Episode 306: Counting Jews (with David Baddiel)

Summary

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

Release Date: May 4, 2026
Hosts: Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog
Special Guest: David Baddiel

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Overview

In this episode, Jesse and Katie dive deep into the complexities of antisemitism, Jewish identity, and the shifting politics around discussions of Israel—centering the conversation on a recent controversy at comedy streaming service Dropout TV, which faced criticism for allegedly "platforming Zionists." British comedian and author David Baddiel joins Jesse for an extensive conversation about his influential book Jews Don't Count, the nuances of modern antisemitism, and the fraught intersection of Jewishness, power, and progressive politics.
The episode is both analytical and personal, blending humor, cultural critique, and candid reflection on what it means to be Jewish in the UK, US, and online.

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Main Sections & Key Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Banter, Houses, and Recent Episodes

[00:11–05:15]

• Jesse and Katie open with friendly ribbing about Jesse's living situation in Berkeley, Bay Area stereotypes, and online privacy concerns brought on by internet sleuths.
• They transition to recap a recent "primo" (premium) episode about Dropout TV, setting up the current episode’s topic: how a small, vocal subset of the Dropout audience ignited a firestorm about "Zionist" performers after the October 7 attacks in Israel.
• Tone: Characteristic sardonic banter and mutual teasing, warming up for the heavier discussion to follow.

2. Dropout TV’s Zionism Controversy

[05:15–09:36]

• The hosts summarize how Dropout TV, known for progressive comedy, was criticized by a subset of its audience for allegedly platforming "Zionists," after two Jewish performers had tangential associations with Israel (one performed at a Tel Aviv hospital fundraiser, another referenced a family connection to Israel's founding).
• Dropout TV responded with an Instagram post essentially stating “to our knowledge, no individual who has appeared on Dropout has openly identified as a Zionist”—a statement later deleted after outcry from the Jewish community.
• Jesse found the statement "insane," viewing it as an example of the “Jews don’t count” phenomenon.
• This prompts him to invite David Baddiel, whose book is directly relevant, for a wide-ranging conversation.

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3. Interview with David Baddiel

[09:37–68:45] (Bulk of the episode)

A. Introduction & Jews Don’t Count Thesis

[09:37–15:43]

• Jesse introduces David Baddiel, humorously listing his many roles: “actor, writer, comedian, broadcaster, author, dancer, model, actress, statesman, former prime minister...”
• Baddiel summarizes the thesis of Jews Don’t Count: that in an era of identity politics and increasing sensitivity to marginalization, antisemitism is strangely discounted, especially on the progressive left.
• Not active, “I hate Jews” antisemitism, but the subtler form of exclusion and neglect: “...they cared about, except for Jews.” (C [10:50])
• Baddiel reflects on being thrust into the unofficial position of “King Jew” in the UK media since the book's release, and how few Jews are visibly open about their identity in Britain.

Notable Quote [11:53]:
“It’s not about active antisemitism... it’s more about people missing out Jews from the plate of things that we care about, things that we want to look at and ally ourselves to.” —David Baddiel

B. Comparative Jewish Experiences (UK vs. US)

[15:43–19:55]

• Jesse and Baddiel discuss differences between American and British Jewry:
  • US: Denser populations, greater organizational power, representation in media.
  • UK: Only ~275,000 Jews, many closeted about Jewish identity due to a culture of reticence.
• Jesse describes discomfort that “the public face” of Jews is often the most visibly Orthodox, which affects perceptions of Jewishness.
• Baddiel emphasizes antisemitism is not about practicing religion—“Nazis ... do not care whether you pray or go to synagogue. ...It’s racism.” ([19:44])
• Modern antisemitism often centers not on ancient blood libels, but beliefs in Jewish power and conspiracy: “our ostensible puppet mastering of global policy.” (B [19:55])

C. Jewish “Power” and the Progressive Blind Spot

[20:18–27:24]

• Baddiel: Jews are uniquely stereotyped as both “low status” (classic racism) and simultaneously as “rich and powerful and puppet-mastering.”
• Jesse opens up about his own experience: feeling a tension between collective trauma and the reality that American Jews are very “successful” in some fields.
• Baddiel acknowledges American Jewish success but points out:
  • “Money does not insulate you” (his own family lost everything fleeing Nazi Germany).
  • This success does not justify erasure or rationalization of antisemitism: “You would never downplay a bias incident against an Asian or Hindu because they are powerful.” (B [26:09, 26:16])

D. The “Israel Question” and Jewish Identity

[27:24–38:33]

• Jesse notes a “refreshing” line from Baddiel’s book:

  “I kind of think fuck Israel. I don’t care about it more than any other country. And to assume that I have to have a strong position either way on Israel is racist.” (C [27:24])

• Baddiel unpacks how non-Jewish progressives hold Jews uniquely responsible for Israel’s actions—an expectation not applied to other diasporic groups (“You’d never shout about Modi to a British Hindu comic.” [30:08])
• Asserts: “Please treat Jews like you treat other minorities, progressives.” (C [31:34])
• Baddiel’s personal history: He attended socialist Zionist youth camp “mainly for the girls,” but has little emotional attachment to Israel as a homeland—Britain feels more like “home and sanctuary.” (C [33:54–36:13])

E. The Assimilation Dilemma & The Internet’s Role in Hate

[38:33–43:41]

• Discussion of “dual loyalty” and whether Israel can realistically be a “sanctuary” for Jews, especially for assimilated British or American Jews.
• Both Jesse and Baddiel agree: their countries of residence (US/UK) are undeniably “home,” and moving to Israel as a bunker is both impractical and not a solution to antisemitism.
• Baddiel: The postwar liberal multiculturalism model may be “the best hope” for Jews—but is increasingly threatened by internet-fueled extremism and conspiratorial thinking.
• “The Internet has fucked that. ...Hate and rage...are turbocharged.” (C [40:30])

F. The Dropout TV Statement: Antisemitism or Not?

[43:41–56:42]

• Jesse reads the Dropout TV post in full (see quote at [46:24]) and asks Baddiel to evaluate if it’s antisemitic.
• Baddiel: The performative, “Stalinist courtroom style” of demanding Jews disclaim Zionism before being allowed into polite company is unique and troubling.

“You have to sort of cleanse yourself up front... That’s a Stalinist thing.” (C [46:24])

• Other diasporic groups are never subject to such litmus tests—singling out Jews in this way is an example of “Jews don’t count.”
• Admits it’s complicated: Criticism of Israel as a state isn’t inherently antisemitic, nor is opposing the existence of a Jewish ethno-nationalist state—but the slide into using “Zionist” as a catch-all slur for “Jew” is toxic, and context matters.

Notable Quote [49:13]:
“That Jews have to sort of say up front... ‘I’m Jewish, but I don’t support blah blah blah,’ which is absurd.” —David Baddiel

G. Double Standards, Rhetorical Moves, and Jewish Voices

[56:42–68:02]

• The hosts and Baddiel parse the receding space for Jewish representation in comedy and culture—a far cry from Jewish dominance of US comedy in the past.
• Discuss the perverse “hierarchy of racism” in progressive spaces, where “Jewish suffering” ranks low due to conflation of Jews with “whiteness” and power.
• Analyze a quote from musician Julian Casablancas (“American Zionists get the benefits of white privilege...”), as an example of rhetorical “power times three”—White + American + Zionist.

“That’s how you say that... a group... under threat [is] embarrassed and silenced about the fact of that threat.” (C [67:44])

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4. Host Debrief and Reflections

[68:45–76:52]

Katie’s Take:

• Katie admits some uncertainty: The “Zionist test” is ill-defined; many American Jews would be included by even a moderate definition. “By that definition, am I a Zionist? ...I completely oppose Benjamin Netanyahu. But Israel exists, it does exist. And I like Jews. I think I’m a Zionist by that definition.” (A [70:49])
• Points out the chilling effect: “If you say put out a statement like this and Jews self-select out off of your channel, you’re going to have a content problem, folks.” (A [73:16])

Jesse’s Closing Thoughts:

• Reiterates: “I’m not saying criticism of Israel or even Zionism as an ideal is anti Semitic. I’m saying something that places such a specific unfair Burden and unfair scrutiny on Jews... is.”
• Draws an analogy: This would never be accepted if applied to Muslims, Hindus, Arabs, or any other minority group; the standard is uniquely, and unfairly, applied to Jews.
• Notes that Dropout TV’s lack of transparency, and their failure to define or clarify their policy, contributes to the unease and alienation of Jewish performers.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On excluding Jews from the progressive “circle of care”:

  “It’s about people missing out Jews from the plate of things that we care about.” —David Baddiel [10:50]

• On how antisemitism uniquely persists despite Jewish assimilation/success:

  “We are the only minority who have an association with power.” —David Baddiel [20:18]

• On the “cleansing” ritual some Jews feel obliged to perform:

  “As a Jew now... you have to put your cards on the table and say, I don’t support the state of Israel, I’m not a Zionist before you’re allowed in sort of polite liberal conversation.” —David Baddiel [46:24]

• On progressives’ expectation of Jews to answer for Israel in ways other minorities are not:

  “We definitely want to have black comedians. ...There should be a Jewish space for Jewish comedy. ...That’s Jews not counting. Right.” —David Baddiel [62:08]

• Jesse on why the Dropout policy feels “anti Semitic”:

  “It places an undue burden and undue scrutiny on Jewish performers.” —Jesse [71:58]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [09:37] — Interview with David Baddiel begins
• [27:24] — Discussion of “Fuck Israel” quote and the dangers of conflating Jewish identity with the Israeli state
• [46:24] — Reading and critique of Dropout TV’s “Zionist” policy statement
• [49:13] — “You have to cleanse yourself up front...” (on the unique burden placed on Jews)
• [62:08] — “There should be a Jewish space for Jewish comedy...” (on Jews being excluded from the marginalized/minority status)
• [70:49] — Katie wrestles with the definition of Zionism and solidarity
• [71:58] — Jesse summarizes the core problem: undue burden on Jews in public/professional life

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Memorable Moments

• Jesse and Baddiel both compare the expectation that Jews see Israel as their “sanctuary” as unrealistic and alienating.
• Baddiel’s humor about being “King Jew” in Britain and his Twitter bio simply reading “Jew.”
• Baddiel’s observation: “...the Jewish side wants to get angry and the British side wants to not make a fuss.” (C [17:44])
• Katie’s dry quip: “If you say put out a statement like this and Jews self-select out off of your channel, you’re going to have a content problem, folks.” (A [73:16])
• The running joke: “Jews don’t count.” (Multiple timestamps, including [76:51])

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Conclusion

Blocked and Reported Episode 306 delivers a rigorous, personal, and at times biting discussion on antisemitism’s evolving forms, the double standards of progressive politics, and the social minefield navigated by Jews in the Western world today. Through a frank and often funny conversation with David Baddiel, the hosts lay bare the unique pressures placed on Jews to defend or denounce Israel, the problematic use of “Zionist” as a stand-in for “Jew,” and the ways in which the drive for justice and equity sometimes overlooks—or even promotes—prejudice against one of history’s most persistent minorities.

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For more, including the deep-dive into Dropout TV’s history and further reflections, listen to the full episode or check out Blocked and Reported’s premium/primo content at blockedandreported.org.

Transcript

[A]

All right, Jesse, so today is your last day at your San Francisco. Wait, Berkeley? Are you in Berkeley?

[B]

You know, it's like you don't even know me. I have. Yeah. I've been in Berkeley for the last few months.

[A]

You seem like more of a Berkeley guy. You've been staying in.

[B]

Hold on, expand upon that.

[A]

You're a dork.

[B]

As opposed to, like, the super cool people of San Francisco.

[A]

You don't do fentanyl.

[B]

Not that I know of.

[A]

Tech. And you're not in a polycarbonate.

[B]

Not that you know of.

[A]

So Oakland is out. Yeah. So you've been in Berkeley for the

[B]

last couple of years. Wait, you're saying Berkeley doesn't have poly. Sorry. Okay, well, we can move on. I was. My pride is slightly wounded, but we'll move on.

[A]

Okay. When I think of Oakland, though, I think of A, black people. You're not that. And B, like, queer, anarchist polycule types. You're not in a queer polycule. You in a normal polycule. Which is. By that, I mean that you've been renting a room in Ayla's apartment, right?

[B]

I have not. I. I have not rented a room in Ayla's apartment. I. I mean, you're. You're somewhat correct. Oakland. Oakland is a lot of things, Katie. It's a lot of things. And some of the. Obviously, some of the. Some of the. Some of the freakiness extends into Berkeley, but. Yeah. Today is my last day. After we finish recording this, I will pack my stuff up and throw my laptop in the ocean and come back to New York.

[A]

And you have been so. I've gotten a glimpse of this apartment that you've been staying in for the last several months because of our. Our many Zoom chats, and I just.

[B]

We like to do, like, a Zoom chat, check in just to see how each other is doing separate from the podcast. Every day.

[A]

Usually, you know, when we're talking on the phone, which we occasionally have to do for the business, oftentimes I'm with Jana, because I'm almost always with Jana, and most. And she'll do. This thing drives me crazy. We'll be talking on the phone and she'll be mouthing. Ask him how he is.

[B]

Ask him how he is. First of all, that's. That's very Jana. It's also just like. There's so many layers to this, because it's something you would. You would never do. It's something Janet would always do. It's also like if someone's mouthing something, you think they have a Very specific question. It's like, ask him if it's. If it's chilly there. I want to know if it's chilly.

[A]

Just be nice. Be nice to him.

[B]

How's her finger? She crushed her finger.

[A]

Crushed. She did crush her finger, but she didn't have to have surgery, so that was good.

[B]

That's good.

[A]

Anyway, back to your apartment. So I've been fascinated with this apartment because it's got what it looks like, really nice crown molding. It looks like a real adult's apartment. Like an adult with like a 401k, life insurance, a family.

[B]

These are all things we have except for the family. We have all these things thanks to me.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You're the provider, but my daddy.

[A]

I am the provider. Yes. So I want to. With your permission, I would like to take a photo, share a screenshot on our show, notes of this apartment that you've been staying in, and then get

[B]

sued for some kind of copyright claim from the landlord. Yeah, it's fine with me. I was.

[A]

I think you can have a copyright. I don't think that's how copyright.

[B]

Well, we.

[A]

Go ahead.

[B]

We've made mistakes on that front in the past. That's fine with me. I'm a little bit worried about stalkers. Well, I was many stalkers. No, I was. I think it's fair that you had asked to do this before. And I was like, I still live here. Don't do it yet. Now that I'm leaving. Sure.

[A]

Because you thought that somebody was gonna be able to figure out where you live based on the crown molding.

[B]

Well, no, based on. There's like, all it takes is one angle. Kiwi farms, as have I. I don't think they would be the ones who would attempt to murder me. But like, there's freaks out there. There's freaks out there who. If you. If you left in the image the reflection of a single leaf from a single tree in like a picture frame, they would be able to figure out where it was.

[A]

So there is a. Very impressive. I'm sure you've seen this. I can't remember the account name, but this guy who does these like geo. Geo locating things based on very, very little information. He can figure out what the world you are. Yeah.

[B]

I could tell from the viscosity of the saliva on your lip in this photo that you're in Southern Idaho.

[A]

Exactly. Okay, so you guys, if you want to check out this very fancy looking apartment that Jesse's been. Although you said it's kind of shitty, right? It's like Everything.

[B]

It's not Katie. Okay, this is what. This is also what I'm worried about. I. It's not shitty. It's. It's wonderful. And what do you complain about there were it Shut. Stop. Imagine Jana mouthing at you right now. Shut the fuck up. Which she would never do.

[A]

Oh, she would.

[B]

Katie, you may have heard that wealthy communities do not like to make a lot of short term housing available, or long term housing for that matter. So there's not a ton of options in Berkeley. And I sort of like the idea of like, who knows if I will maybe coming back here. So I need to maintain a good relationship with the purveyor of this fine establishment, whatever issues may have arisen over the months. How's that? Does that make sense?

[A]

I stop listening.

[B]

Okay, people, let me know in chat what you think of the image of where I live. I designed all the stuff. This is all stuff I bought in my travels around the world.

[A]

Okay, what are we talking about today?

[B]

You thank God we'll not be doing much talking. This is a episode that is sort of overlapping with our last primo episode. Katie, what was our last primo episode about?

[A]

Okay, so this one was 135 minutes long and it was.

[B]

Well, you don't know yet because you're still editing it. It could. You might do a really tight job.

[A]

I. I might. I'm going to get it down to 13 minutes. It was about a comedy streaming company called Dropout, which is an outgrowth of college humor. And it's about the long history of college humor. And dropout. Is it dropout.com?

[B]

dropout TV?

[A]

Dropout TV. Dropout TV or dropout TV?

[B]

Just call. Just imagine Jana making like a move. Move it along. Motion. I gotta get out of here. I gotta pack.

[A]

You know her well and it's so lot of history in there. And then it's about two particular controversies, political controversies led by their psychotic fans online. When they have misstepped, they have violated some taboo.

[B]

And to be clear, we. One of the things we talk about. I don't want to denigrate all their fans is crazy. I only want to denigrate some of their fans is crazy. A subset of their fans. Dropout TV is a left coded show, which is fine, although mostly it's just, I think, very funny stuff. This was a primo episode and not everyone will have listened to the whole thing. The key thing in the episode was I convinced you this was very funny. Funny. So you laughed a lot and we had to cut around. That did not we had to cut around it.

[A]

That's not what happened.

[B]

Subset of the fans are very, very intense about politics and are constantly aggrieved that this streaming improv channel is not political enough or is not political in the right ways. And so the. The ultras, as I called them, were mad after October 7th that a couple of the performers who appeared on Dropout tv, not the regular cast, but guess, were. Were quote, unquote, Zionists. And if you listen to the Primo. I mean it.

[A]

First of all, they were mad because they were evangelical Christians who are waiting for the second coming of Jesus.

[B]

They just. They just snuck onto this improv show somehow. I know these are Jewish performers who. One of whom had performed at a fundraiser in. In la, I think, for a hospital in Tel Aviv that was treating victims of October 7th. The other one had at one point said that his grandfather had helped found Israel, but was also clearly not like a fan of killing Palestinians. So it was this witch hunt. And a petition was launched. And the petition was just crazy. It was really crazy. Especially again, in the context of you are mad at an online improv channel and you should just listen to the Primo episode if you want to get the full details of that. What matters if you're a freeloader, if you're on the free feed, is that Dropout TV responded to this actually very small wave of anger from their ultras by posting an announcement to Instagram that read in part. We've seen people saying that Dropout is platforming Zionists recently, and we feel it is important to respond. To our knowledge, no individual who has appeared on Dropout has openly identified as a Zionist. That was subsequently deleted because there was a wave of outrage from the other side. But I found it insane. I found this statement to be anti Semitic and just. Just crazy. And it made me remember that there was this guy I had met, this brilliant British broadcaster and writer and comedian named David Badil, and he'd written a book called Jews Don't Count. And this made me think of the Jews Don't Count thesis. So I read his book and I wanted to talk to David Bedeel. And I was thinking we would do an episode, you and I, about the Dropout thing and maybe include like, you know, 15, 20 minutes of me going over this with Badil. But I really like the conversation with Bad Deal because we talk about this, we talk about other aspects of just being Jewish and what's right, what's fair, anti Zionism, anti Semitism, circumcision. I just thought it Was a good conversation. Circumcision. Should we be allowed to circumcise other people's kids without their consent? You know, just the normal stuff Jews talk about when no one else is around. So that's today's episode. Katie, anything you want to add as the token gentile with the Jewish last name or Jewish seemingly last name?

[A]

No. Let's meet here after the interview and debrief.

[B]

Okay, I'll see you. I'll see you there.

[A]

Okay, bye.

[B]

David Bedil, you are an actor, writer, comedian, broadcaster, author, dancer, model, actress, statesman, former prime minister. So, of course, I'm having you on to discuss a minor controversy from 2024. Thank you for joining us.

[C]

My pleasure. Yeah, I am all those things. Of course.

[B]

Of course.

[C]

I think you missed out. Professional soccer player.

[B]

I forgot about your time in the. In the epl, which was. What's the word? Caps. How many caps did you have?

[C]

I have 2,000 caps.

[B]

2,000 caps. All right. So for our purposes, matters the most about your incredible Resume is a 2021 book called Jews Don't Count. How Identity Politics Failed One Particular Identity. The title nicely sums up the argument of the book, your basic thesis. Tell me if I'm getting this wrong. At a time of ever growing awareness of bigotry and attempts to counteract bigotry, even in its more subtle forms. And again, 2021 is. When you write this, your argument is that anti Semitism seems to not really count. People make excuses for it. They explain it away. They claim Jews aren't actually a vulnerable group. Anything you would add to that summary of the book before we dive into this particular incident?

[C]

No, that's basically correct. It's sort of targeted at progressives. I think that that has slightly shifted in terms of who is anti Semitic and who is responsible for Jews not counting since then. I think it's a wider net than it was in 2021. But the book was kind of specifically about the fact that I wrote at a time when progressives seem to me to be, you know, quadruplings. Their concern about offensiveness and racism and the worries about marginalization of various groups. Huge smorgasbord of groups that they cared about, except for Jews. And. And really the book describes the kind of neglect. It's a weird book to some extent in that it's not about. It's not much about active anti Semitism, as it were, people saying I hate Jews. It's more about people missing out Jews from the. Yeah. The plate of things that we care about, things that we want to look at and ally ourselves to.

[B]

When we were talking before I hit record, you said that you actually been turning down a surge of interview requests on that. Could. Could you just talk about that a little bit?

[C]

Well, that's just to do with me. So basically the book came out here and I'd always been quite. So one of the small side effects of Jews don't count. There are many side. It had many effects, actually. One was to make me like King Jew in Britain.

[B]

King Jewel.

[C]

Well, by King Jew, I specifically mean. I don't mean I got invited to a lot of sedanites. I mean, although I did. What I mean is that whenever there was a discussion to be had about anti Semitism, which became very live in Britain, especially after Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party and then not the leader of the Labour Party, I was then the first person like, who you going to call? Basically, if you've got an item on your news program about Jews, it would.

[B]

Someone flashes a Star of David in the London night sky and you have to pick up.

[C]

Exactly, exactly. I'm the Jew man. And, you know, Commissioner Cohen immediately calls me and all the rest of it. And that was okay for a bit. And then I got kind of bored of it and sort of fed up with it and felt I'd said everything I knew I wanted to say about it. But I, I also, I. I'd never been like, in the closet. And that's an interesting thing about Jews in Britain, is that there aren't that many Jews in Britain. And the ones that are, quite a lot of them are in the closet. They like. And lots of people wrote to me after it came out and said, oh, I've never really, like, come out with it. And I've always been a tiny bit ashamed of it and I've Tiny bit like, don't want to tell people I'm Jewish. And I've read your book. And now.

[B]

So these are, these are folks like Idris Elba sending you an email being like, I'm actually Jewish. I never told anyone. I feel comfortable now.

[C]

I'm yet to find the one from Idris, perhaps that went to spam, but. But yes, yeah, quite a lot of people saying that. Quite a lot of people discovering their Jewishness or whatever. So I, I mean, when I. Which feels foolish now, considering it is an absolute seventh circle of hell of anti Semitism. But when I joined Twitter in 2009, my bio, I decided was just gonna be one word, Jew. And it remains that because I am I. People say, oh, you're very proud about B Juice. I'm not, I'm just absolutely not in the closet about being Jewish. Not just like, I'm not in the closet about anything about myself. So I was, I'm always entirely happy to talk about it, but actually I tend to turn it down. Now I'm only doing this for two reasons. One, I, you know, met you a while ago in London with our friend Jonathan Ross, and I thought it'd be interesting to talk to you about it. And number two, it's America and I'm less well known in America and the book is less well known in America, although It's sold like 50,000 copies in America, which is pretty good considering that, you know, I don't think it's got a proper release there. I think it's just people buying it because they've heard about it. So I basically say I'm doing so we can. Yeah, I'm basically saying I'm doing it to plug the book in America in a way I don't need to do in Britain.

[B]

There's a level of transparency to this that I really appreciate it. I made a joke before we hit record about giving you exposure because you are extremely famous over there. But I'm glad, hopefully this will help a little bit because I, I mean, I'll explain to you what prompted me to read it, but it got me thinking about stuff. It's a little bit different in the States. I grew up in a northeast suburb that's actually quite Jewish. It's like a town of a hundred thousand. It's about a third Jewish. We have, you know, we're a small minority, but we are overrepresented. I hope that's not anti Semitic to say in some corners of the US and we have sort of well organized rights groups and professional organizations. So the idea of, it's interesting to me, the idea that you would become King Jew because that's like a crowded field in the US and we have a lot of representation.

[C]

But yeah, we really, I mean, for a start, there are 275,000 Jews in the UK, right? I mean, in the whole country. I mean, as you know, when Joe Rogan, I believe, said recently that he thought there were like 2 billion Jews or something in the world, people think there are more Jews than they are because there's too much talk about Jews, there's too much focus on Jews and there are too many quite well known Jews globally, most of them American. And so people think there are a lot of Jews, but there are, there are 15 million Jews in the world, and very few of them are in the uk. So it's a tiny community. A lot of whom don't. Don't go on about being Jewish because they're slightly embarrassed about it. That's to also do with the whole English thing, where sort of going on about anything about yourself is sort of considered a bit weird. So. So there's that. But yeah, I mean, if you ask people in Britain who's Jewish, they'd name like me and the chief rabbi.

[B]

That's. That's a crazy role to have to inhabit. Do you get an. I think. I can't remember. This comes up in your book. I think it does. I remember one time I was in North London, which is like a very. Or is in a very orthodox part of North London. Like, everyone's visibly Jewish. Everyone's visibly.

[C]

Stamford Hill, was it.

[B]

I believe. I believe that's where it was. And I've had this same feeling also, like in other parts of Europe where I. Where I'm in the tiny pockets of like, religious Jews, the few that weren't butchered in a forest somewhere. I don't like the idea that for much of the world, when they think of a Jew, they think of a guy with a long beard, wearing whatever, praying. I just hate the idea that there's so few of us left and there's one subset of us that are so much more visibly Jewish and religious, when to me, like, the center of Jewish cultural life has always been secular and intellectual. And I feel like that gets a little bit overlooked just because of the reality of what happened to us. Did you get annoyed by that? Does that make resonate with you at all?

[C]

I get annoyed by almost nothing. I have a weird inability to get angry about anything, which makes me an odd person to be on Twitter sometimes. But I.

[B]

That's the Jewish side of you and the British side of you fighting the Jewish side wants to get angry and be.

[C]

Yeah, well, I certainly think there's a very complicated conversation to have about the visibility of Jews and the idea that there is a specific idea of what a visible Jew looks like and how. Because that also relates to the fact that part of the Jews don't count thing is that people think Jews can pass and that people think that Jews are white and that Jews, like, when they complain about anti Semitism. Well, just go back into the closet. Is essentially what people. What progressives mean by you can pass a thing. They would never say, by the way, to a gay man or whatever. Like, you know, Jews are not Allowed to be proud of their Jewishness because if they then say, well, we're getting anti Semitic attack, they get accused of white privilege, which is you don't, you know, you can pass if you want. And unless of course you look like a religious Jew. I another thing, like if there was one thing, it's an interesting thing that seemed to sort of surprise people who hadn't really thought about Jews when they read Jews don't count in this country at least is there's a bit in the book where I say the key thing about anti Semitism is it's nothing to do with religion. That because, you know, my grandfather, I'm an atheist and it would make no difference to the Nazis. My great uncle Arno died in the Warsaw ghetto. He was an atheist. Nazis and indeed white supremacists who are trying to burn down your house, they don't ask if you keep kosher before they burn down your house. That's why it's racism, because racists, who are the people who actually count when you're talking about racism, you have to listen to them and what they think do not care whether you pray or go to synagogue. The only reason in fact that 11 Jews were massacred in Tell Me Pittsburgh in 2018 was not because they were at synagogue. It was because a right wing shooter knew that's where he would find Jews. He thought Jews were responsible for immigration because he believed in the great replacement theory. So it's very important that when you talk about that image of the religious Orthodox Jew, actually he's a bit irrelevant to modern anti Semitism.

[B]

Not only irrelevant, I would say, like modern antisemitism is much less centered on, oh, they're drinking the blood of our children in some ritual. And much more about our ostensible puppet mastering of global policy. Whether it's great replacement theory, whether it's theories about Israel, like we're sort of the ultimate. Yeah, secular puppet master. That that's really where most of the complaints come in.

[C]

Okay, so there's two things there. Number one is yes. And the key thing about the reason for the Jews don't count phenomenon is association of Jews with power. So we are the only minority who have an association with power. All other minorities within the west, all other minorities who are marginalized and vulnerable and are allied to by progressives, they are allied to because of a sense that they are vulnerable. Jews uniquely are associated with power and money and privilege. And that is in fact the way that we get our negative stereotyping. We don't get a Negative stereotyping as a result of being, you know. Well, we. Well, we get a double negative stereotyping, which is once, as I think, I think I say in the book, is low status like all other minorities. So we're dirty and thieving and all that, but we are also high powered. We are also extremely rich and powerful and puppet mastering. I would take one issue with what you said though, just now.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Which is different from the book, because time to move on. And I now think on the right and possibly on some parts of the extreme left, they are bringing back some of that blood drinking, you know, whatever it is. Sort of mad Christian thinking, 14th century, thinking about Jews, as far as I could make out. And I tried to avoid them, but I, you know, occasionally find them on my algorithm. The way that Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens and all those people are now talking about Zionists stroke Jews is entirely in tune with my son, who is theoretically half Jewish. Said to me when he was in New York recently that a guy, like a music guy, my son is. Does music. Was talking to him about baal. You know this baal?

[B]

Yeah, like the B.

[C]

A.

[B]

A demon or something.

[C]

Yeah, there's some ancient demon that we're

[B]

supposed to worship that we worship and that we sacrifice Christian babies to, of course.

[C]

And that basically is secretly behind the whole. Like Netanyahu. That's secretly what he's doing when he's doing his terrible things. It's in service of BAAL rather than whatever the fuck it is in service of. So, yeah, that seems to be resurfacing, which is nuts. But the thing about the way that people start thinking when they start thinking these things is it will always go somewhere nuts, as you know.

[B]

Yeah. Well, and in the case of sort of US political discourse, if you told me I accidentally first covered Candace Owens 10 years ago and she was visibly crazy then. So if you had told me there would be a podcaster with millions of listeners ranting about Frankus, I think she has a whole thing about Frankus, which, By which I don't know what that is. I didn't. We had. I talked about it on this podcast and even I forget it's this very obscure conspiracy theory about this small, powerful group and she basically means Jews. But you're right, that is like the much more old school version of it now. Just. I keep derailing the thing I want to get to because I find all this so interesting and it's a lot of stuff I struggle with myself. The whole thing about Jews being powerful, this is. Is part of a conspiracy theory. It. It fuels a lot of anti Semitism in the United States. Growing up free of overt antisemitism, I have felt like I'm part of a group that has a very dark, recently traumatic history, but that in the US if we're going to have this creepy conversation about, like a hierarchy and which groups have power, which groups have money, Jews in the US are, we are doing pretty well and we are overrepresented in some prestigious fields. How do you square these two things that I think are both true, that we're vulnerable and this could flip at any time, and that, like, we've had some success in some contexts?

[C]

Well, it's slightly different in America, actually, in terms of the book's success. I. I have been asked a couple of times to come and speak in America based on the book. And I got asked to do some big gig for, I'm going to say, the uja, some big Jewish whatever organization, and I'm doing it. And I'm talking about how, you know, there's an image of Jews as being all billionaires and all powerful and blah, blah, blah, and how that's mythic and used against us. And then I said, not in this room, obviously, because it was clear to me as I looked out that, oh no, they are all incredibly wealthy. That's how they've paid for me to come from London to do this event. So it is. You know, clearly there are ways in which Jews in America have mobilized. It's more important in a way than the money, than they've mobilized politically. I mean, it's very different in Europe where, you know, there's very immediate examples, very recent examples, obviously the Holocaust. In my own case. My mum was born in Nazi Germany. My whole family was murdered on that side. The money that they did have was very, very much taken away from them. And that's the problem with the notion of Jews being wealthy and powerful, because what happens is in a kind of progressive mindset, that's power is a block. There's no nuance in power, Whereas historically that's absolutely not true. My grandparents were indeed quite rich in Germany in 1932. By 1939, they had nothing. They were fleeing to Britain with my mother as a baby and most of their family was murdered. But the notion is that money somehow insulates you from that and will forever. And that simply isn't true. I also think that having some money and some power, which American Jews maybe have, should not mean that therefore one is allowed to be anti Semitic about them. I E to propagate all these kind of conspiracy theories or whatever about them. And if you were to apply that to other minorities, some of which are also doing pretty well, by the way, Asians in America doing pretty well. Hindus in America do pretty well. I don't think that I or any or any other liberal minded person is going to start saying really negative things about Hindus and then think, well, that's okay because Hindus have got money and power, haven't they? That seems so unlikely.

[B]

But somehow or downplay, you would never downplay a bias incident against an Asian or a Hindu because they're powerful. It doesn't really make sense because.

[C]

Well, and also a lot of the time what we're talking about is attacks on individuals, right? So say, you know, the Pittsburgh attack, that's just 11 Jewish people who get killed and they're all just sort of sweet Mandy old Jewish people or whatever. And yet somehow or other, and this is one of the things about attacks on Jews is happening a lot at the moment. There's a sense in which when Jews as individuals are attacked, the wider idea of the power of Jews is sort of in the space as making that understandable. There's a kind of weird notion, obviously the Middle east is the number one thing. But the general idea that Jews are powerful quickly comes in to sort of make the fact that a bunch of just individual Jews have been killed somehow or other. Well, we've got to expect this. You've got to expect some pushback if you Jew, right? And you don't get that with other minorities, some of whom are doing fine. You know, Jews are not the only minority that are actually not just, you know, economically disadvantaged. There are other minorities and they don't get the same nexus.

[B]

The way this has played out in the States is, well, this gets to a quote from you I can't not read, which is in the book. You say, people get ready to clip this. Fuck Israel. You say, I kind of think fuck Israel. I don't care about it more than any other country. And to assume that I have to have a strong position either way on Israel is racist. And I found this a little bit refreshing because I had felt that same sense of conflict and exhaustion and going back and forth in my head over this country that's very far away and that I don't know much about, but that I had been told. And it might be different where you grew up. We are raised to feel a connection to Israel and to think that it's important to feel a connection to Israel. And when there's an attack on a synagogue. There's people who I find very ghoulish online who will point out that synagogues will often put in front of the synagogue, we support Israel. And they will try to play up that connection between Jews and Israel. And I don't think it's an anti Semitic canard that among American Jews, at least we are raised to. It's a normative thing. You are supposed to feel connected to the state of Israel like that, that that connection is socialized from a young age. So how do you reconcile anti Semite to. In a random American Jew, sometimes a random American Jew they're trying to murder. See the state of Israel, which has nothing to do with that individual Jew. How do you reconcile that with the fact that we are socialized to think we are connected to Israel and, and to be told we should feel connected to Israel.

[C]

Well, it's incredibly complicated and it's incredibly complicated at the present time where. And if we get onto the thing that you asked me on to talk about, it's a very good example.

[B]

Eventually hours, hours from now we will.

[C]

Or a more, a more potent example that maybe people have heard of that's very recent, which is the guy from the Strokes talking about American Zionists. You know, we have an issue at the moment which is very important, which is the use of the word Zionist as interchangeable with Jews. And what you've just, what you've just said is, makes that more complicated, which is that some Jews maybe in America would see themselves as not interchangeable, but would naturally see themselves as Zionists and wouldn't expect that there was much clear water between those two things. What I'm trying to say in the book is something specific. And the reason that the Israel stuff is in there is not because I'm saying Israel really in a kind of massively aggressive way. What I'm saying is I can't be with this conversation that gets in the way all the time. And this was in 2021. Now it obviously it sits there absolutely on top of the conversation. But at the time where you're trying to talk about antisemitism, which is A more than 2,000 years old, this type of discrimination and racism and extremely violent, murderous way of thinking with an enormous history. The notion that it just goes back to 1948, the notion that all, in

[B]

fact, 99% of the history of antisemitism itself preceded the establishment of Israel is what you're saying.

[C]

Yeah. Precedes the establishment of Israel. It's deeply, deeply baked in to Western European way of thinking and indeed other cultures way of thinking, and it's a part of the Jews don't count phenomenon, is to sort of dismiss anti Semitism as just basically a side effect of the behavior of the state of Israel. I'm not saying, and it's become extremely complicated that anti Semitism isn't indeed triggered by and turbocharged by the actions of the state of Israel and all the rest of it. But I wanted to say, firstly, as a minority in Britain, other minorities are not beholden to or imagined as intimately connected with what you might call their heritage country. So I'm a comedian, right? Comedians quite often, if they start talking about being Jewish now on stage, which I do, it hasn't actually happened to me because partly because I'm doing stand up recently, but anyway, you'll see videos of people immediately shouting Free Palestine if someone just talks about being Jewish, right? So meanwhile there's a comedian called Phil Wang here, friend of mine, he's of British Chinese heritage. If someone was to shout out about the Uyghurs when Phil Wang was doing his bit, or if Ramesh Ranganation, who's a brilliant, incredibly well known comedian who's Sri Lankan but of Hindu heritage, if someone was to shout about Modi and his sort of pro Hindu supremacy policies while he was doing stand up, that person would be immediately, if it was on Twitter or whatever, isolated, cancelled all the rest of it for being racist because Romish is British, Phil Wang is British. And so therefore highlighting and underlining and holding them responsible for the actions of a foreign state is racist. It's racist to even kind of mention in a way that that person should be thought of as foremost something to do with this other country. So I wanted to put down that, I want to say the whole thing about Jews don't Count is please treat Jews like you treat other minorities, progressives. And one way you treat other minorities is it's kind of uncomfortable, isn't it, to refer to a British Nigerian's Nigerian ness, for example, right? You don't do that. It's really weird and impolite. But Jews constantly, it's fine to ask them what they feel about Israel or to now just say immediately, oh, you're Jewish, basically, free Palestine, right? And so just one more thing which I think is maybe different. So I did a. I did a documentary which is on Channel 4 here called Jews Don't Count, based on the book and I actually did a screening of it in New York which is packed out, I have to say. But at the UK screening, a woman came up to me who's a writer, Jewish, not particularly out, but she's, you know, out enough. And she came up to me and she whispered this thing about the Israel section of that documentary, which is similar. And she said, thank you for being the first ever Jew, British Jew or whatever, to sort of say publicly, you know, it's a foreign country. Right, yeah. And that's all I'm really saying is it's a foreign country. And yes, some people feel very connected to it, some people feel whatever, but at the end of the day, it's a foreign country. And people who are not Jewish should not expect that there is a freedom to condemn Jews on the basis of stuff happening in that foreign country because of an assumption of connection.

[B]

Just out of curiosity, growing. Growing up in your household, did Israel come up and what was the context when it came up? What were you guys feeling? Started?

[C]

I went to Hambur Nim, which is a Jewish Zionist youth movement. And so there, I think the expectation was that I would go on aliyah and end up in Israel. Israel. End up on kibbutz in Israel. It was a socialist Zionist youth movement. I think it still exists, even though that is a difficult combination now. But I really went there because my dad went there and that's where he met girls. And that's where I, in fact, met my first girls. That I was 6. I can say girls because I. Yeah, well, I didn't really have any relations with any of them, But I was 14 when I, you know, and I was that. Yeah, I basically went there for social reasons and I was never very interested in the Israel ness of it, but I. Yeah, I mean, occasionally it came up. But here's the thing, is that my dad was Welsh and his grandfather had been running away from Russians. Right. And ended up in Britain. And my mother was born in Nazi Germany. It was very kind of European. And weirdly, I suppose what we didn't have was that thing which quite a lot of Jews do have. But we didn't, I think, because we thought, maybe mistakenly, oh, Britain is our safe haven. We didn't have that thing that the Holocaust did create in some other Jews, which is, we need to find the bunker where we're safe and that's Israel. We didn't have that. We kind of thought it was Britain. And I know there are some people now who really feel it's not Britain. And I know what the reasons are for that. But I still feel probably safer in Britain than I would in Israel. What with it not being actually bombed by Iran presently.

[B]

Couple, couple of things. One is that especially among my New York friends, I was raised outside Boston. But that's a classic story of going to the upstate, you know, social Zionist summer camp singing songs presumably about the workers of the world uniting or whatever. But a lot of those kids, a lot of those kids who went to the lefty summer camps are not exactly supporters of Israel. Some of them have become outright anti Zionists, are all against Netanyahu. So those two things can totally coexist. There is like a. Obviously a socialist Zionist tradition. Even though I think now people are trying to flatten the history a little bit and pretend that everyone who supports Israel is just in it for to. Because they want to bomb Gazan so badly. Which is slight oversimplification actually.

[C]

Just, just to just. Yeah, that's completely right, you know, because I went to that movement that was a Zionist whatever socialist youth movement. What I would say I am now. And it's a non Zionist and a non Zionist is someone who doesn't really give a fuck about whether or not there's a Jewish state in the Middle east. Because by like people's like here's an, here's an odd word, particular word given that there was a drama about it which was about Islamic terrorism. But anyway, homeland is an odd word because the idea, I think if you're a Zionist then Israel is your homeland right now. That's such a weird sentence because clearly Britain is my homeland. I mean, yeah, I was born in New York State as it happens. And I also have a German passport as a result of the Germans feeling embarrassed and deciding to give their, you know, Jews who ran away as descendants and passports. But I've lived my whole life in England and my home is in England and I feel very English and so I don't understand that quite that idea that Jews in America or Jews in England or Jews in France feel, well, my real homeland is in Jerusalem. I don't really get it.

[B]

Yeah, well, it's tricky because it's another thing where you'll be. It's seen as an anti Semitic trope that Jews have sort of a dual loyalty. In some corners of the American Jewish community there is this sense that that's sort of where we belong or I guess I've never understood the sanctuary thing of Israel as a sanctuary because I'm in the same boat as you. England is obviously much. It's different in a lot of ways. Like you said 275000 Jews. I can't think of any situation where even setting aside the cultural differences and the, you know, it would be, it would be tricky to move. I'm trying to imagine any geopolitical situation where Israel would be safer for Jews than the US or the UK for that matter. Like, think of the sequence of events that would have to occur for that to line up in that way. It just seems, it seems very unlikely. And I, I feel similarly, like, I, I, America is my home. I mean, I'm sure I feel similarly to the way you do about the uk. It's in many ways broken, declining empire, lot to complain about. But in other ways it's wonderful and it's my home and I don't really belong anywhere else. I would never belong in Israel, I take it.

[C]

That's right. That belonging thing is very true. It's part of being an immigrant is that you invest a lot of time in belonging to your host nation that has taken you in. And then people start saying, oh, no, no, no, we got to move again because we're Jewish, so you've got to go to the place where Jews are. That feels like wrong to me. I mean, the sanctuary thing, I remember, I came. Florida has a, I did another talk. Florida has a Holocaust museum. And I got, I did a talk there and the guy who brought me over was quite cross. It took because he didn't know about my sort of feelings about Zionism in Israel or whatever. And he, in the, in the room with all these people, started saying, what about sanctuary? What about, you know, when the Nazis get in again or however it might be? And I said, look, the thing is that my, what I'm trying to do here is talk about what anti Semitism is and ways in which you might be able to combat it and whatever. And I don't think the way to combat anti Semitism is to run away to a bunker. I think, I think, I think the best way to do it, however, you might laugh at me and think, well, it's never going to work and it's wrong or whatever. But I think while we're here and we're having a conversation and an intellectual argument, there's no argument for like, well, we just have to, like, run away. The argument is like, how can you challenge this way of thinking? And then that is not helped if at the back of your mind you're always thinking, it's not working this challenging, so I better just buy a basement. Yeah, in Tel Aviv.

[B]

A Jew bunker.

[C]

A Jew bunker, yeah. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, I think that just gets back to Fundamentally, I believe in this very boring, lame, maybe middle aged or old man, just liberal multiculturalism, more or less some version of that where there's a bunch of different groups and E pluribus unum. We're all the same, we're all distinct in our special ways. And I just think that's the only hope for Jews. I don't think anything else will work in the long run. And the problem is you can.

[C]

No, I do. I don't. I mean, so do I. But I think that starts to look optimistic. And it only starts to look optimistic for one reason, and that's the Internet. The Internet has fucked that. And I wouldn't have known that sort of 10 years ago, maybe even, even when it was starting to happen. It's clear to me now that hate and rage and of which anti Semitism for some reason is always like rising to the surface, like championing that particular emotion is absolutely baked in to the human psyche and to the human psyche in a way that the Internet is designed to turbocharge. And so when you say to me earlier on in this conversation, oh, there's this completely mad conspiracy theory, I never even heard of it before, but this person has 6 million followers and she is saying it and it clearly means views. I mean, me and you would not have guessed that, that, that could be a thing like 20 years ago. Right.

[B]

I want to make a joke about how I'm skeptical. She actually has 6 million followers. I think the average number. Number is less. But continue.

[C]

I think 6 million may just be the subconscious thing. You know, that number hangs around me quite a lot. But, but, you know, so I'm not confident of what you just said being how humanity will end up, even though I might want it to be. Should we not talk a bit about this actual comedy?

[B]

Yes, let me get in. True to Jews talking sandal, just try to get one last word in, which is. I wasn't saying. I think that's where we're going to end up. I think of the bad options available to Jews as a people who will always have to deal with this shit. That's sort of the best hope we have is something like that. Not like. And it's weird because people can always play the Hitler card when you talk about. I think our best hope is assimilation into a greater body and.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You can always play the Hitler card. But I'm. I guess all I can do is hope there isn't another Hitler anyway.

[C]

Yeah, okay. Well, actually, let me, let me just say one more thing. One more thing which Might be helpful. Which is. The other reason is I wrote a movie called the Infidel, which should be. I mean, it did all right, but now it feels like it's more potent because it's a movie, a comedy about a British Muslim who discovers that he was biologically Jewish and has a kind of nervous breakdown. And he meets a Jewish guy who's a sort of neighbor of his, played by Richard Schiff, who used to be in the West Wing. And Richard Schiff at one point tries to explain to him all the different types of Jews. Sort of a bit like you were saying is like, when people think about Jews, this is one of the ways racism works, is they have a very blocky idea in their head. But there are so many different types of Jews. And right at the end of it, he says, oh, yeah, and Israelis, Jews without angst, without guilt. So not really Jews at all. And I guess that's part of what I feel is that when you talk about that multicultural Ashkenazi European ideal, that is what I'm comfortable with. And yes, it's a bit nerdy and a bit frightened and Hitler hangs around it, but the sort of like macho gun toting version, I'm just not. It doesn't feel like even Jewish to me.

[B]

The version that you associate with. Well, some Israelis.

[C]

Yeah, I know.

[B]

I've been other.

[C]

Yeah, I'm big generalizing now about Israelis, so I apologize.

[B]

Yeah, well, I definitely. If we're, if we're going to generalize like that, I definitely feel more at home in the nerdy cry at the first sign of danger. Try to intellectualize my way out of it and we'll probably be proven wrong in the long run. It's the guys with the gun guns who tend to win. Okay, I could talk about this stuff all day. I did want to. Since you're king of the Jews and are the chief British judge of all things Jewish. I explained to you the background a little bit before we got on. This has to do with a channel called Dropout tv, a I think a brilliant comedy channel that now has something like a million paid subscribers. They do a lot of improv stuff. Their listeners will have the background by now. But in 2024, amidst a lot of pressure from their audience that they had platform Zionists and the platforming Zionist means they had had a couple. Oh, sorry.

[C]

They'd had a couple of comedians on who are Jews? Who presumably. Well, it's whether or not had those Zionists just been Jews or had they been Jews who actively said supportive things to the state of Israel. I would, I don't know.

[B]

Right. And the answer is they had said very little. They had not like openly supported as far as I've been able to find. They had been like, yes, I think what Netanyahu is doing great. Yeah, fuck the Gazans. It had been. One of them had done a fundraiser for a hospital that I believe treated victims of October 7th. The other had at one point talked about his own, I think grandfather having helped to found Israel but had not said anything about the present conflict. That was so there it was, I think thin accusations. Either way, here's what they posted to their Instagram page. We've seen people saying that Dropout is platforming Zionists recently and we feel it is important to respond. Where dropout stands is here. Israel is committing genocide against Palestine and the people of Palestine deserve to be free and safe. To our knowledge, no individual who has appeared on dropout has openly identified as a Zionist. Several of those accused have expressed to us their support for a free Palestine. We believe in granting grace for people to become informed and grow and that views espoused by someone in the past do not always reflect the ones they hold today. If there are individuals who perpetuate speech and actions that go against dropouts values, they will not be invited back. And then they make a fair point which is their a comedy show. And the people who make these decisions are politicians. So maybe, maybe go bother them now. This was met with a huge amount of outrage from, from Jewish groups and threats. They eventually deleted this without explanation, without much of an explanation, but they didn't like retract the policy. So I would put to you the question of is this anti Semitic? Is it just anti Zionist? Can we separate the two? Just, just these small, easily answered questions. Go ahead.

[C]

Well, number one is it's an Internet Instagram post and it's written in that style, in that slightly Stalinist courtroom style. So what's happened? Clearly I don't know the absolute background, but I know instinctively is they've had some Jewish comedians on who haven't cleansed themselves enough in terms of making it clear. I say this somewhere in, in the book, that as a Jew now part of what I said earlier is you have to sort of cleanse yourself up front. You have to put your cards on the table and say, I don't support the state of Israel, I'm not a Zionist before you're allowed in sort of polite liberal conversation. Right. There's a suspicion that surrounds you unless you make it clear that's a Stalinist thing to have to do, which as

[B]

you mentioned, it does not apply to other groups if they have an era. Oh my God. It's not like, what do you think about Gaza and Hezbollah? You would never get that.

[C]

No, of course not. And indeed. And you would not get it with like, as I say, a Hindu comedian. Now, let's be clear, Modi is a. Is a Hindu supremacist.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And absolutely you would not get that with not just a. I think you get it with an Indian comic, a visiting Indian comic, let alone an American comic of Indian heritage. Right. It would just be unimaginable and racist. Right. But you will get it with Jews that they, Jews have to sort of say up front, like, just to be clear, I'm Jewish, but that thing, I've heard it a lot. I'm Jewish, but I don't support blah, blah, blah, and which is absurd. So. And I know that they will have had like people on the Internet complaining about this and they felt the need, felt all this stuff about we feel it is important. What they mean is we're frightened. We're frightened that there might be a bit of an Internet backlash. And so we're trying to get ahead of the game by saying all that. Having said all that, it exposes something which is difficult in terms of my thoughts thesis, which is, I think when I wrote Jews Don't Count, I have a brief bit where I talk about the use of the word Zionist to mean Jew. And I talk about someone who wrote to me on line somewhere and at the time I said, well, it obviously means Jews because he says something like, oh, you Zionists, you control the media, you control the banks, you Zionists, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, obviously he desperately wants to say the word Jew. Now I think people would say, no, he doesn't. And you're conflating the two things. And I thought you were all about not, you know what I mean, like there's been an upgrading of that into play whereby people really can use the word Zionist in a very, very kind of straightforward way that just insert the tropes that mean Jew use the word Zionist. And if you complain about it as a Jew, if you say I think you mean Jew, you will be accused of conflating Jews and Israelis or Jews and Zionists. And that makes a very difficult kind of intellectual vortex which this post kind of swims around in.

[B]

Well, you'll also be accused of a certain lack of sophistication, like, oh, you don't understand these distinctions. And I've noticed that too, where like, I'm not, I'm not new to these debates and I'm especially not new to Jews debating these issues with other Jews. But this, the use of Zionist as a slur was something I'd always associated with mostly with European anti Semitism. And the use of that term rather than. I would have felt really differently. Look, if Dropout TV wanted to do a purity test like we don't want supporters of the Bibi Netanyahu government, I still think that would have been weird. And to single out this one issue, it's like, you know, pick your other conflict. Pick the other. What about Iran? Why didn't you do anything about Iran and all the protesters who are murdered there? But that to me would be very different from the Z word, from Zionist. So does this mean you're leaning toward not. Not what, how the discourse has evolved, but what King of the Jews David Badil thinks? Would you. Do you think this is anti Semitic or do you think that's an overstatement, this statement?

[C]

Well, I think it's definitely evocative of the Jews don't count phenomenon. The Jews don't count phenomenon is not straightforwardly anti Semitic. Well, it is, but it stems from anti Semitism. But it's not the same as, as I say, active anti Semitism. It's leaving Jews out of a certain type of respect and discourse or whatever. So the fact that they would not do this about supporters, you know, if they. Of the Modi government or whatever, they might want to class Indians as wrongly, then that's the point is they're doing something to choose they would not do to another minority. However, here's a really complicated thing which is that I think that of course people should be allowed to say what they like about not just the state of Israel, but indeed the idea of a state of Israel and the idea of a Jewish state. And if people don't agree that there should be a state based on a religion or a ethno nationalist state, which to some extent the state of Israel is. It's based on the idea that it's a Jewish state. Now, you know, people don't want to believe in that. That's. It's totally fine. That is not necessarily anti Semitic. It's not indeed anti Semitic necessarily to say that the state of Israel, stupid phrase anyway, has no right to exist. Right. It can be. Obviously lots of people are using it. But if you break down the intellectual element of that, if someone wants to say yes, mainly global Europe decided in 1948 of collective guilt about the Holocaust to allow the Jews that had settled there to establish a state. And that was very bad news for the Palestinians. Right. And that created an ongoing terrible geopolitical situation of which they have been the main victims. That's true.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And that's not anti Semitic. Yeah. But the problem is that the shorthand, which is what you're talking about, which is Zionist, not really big about that long intellectual critique of the establishment state of Israel, but just being shorthand for Jews and their power, that's the problem. And it's very difficult now to sort it out. And I would say you can only sort it out by trying to dissect and deconstruct the individual statement.

[B]

What one this is going to bring us into the rank psychoanalysis of an individual we don't know. But one part of this that I cannot resist mentioning is the CEO of this company, Dropout tv, who's also, he's brilliant. He's also the host of one of their most popular shows. Everyone loves him. His name is Sam Reich, He's Jewish. His father, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who's undoubtedly a liberal Zionist himself, if you just read what Robert Reich has written about Israel. So Robert Reich has appeared on Dropout tv. So to me there's another layer of complexity here, especially what you're talking about, where Jews feel a need to be like, I'm one of the good ones. The CEO of the company's own dad was a very powerful American politician who's himself a liberal Zionist. I guess this would technically ban him from coming on ever again. It gets really tangled and complicated really quickly.

[C]

Yeah, well there's another tangle which you've just brought up, which is Jews who feel the need to be very anti Zionist, some of whom, again I'm not going to say that all of them because they get very quickly classed by some Jews as self hating or self loathing or whatever. And not necessarily, you know, there's a very strong tradition and also very strong argument for some Jews to say that they think that the state of Israel certainly is doing terrible things now and maybe that who they feel that the state of Israel should never have been established. But even that is complicated because some of those people are mad. Because some of those are mad religious people who think that this should have happened without the Messiah arriving. So, but, so, but circa.

[B]

But early 20th century or late 19, like when Zionism popped up as an idea. I'm not telling anything. You don't know. But like this was a source of Huge debate among Jews and especially a divide between Jews from like the shtetl versus assimilated Jews in London and New York, who are, I think, a little bit more likely. Even though they were. They had the money and the power to help establish Israel, it didn't feel as urgent for them because they weren't fleeing from imminent danger. So none of these debates. I'm worried about overshooting the mark because I'm torn. I read the statement. It feels very creepy to me. It feels like putting an undue burden on Jewish performers. I also do regularly see accusations of anti Semitism used to shield one very particular Israeli government from criticism. And I don't like that. And I want to somehow address both of those, which maybe is possible.

[C]

Yeah, well, in terms of anti Semitism, I mean, they weaponize, unquestionably, the Israeli government are always weaponizing anti Semitism in order to shield themselves from criticism. They weaponize the Holocaust. There's no question about all of that happening. But then again, you know, why should the Israeli government be any less kunty, to use a word, than any other government? Right. And any less likely to. Sorry, I don't know if I presume, been blocked and reported. I can use that word.

[B]

You can say it's one of the favorite words. We don't get to use it enough.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, because. And most governments are. Most governments are always doing appalling things and also weaponizing things involved in propaganda. And I think it's, you know, that's what they're doing. And Jews who do not live there do not support that. Government are not responsible for that. I. I just wanted to get back briefly to. Yes, the proper conversation about this gets in the way of people playing various trump cards. And one of those trump cards, well, he's Jewish or this guy. He's Jewish. So therefore, what are you doing telling a Jew that he can't think this, that, or the other? I think. Well, I'm not telling a Jew anything. I'm just saying that the fact that you're Jewish doesn't necessarily mean that that post is not. Got things about it that are weird. And here's the key thing about that post, which is sort of what I said before. It's performative. The whole fucking world, because of the Internet, is performative. So what it's doing is trying to appease people who might want to have a sense that, like. Sorry, it's trying to. It's trying to. You said it. You said, I want to be one of the good ones. And I think that's always creepy and worrisome, that they're going to be some Jews who think, how can I put myself in the right camp where I'm not going to get attacked? And that, that just gets in the way of sort of thinking clearly about this thing. That's very hard to think clearly about already.

[B]

I also, I mean, the other reason I brought it up is because when I hear the word Zion, I, I, I'm. Look, I'm roughly in your camp of. Whenever I talk about Israel on this podcast, I regret it. It's just, it's sort of not. I don't, I don't know enough about it. I think it's horribly complex. I also think that in the sort of heterodox sphere I'm associated with, that translates to British.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know what I mean by, like, heterodox types?

[C]

No.

[B]

Oh, okay. I mean, sort of some of. Some of your, Your friends over there that. Who are mutual friends, like the folks who are on the left but weren't happy with the sort of cultural revolution mindset of the 2020. 2020 21. Some of the stuff you've responded to. I think there is a little bit of a blind spot in that group where, like, any expression of sympathy toward Palestinians or any sense of being disturbed by what Israel has done is seen as, like, inherently wacky and far left. And I think, I do think there's a blind spot there. But when I hear the words, I

[C]

agree, but I, I mean, I mean, the prevailing wind in this country, especially amongst young people.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Is. Is not that the prevailing wind in this country is any expression of anything pro Israel is. I mean, one of the things I can't, I find very difficult is people on the Internet and people in general implying that because of the enormous power of Jews and Zionists, that therefore saying anything pro Palestinian is going to be very threatening to you and your career and etc. Etc. And maybe in some circles it is. But meanwhile, a woman wrote to me last year who is an Orthodox Jewish woman who was doing a show in Edinburgh that was canceled because I'm not sure why, but it was something to do with her being Jewish and the possibility that she might be thought of as being a little bit pro Israel. And so therefore, it was all initially canceled because of safety concerns. And next thing you know, it's canceled because. Yeah, so. And you kind of think, like, okay, like, at some point we have to acknowledge that because we live in a fragmented culture, everything's fragmented. So I agree that there are Some Jews who, you know, think that any expression of sympathy with Palestinians is a betrayal, which is obviously nuts. You know, it's obviously clear that the Palestinians are in a terribly, terribly grievous situation and should be supported, I think in, you know, I don't know much about it either. I don't know how to sort out an intractable, terrible geopolitical situation.

[B]

But my sense, I was hoping we would be able to resolve it during these conversations, unlikely.

[C]

But I think supporting them and trying to, trying, trying to hope that their lives become better is a good thing. Right? Yeah, in the very small way that that might be a thing. But I also think that the notion that the all powerfulness of Jews means that, you know, expressions of support for the Palestinians are, will lead to you instantly losing your career and losing your whatever, whatever completely ignores the high power of progressive and indeed Internet thinking whereby you'll be bombed out of existence on the Internet. No, I'm not going to use that phrase. Yeah, you'll be, you'll be, you'll be cancelled to if you say anything pro Israel. Right by that section. So what I'm saying is it's all fragmented.

[B]

Yes, there's, there's communities where each occurs in this, I mean, in this case, again, it's more of an American phenomenon. But Dropout TV right now is, is so hot and popular that if you're a young performer getting a chance to go on one of these shows could be a make or break career moment. And the way I read this Instagram post was that if you're a Jewish performer and you've had any trace of what most Jews in the US believe on your social media profile, you might not be able to go on this show. And that I find that disturbing. And, and just the one point I wanted to circle back to and I, I really appreciate your time is like the use of Zionism in this way as sort of a slur or. I, I've seen not just Zionism as racism, but Zionism is not, is, is akin to Nazism, which is insane. Growing up in the US as a Jew, we're told a particular story about what is viewed as a liberation struggle. And I think like a lot of stories of liberation struggles, they sand off some of the rough edges. They sand off the people who are displaced. They send off the worst things the most, you know, violent Jewish revolutionaries did. But I just sort of think we have a right to our own myth if every other group has a right to their myths. And it's not, not entirely a Myth and this idea that Jews are not allowed to believe, this thing we were taught from a young age, that was largely a response to the Holocaust and to pogroms in Eastern Europe. The idea that we need to come out and publicly renounce that to have a career or to be able to go on a show like Dropout, that to me is like, I don't know. That doesn't sit right with me at all. And that, to me is where. If it was any other statement that even though it's not overtly anti Semitic, correlated that much with a marginalized group, it would have been a shit show. People would have been. I'm not calling for people to be fired. I love Dropout tv. I think they're brilliant. I think they. They're getting the credit and acclaim they deserve. I think I'm just annoyed at the double standard because it's almost like, and I'm coining this phrase right now, it's like, Jews don't count or something.

[C]

Yes, well, Jews don't count in a much deeper way, because if Jews did count, it wouldn't be that Jews had to renounce Zionism. It would be that Jews would be seen, I know in American comedy this seems a bit weird, but anyway, as a marginalized voice that needed to be promoted. And so therefore, there should be a Jewish space for Jewish comedy in a way that, you know, we definitely want to have a women comedian on it. We definitely want to have black comedians on it. There would be that. That's Jews not counting. Right. But the chances of that are so far away from where we are now, definitely in America. One other thing, which is we haven't talked about.

[B]

Wait, but you don't. You don't think American comedy is Jewish comedy to a certain extent?

[C]

Not anymore. Not anymore. It was in the 60s and 70s, definitely. It was the voice of American comedy and the 90s with Seinfeld and Larry David or whatever. Not anymore. No. Like everything else, the Jews don't count phenomenon is to some extent about the fact that progressives decided round about 20 years ago the Jews have had their window. They had the Holocaust, briefly. We sort of allied to them, although we were. The ways in which we weren't very happy about their, you know, the hangovers about stuff. We thought about them being powerful and, you know, and the Middle east was always a problem, but there was a sort of brief window where people understood that enormous killing, enormous murder in Europe and whatever meant, oh, this group, they are maybe deserving of some sympathy. That's when a while ago, Jews were not at some level, they weren't the fashionable, they weren't what an old fucking boomer thing it is to care about Jews. Right. And to imagine that they're a marginalized group. Even though in 2018, 11 Jews get killed in Pittsburgh. Right. That, that's, that's still a vulnerable group. Right. You know, that doesn't stop Susan Sarandon saying, oh, well, maybe Jews can get to feel a bit like how Muslims have felt in America, as if Jews have never been threatened in America.

[B]

Right.

[C]

That's so extraordinary. I just wanted to.

[B]

Well, and you look at our hate crime statistics. It remains. I, I feel safe day to day. I absolutely do. But it remains just objectively true. J are targeted at a much higher rate than any other marginalized group. It's just, it's just the facts in the U.S. sorry, go ahead.

[C]

Yes, I just wanted to. I mean, the Julian Casablanca thing I think is amazing because I think it's the specific thing of saying white American Zionists, which is an interesting phrase itself. There's a lot in my book about the white, the perceived whiteness of Jews. I call them Schrodinger's Whites, by which I mean they're sort of white or non white, depending on the politics of the observer. And the far right have always seen Jews as non white. Hitler very much saw Jews as non white. That's why he killed them, because he was after an Aryan white race. Whereas I would say that the left see Jews as kind of super white because of the association of power and privilege and whatever. And it's. White is always the primary word you use when you want to say this is a group not deserving of allyship. They have power. White is the key word always. And there's a whole, there's loads of bits in my book about that. There's a whole bit about how Jessica Krug, who's a kind of Rachel Dolezal type person, came out as Jessica La Bombalara. Is that her?

[B]

That was her fake name. And she had an amazing west side Story fake Puerto Rican accent.

[C]

Okay. But the key. Well, it was very interesting. When she came out, it was revealed that she was not just white, but white and Jewish. As if the Jewish added whiteness to her whiteness. Right. So, so. But white American Zionists, it's a really specific thing. Like.

[B]

Let me just read these. I have the exact quote here. He said, American Zionists get the benefits of white privileged people, but talk like they are black people during slavery.

[C]

Yes. So I think partly why he's put American in there is, I guess, because he is really saying Zionists to mean Jews. And I suppose if you included European Jews in that, it may be in his head or not. You think like, okay, well, I guess I have to admit they did suffer something like not that long ago, the European one. So let's just. Let's try and specify it to Americans. And then it's a very Jews don't count thing. Because what I'm talking about, Jews don't count, if you want to be very, very sort of almost banal about it, is a hierarchy of racism, Right. Where certain racisms are considered much more important than others. And that phrase has become quite a toxic one since I wrote about it. But within the hierarchy of racism, there's a sense in which Jews aren't. Are very, very low on it for progressives, and that racism against Jews hardly counts as racism. And then the thing that is very high is obviously racism against black people and specifically slavery or whatever. It's all. That's all very, very important. So the notion that Jews could compare themselves in. In some kind of suffering way to that is obviously laughable, except it's not laughable for Jews who've got Holocaust backgrounds at all. Right. And so that's where it's weird in a way that all of that can be dismissed through the use of the word Zionist. That the minute you've got Zionist in there, then it's all fine because you're just pumping up the power. In fact, it's three. I know he didn't use this as one thing, but he basically does because he uses the word winners. White American Zionists is power times three. And if you believe that to be Jews, what you're doing is taking away their vulnerability three times. And that's how you say that. That's how you make a group that might feel that they are under threat, embarrassed and silenced about the fact of their threat, of the possibility of that threat.

[B]

So you're saying that's sort of the rhetorical work being done by the term Zionist. You take a vulnerable group and you make them powerful. That's the key thing.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Anything else on Jews before I ask you for just a more general closing note?

[C]

No. We've talked for quite a long time. It's supposed to be 20 minutes, I seem to remember. Well, I. Well, one thing about this book that you've talked about and you finally read, I mean, for fuck's sake, finally five years, is that my publishers have for a long time said to me, please write another one Which I would call Jews still don't count.

[B]

Okay. Well, yes, David, I'm looking forward to reading Jews still don't count, presumably followed by Jews continue to not count in 2028. Why do Jews not count? Oy vey. We still don't count. And on and on. David Badill, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, we would like to have you back to have a less Semitic discussion, but I thought this was great and very thoughtful, so thank you for your time. All right, Katie, what do you think about juice?

[A]

Individual Jews or all Jews? I will. I. You know what, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be honest with you for a second. I like Jews.

[B]

Wow, thank you. Is Jan a mouthing at you that you should say that? Say, say you like juice. She's just got like one earbud in while she's like cooking you a five course meal. Say that. Say that Jews are.

[A]

I like Jews. I have, I think that Jews are. I'm going to stereotype here, but I think Jews are a, a good people, a rich people. Rich in spirit. Rich in spirit. You didn't let me finish.

[B]

You did not. Do not get to the spirit of what Badil was saying.

[A]

The one thing that I do sort of struggle with, with your conversation with David or your assessment of the, of the dropout, anti Semitism, which you think is very overt, is just the fact that they.

[B]

No, no, I don't think it's overt. I think it's overt. Semitism would be that it's. Yeah, I do think it's obvious. Yeah.

[A]

The one thing I struggle with is just the fact that I am sure that they will allow Jews on the channel, including Sam.

[B]

He's not, he's not Zionist.

[A]

Right. So this is the part where I'm like, is it anti Semitism to say that these, these Jews who. Not all Jews, that these Jews who believe in our. I mean, and the other thing is like, what does it mean to not be an anti Zionist? Like, does he think that Israel.

[B]

You mean not be. Not be Zionist?

[A]

To not be Zionist? Like, does he, does he think that Israel has a right to exist or. The definition of Zionist is so confusing and muddy by some definition.

[B]

They didn't. And they didn't define it.

[A]

Right, right. Like by summed up like my position on Israel is that it exists despite the like crazy. Despite the whatever sins and the founding of the country. It exists. And to wipe Israel and the Israeli people off the map would be horrific. Would be a crime. I also think that Benjamin Netanyahu himself is a war criminal who should rot in prison. And I think that the conservatives in the Israeli government particular who are allowing and orchestrating the takeover of the West Bank, I also think they are criminals and should rot in prison.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it is completely possible to hold those two, two things in your mind. So by that definition, am I a Zionist? I completely oppose Benjamin Netanyahu. But Israel exists, It does exist. And I like Jews. I think I'm a Zionist by that definition.

[B]

Well, first of all, thank you. I mean, I think that's part of what gives them some plausible deniability here, is they don't define Zionists. The reason I think it's anti Semitic is this stuff is context dependent. Now, I can't remember if I had meant to make this connection in the other episode or actually did.

[A]

But like in the Primo episode.

[B]

Yeah, but like if you have a club and you say no durags or Timberlands, you can't then say, well, we didn't explicitly say black people are excluded. The, the point I was trying to make with Badil, so black nerds can

[A]

come to the club.

[B]

Black nerds who like Dungeons and Dragons are allowed. The point, the point I was trying to make to Badil is I see what you're saying. It's this very particular thing where if you are raised Jewish, it is extremely likely that you will have some form of Zionism instilled in you for very understandable historical reasons. I mean, people are such about ignoring the history.

[A]

Like 600000 people died in the Holocaust. It's horrific.

[B]

Almost, almost 60,000 people died. To me, this is anti Semitic because like I said, it places an undue burden and undue scrutiny on Jewish performers. And I, you know, I didn't mention this in the Primo, but like Ben Schwartz, who is one of the most famous people to have on the show, he does, he doesn't really get into politics. You look at his background, you look at where he's from, you look at the fact that he did a Times of Israel interview in 2020. A lot of the, a lot of the Jewish performers have like some trace of Zionism in them. I'm not saying Ben Schwartz does. At least his parents. And again, Sam Reich effectively banned his own dad from the network if you're going to take this seriously. So I get what people are saying. And I'm not saying that criticism of Israel or even criticism of Zionism as an ideal is anti Semitic. I'm saying something that places such a specific unfair Burden and unfair scrutiny on Jews. Which is what this does is. And, and I promise you that there are talented Jewish performers who would love to be on Dropout and who are now like, fuck, I don't know if I can. And dude, if we were doing, if we're doing any turnabout test involving Muslim performers, Arab performers, I would say the same thing.

[A]

Like, the other thing is like, if you, if you say put out a statement like this and Jews self select out off of your channel.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You're going to have a content problem, folks.

[B]

No, I mean these days there's so many. Okay, first of all, you need to talk to David Bedeel because you just did an anti Semitism, a positive anti Semitism. It'll be curious if Rachel Bloom and Noah Grossman ever show up again.

[A]

Yeah, so these are the performers who were, who were the crazy ultras online who were, who were specifically calling out and yeah, fuck and drop out. Listen to them to some degree. If I were Rachel Bloom or Noah Grossman, I absolutely would not be appearing on that channel again.

[B]

Yeah, I think, I think again, what annoys me about this is I, I just think like Dropout is trying to have it both ways. They're playing footsie with their craziest listeners and then they should eat. They should just explain what happened. Like, are, do. Are you really gonna like, keep Zionists off your network forever? Is Sam Reich's dad not. I just, I just find this whole thing very online and very obnoxious and not the way you should do business.

[A]

The other thing is this is like, to me, this is analogous to like blaming Russians for the sins of, of Vladimir Putin or blaming Americans for the sins of, of Donald Trump. Like, it's just, it's not fair to blame people for things that people have not done and may not support.

[B]

I mean, this, this gets into stretch territory because American Jews aren't obviously just American. American Jews. That's who's been sort of targeted here. It gets complicated. I'm just saying to have a litmus test on one issue in frame so broadly framed that it really could just mean you think Israel in its current form should continue to exist. Just clearly discriminatory. Because you're not, you're not doing that for any other issue or any other group. That's all I'm saying.

[A]

I wonder if they would have an Israeli who hates Benjamin Netanyahu on the show.

[B]

I don't know how much I want to get into this, but there's a lot of this whole, like, hunting for Zionist Thing really treats anyone in the orbit of Israel, or anyone who has ever said a positive word of it, as an undifferentiated mass whose only goal is to just murder Palestinians. Which is not. Does not account for some of the complexity here. It does not account for the fact that, again, whatever the sins of Israel, this is a nation made up largely of refugees from elsewhere. Both people like Eastern European Jews and then the Jews who were expelled from the Middle east around the time of Israel's founding. I just find. I just. Just this. This rise of the word Zionist as a slur, I find pretty disgusting. And I find it incredibly disingenuous that these people who go on and on about inclusion and will give you a trigger warning if a character is going to vomit, because seeing someone vomit makes people so upset, will then throw around the word Zionist like this will then imply they have some sort of blacklist of Zionists and then just disappear. That post, like nothing happened and not really post much of an explanation. So I'll just. I'll just end by saying that, like, to me, whether or not you think the post is anti Semitic, per se, Dropout fuck this up so badly. And if they just. And if they had any, like, decency on this front, if they don't want to fall into this Jews don't count trap, they should just. They should explain it. They've never explained it. And I'm sure there are Jewish performers who are very uncomfortable now. And either Jews count or they don't count. Either David be right or he's not. And, you know, I suspect Dropout will not do anything about this. We will not be the ones who nudged him to revisit something from a couple of years ago. I was just pretty disgusted by this.

[A]

Well, they probably won't be listening to this podcast. You know why, Jesse?

[B]

Why?

[A]

Jews don't count.

[B]

Jews don't count. All right, on that note.

[A]

Anything else?

[B]

No, that's it. Thank you, Katie, for being such a friend of the Jewish people and for being one of the biggest supporters I know of the Likud Party and the State of Israel herself.

[A]

All right, so we go way, way deep into the Dropout story, the history of dropout, the history of this cancellation and more. And another cancellation that has to do with not Jews, but cops.

[B]

Cops. The Jews of the Jews of civil servants.

[A]

Yeah, you know, that didn't really work. I wonder if there are more Jewish cops or more Jewish NBA players that might be. That might be equal.

[B]

I don't think that's just in New York city alone. There's more Jewish cops then they have a whole some Hasidic sort of unit to interface with that community.

[A]

Jews don't count.

[B]

Jews don't count.

[A]

So if you are interested in this story, go check out that one. It is up on our substack page,

[B]

blockthromported.org and we should include a link to the show notes because that'll be up by the time this is up.

[A]

Yes. Oh and and on May 8, Helen Lewis is going to be joining me for a Gentiles Only chat at Substack Live. We're going to be talking about a Jew book, Lena Dunham's new memoir that is going to be at 8am Pacific Time. That's 11:11am Eastern. And I don't know what that is in the UK 4pm I believe. So please join us. This is for primos only, but we

[B]

would love to see you there scheduled. Well, I'll be preparing for a flight and that's anti Semitic.

[A]

Hey, if you can join us from the airport, you're welcome to watch.

[B]

I'm gonna join you from the cockpit of my plane. You'll see this has been blocked and reported as a always we produce with help from Jessica the 80s baby. Thank you for listening. Bye bye.