E98: [TEASER] Radical Reads – ‘Jews Don’t Count’ by David Baddiel

This is a teaser preview of one of our Radical Reads episodes, made exclusively for our supporters on patreon. You can listen to the full 85-minute episode without ads and support our work at https://www.patreon.com/posts/e97-radical-10-116392240

In this episode, we talk to Michael Richmond, a Jewish communist author and anti-racist activist, about David Baddiel's ridiculous book, Jews Don't Count. In this book, Baddiel claims that the key thing about contemporary antisemitism is the left's confusion over it, and how this confusion means that Jews are uniquely excluded from left-wing political discourse and activism.

We discuss (and make fun of) Baddiel's book for about an hour and a half covering every aspect of his shallow understanding of racism, whiteness, Jewishness and antisemitism, and why Baddiel should probably get new friends.

Listen to the full episode here:

• E98: Radical Reads – ‘Jews Don’t Count’ by David Baddiel

More information:

• Read Michael's excellent book (co-authored with Alex Charnley), Fractured: Race, Class, Gender and the Hatred of Identity Politics
• A number of Michael's articles can be found here and here. Some which are particularly relevant to this discussion are:
  • 'Philosemitism: An Instrumental Kind of Love'
  • 'On "Black Antisemitism" and Antiracist Solidarity'
  • 'A long way from Cable Street'
  • 'Playing the Jew'
• Timeline of people's history stories about radical Jewish history
• The webpage for this episode is available here: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e98-radical-reads-jews-dont-count-by-david-baddiel/

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Jamison D. Saltsman, Fernando López Ojeda, Jeremy Cusimano, and Nick Williams.
• The episode image of David Baddiel at Soho Theatre, 2020. Credit: Raph PH (with additional design by WCH). CC 2.0.
• Edited by Jesse French
• Our theme tune is Montaigne’s version of the classic labour movement anthem, ‘Bread and Roses’, performed by Montaigne and Nick Harriott, and mixed by Wave Racer. Download the song here, with all proceeds going to Medical Aid for Palestinians. More from Montaigne: website,