off that it's a book that refuses to show deep allegiance to Israel and essentially positions myself as not very bothered either way about what happens in Israel. I'm interested in anti-Semitism and for me anti-Semitism is not defined by a country, for that, whatever. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 3:And the journalist said, very interestingly, he said no, I think it's because your book is about proving to the world, to the wider world, that Jews are a proper minority and in Israel they're not a minority, right, and I thought, oh, I never thought about that. And then I said, okay, but it's come out now. So do you think it's come out now? Because, actually, since October the 7th, even Israeli Jews feel like a minority. That October the 7th has proved something to Israeli Jews, which is that they are Jewish. You see what I mean.
Speaker 3:That's a very complicated thing to say by which I mean Jewish in the long tunnel of violence that Jews have to deal with, and extermination and dehumanization and all the rest of it, which is perhaps something that Jews in Israel didn't quite feel in the way that European Jews have, you know, australian Jews with European roots or whatever. I don't know whether that's true, but he said maybe. He said maybe. So I think it's a really complicated relationship. I haven't really changed my basic position, which is that I continue to be someone for whom Israel does not dominate my Jewishness, but I do absolutely feel for what happened to them and I do also think, yeah, what's happening around the world is an example of Jews not counting.
Speaker 2:David. Since October 7th, there has been a shocking level of hypocrisy from parts of the political left in this country, and no doubt in yours, with regard to the acceptance and tolerance of discrimination and hatred directed towards Jewish communities, but I'd expect that this is something that you anticipated and have seen coming for a number of years. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I mean, it's much more, it's more intense Dash. And also, on the other hand, I think that a lot of what's happened in Israel and Gaza has been, I think, israel have conducted the war very, very badly, both morally and politically. That doesn't mean that I don't think israel has a right to defend itself from attack, but I think from an ongoing point of view, I just think, like, what the fuck is what I think? Yeah, to be honest with you, I don't like talking about it that much. I talk about it more than I used to because of the podcast, because of not your podcast because of mus Muslim and the Jew, and I'm constantly forced on that podcast to talk about fucking the Middle East. But actually, here's what I think and I have said this before, but I think it's interesting is I think I know what I want to say about antisemitism.
Speaker 3:I know how it works, and my project in that book is deconstructing the anti-semitic mindset, and I'm pretty good at that.
Speaker 3:What I am not particularly good at is solving a terrible geopolitical humanitarian crisis that is goes back years and years and years in the middle east and that has involved many people dying, and I have no solutions for right, and so sometimes, when that's another thing when people ask me about Israel, I think why are you asking me about? I don't know? I literally don't know. All I know is that I don't think Jews in your country, in my country or whatever are responsible for what happens there, but I think that we sort of are considered still to be, and that's what I think is really dysfunctional. Okay, I'll tell you one other thing. I haven't really said this out loud, but I sometimes notice that people want me to say more stuff about this, but where am I saying it? And the answer would be they want me to say it on Twitter, on X, and I'll be honest with you, the last year or so, I've thought I'm stopping saying much.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can understand.
Speaker 3:I basically have. I said some stuff immediately after October the 7th, but now I mainly post jokes, stuff about my book and cat videos, because I think it's just not a useful space to have complex conversations. I look at it and I think, right, I mean, obviously it's always been this, but now, times 100 since Elon took it over, it's just people shouting at each other and I cannot see how that's useful, and I particularly can't see how it's useful with really complicated stuff. So I don't I don't tend to say very much on that platform anymore.
Speaker 1:I'd love to send David and you, dash, because you haven't seen this the outcome of when I asked ai to create an image of david baddiel oh heavens, have you sent it to me? Oh, hang on, just come tammy, okay, yeah so the prompt was comedian david baddiel, surrounded by antique toys, kitsch, golf, paraphernalia, godly clouds, jewish religious symbolism and cats, and what has it created?
Speaker 3:Well, that I mean I wouldn't say it isn't. That I mean first. I mean I always think this when I see AI images of me is I look like other people? I look like the comedian Mark Watson, I look a bit like the hypnotherapist Paul McKenna. That doesn't look to be like me. And also, why am I wearing a weird tie?
Speaker 1:Okay, Not only that, but where is the Jewish paraphernalia David?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's some money at the front.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 3:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 3:Why is?
Speaker 1:that Not a single menorah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No Shabbat candles. Just money.
Speaker 3:I mean also. There seems to be a big dildo next to the money.
Speaker 1:I didn't even mention your mum, and it's just. Yeah, no, that is very, very odd, yeah, spooky.
Speaker 3:Because you might say well, maybe they ran out, but there's cats. Yeah, I don't know why that is. I mean AI. I mean people are generally saying this. I think that AI, which of course draws on the internet, which is a hotbed of stereotypes, and all the rest of it is going to be anti-Semitic.
Speaker 1:Racist against Jews David.
Speaker 3:Racist against Jews. So yeah, I wonder if that money is there.
Speaker 1:for that reason We'll pop this on Instagram for our listeners David you do have to go. We didn't get a chance to talk about cats, which is a shame because that's where you admitted that you actually do. Perhaps the only time you might believe in God is when you look at your cat. Any cat.
Speaker 3:Almost any cat, almost any cat that I look at. I am so overwhelmed by the beauty of cats that I I mean I use god sometimes. John updike, my favorite writer, who was he was a believer, but he does this as well is he often uses god to essentially mean a sort of sense of the divine that you have as a human being. For me, I definitely have that. I have a sense of the divine, and primarily with cats, I would say. I mean sometimes with a beautiful piece of music or whatever, but mainly with cats. And, yeah, I am enthralled to the beauty of cats.
Speaker 1:So you don't use God when you have gastro and you want it to be a diarrhea and not a vomit.
Speaker 3:Interesting. I actually don't think I do pray to god at moments of crisis. I might say out loud I want this. That's a really hideous example, but I I might say that, but I don't know if I would say, please, god, make this this type of poo rather than that type of poo. Um, I don't think I would do that, but I haven't. I might say out loud oh God, I really don't want this to be happening, but I don't actually mean it in terms of God. I don't have a sense of that person or that being, but I do get moved in a way that feels to me. I mean, I've got to use the word spiritual. All of these things are just metaphors. I do not feel, when I use the word spiritual, that I have a soul. Or indeed, when I use the word soul, which I also use, I sometimes say I feel this in my soul.
Speaker 1:These are all metaphors for, you know, just feeling stuff very deeply I've mentioned this on the show before that I pray to god that if I have gastro, it comes out as diarrhea and not because you've got emetophobia yeah. I assumed everyone had it.
Speaker 3:Well, I would rather have the shit than vom yeah myself. That is true, but only up to a point. You're not a psychopath, only up to a point, you know I mean. That's the thing, like if I was going to vom once but the other alternative was being on the toilet for, say, three days.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I think I prefer the vom. This is why you're a philosopher. I've never thought about it like that before. Thank you so much out of all the questions that I asked you tonight, that's the one I'm gonna go away and think about the most. I've been doing it wrong.
Speaker 3:Great, let's go out on that.
Speaker 2:That's something to think about. Thanks, david, enjoy your time in Australia.
Speaker 3:Thank you guys, that was great.
Speaker 2:That's it for Episode 13,. Our third episode for season two of a shame to admit, with tammy and me, dash lawrence, this is a tji podcast today's episode was mixed and edited by nick king, with music by donovan janks and chutney the link to the TJI quiz that we mentioned before is in the show notes and, if you like the podcast, we'd love it if you left a positive review online, shared it in your WhatsApp groups or told the other parents at pick up tomorrow afternoon when you go get the kids.
Speaker 1:If you're ashamed to admit something, send us a voice memo. Email it to ashamed at thejewishindependentcomau.
Speaker 2:As always. Thanks for your support and look out for us next Tuesday. You're toxic. I'm slipping under With the taste of the poison paradise.
Speaker 1:I'm addicted to you. Don't you know that? You're toxic and I love what you do. Don't you know that?
Speaker 3:you're toxic and I love what you do. Don't you know that you're toxic? It's getting late to give you up.