L ifestyle /C ulture
Books: Losing Count, Dealing with Home Envy
B OOKS
Progressives’ Blind Spot
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
“Jews Don’t Count”
David Baddiel
Harper Collins
DAVID BADDIEL’S NEW
book “Jews Don’t Count” wasn’t
reviewed by The Guardian,
Great Britain’s premier — and
progressive — daily newspaper.

The Times, The Independent
and The Telegraph reviewed it
(and reviewed it well, according
to Baddiel), but The Guardian
didn’t touch it.

The British author and
comedian believes the reason
for this is simply that, to those
left-of-center, Jews don’t count.

Progressives, particularly
white progressives, are quick
to identify and confront other
forms of discrimination —
anti-Black racism, transphobia,
homophobia, ableism — but
ignore one form of discrimina-
tion that continues to pervade
politics, society and Twitter:
antisemitism. For The Guardian to ignore
a book shedding light on the
tendency of progressives to
overlook antisemitism — well,
it just illustrates Baddiel’s
point. Though “Jews Don’t Count”
made its British debut in
February, Baddiel freshened it
up for its United States release
on Sept. 7, incorporating more
U.S.-friendly examples and
addressing the May flare-up of
violence in Gaza.

Baddiel builds his argument
on the idea that antisemitism
is racism. Though there’s no
place on the British (or U.S.)
census categories of race or
ethnicity to select “Jewish,”
Judaism is more than just a
religious identity, he argues.

As an atheist, Baddiel is reluc-
tant to call himself part of the
Jewish religion, though he
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM strongly thinks of himself as a
Jew ethnically.

Yet for white supremacists,
who marched down the streets
of Charlottesville, Virginia, in
August 2017 chanting “Jews
will not replace us,” it’s clear
that Jews are not accepted as
white, despite many identi-
fying as such, argues Baddiel.

“Racists will always think
that Jews are subhuman
vermin; that’s what racism is,”
Baddiel said. “Whether or not
there’s a notion of Jews as a
race.” This argument is a hairy
one, as it excludes Jews of color
who experience racism in
addition to antisemitism, and
who encounter racism from
within the Jewish community.

Baddiel knows this and
opts to avoid the topic almost
completely, save for a footnote
explaining his reasoning for
excluding this demographic.

“I have had a criticism of
this, and I’m perfectly happy
to acknowledge that criticism,’’
Baddiel said. “But at the end of
the day, the book is a thesis and
a polemic.”
“Jews Don’t Count” is part
of a Times Literary Supplement
series of essay books. Lee
Child, author of the Jack
Reacher series, wrote the first
in the series, and TLS asked
Baddiel to write another. The
book doesn’t include inter-
disciplinary research or the
opinions of experts; at the
most, he shares several tweets,
some to which he’s angrily
replied. Baddiel’s Twitter bio is even
a bit tongue-in-cheek. “Jew,” it
reads. Baddiel had never tried to
hide his Jewishness.

“I don’t have shame, much,
as an emotion because I’m a
comedian,” Baddiel said. “And
one of the first things I wanted
to do was use my Jewishness in
my comedy.”
There aren’t many Jewish
comedians in Britain who
do this, Baddiel believes. He
lists a few in the book, which
he’s almost certain will be
unknown to his American
audience, but Baddiel’s point
stands. Though Baddiel has never
been ashamed of his Jewish
identity, he has been threat-
ened for it, something that sets
him apart from other Jews in
Britain who are much quieter
about their Jewish identities.

Baddiel recalled a dinner
party at a rabbi’s house that
he attended about a decade
or so ago. He and the guests
began talking about antisemi-
tism. Some said they had never
encountered it. Baddiel was
irked. “You know why? Because
you’ve never come out publicly
as Jewish. I’m the only person
around this table, apart from
the chief rabbi, who comes out
and talks about being Jewish,”
Baddiel said.

After releasing “Jews Don’t
Count,” Baddiel hopes the tides
are slowly turning.

The other week, Baddiel
received a message from an
18-year-old college student
who’s progressive and polit-
ically involved. For the past
two years, the young man was
afraid of bringing antisemi-
tism into discussions around
discrimination, fearing he
wouldn’t be taken seriously.

“Jews Don’t Count” changed
that for him:
“He then read the book
and said, ‘Now I won’t do
that. You’ve given me a way of
talking about it.’”
Despite so many Jews
reading and reacting positively
to the book, it wasn’t intended
for them. Baddiel hopes that
non-Jewish white progressives
will read “Jews Don’t Count.”
For those left-of-center, who
stand in solidarity with other
oppressed groups, Baddiel
hopes they can make room for
just one more.

srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
JEWISH EXPONENT
Courtesy Harper Collins
Valuing Relationships,
Imagination ELEANOR LINAFELT | JE CONTRIBUTING
WRITER “Real Estate”
Deborah Levy
Bloomsbury Publishing
IN THE FIRST SENTENCE
of her autobiography “Real
Estate,” out now from
Bloomsbury, Deborah Levy
buys a banana tree. What
she really wants to buy is a
house (hence the title of the
book) but is unable to given
her modest income as a writer,
even a successful one who has
published many other works of
fiction, an autobiography and
plays. The banana tree, growing
in a pot in the bathroom of
Levy’s “crumbling” London
apartment, becomes a consis-
tent figure throughout the book
that otherwise wanders both
geographically, as the writer
travels to Mumbai, Paris, Berlin
and Greece, and thematically, as
she explores motherhood, love
and feminism.

When “Real Estate” opens,
Levy, who was born in South
Africa to a Jewish father and
English mother, is approaching
her 60th birthday, her youngest
daughter is about to leave for
university, and she is reckoning
Bloomsbury Publishing
with the idea of living alone in
the apartment that she started
renting after the end of her long
marriage. She dreams of “a grand old
house” with “fountains and
wells, remarkable circular stair-
ways, mosaic floors, traces of the
rituals of all who had lived there
before me.” But, as Levy writes,
“I could not place it geograph-
ically, nor did I know how to
achieve such a spectacular house
with my precarious income.”
So she buys a banana tree,
which her daughters lovingly
refer to as Levy’s “third child,”
as well as many other luxurious
items that she hopes to one day
fill her dream house with.

“Real Estate” is interested
in the material world, but
Levy manages to come across
as unmaterialistic. Rather, the
descriptions of her Afghan horse
sculptures, silk sheets and sage
green shoes are simply reminders
of the worth of surrounding
ourselves with beautiful things
when we are able to.

And finally, Levy is able
to do so. Upon receiving a
sexist comment from a male
writer about the “lateness” of
her professional success, Levy
reflects on how long it took
for her to be recognized for
her writing because of all that
she was up against as a young
woman, and mother, in a patri-
archal literary world. Spending
See Books, Page 35
SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
25