Review of "Jews don't count" by David Baddiel

I appreciated (I can't say enjoyed) this much more than I expected to ("Sunday Times Bestseller" on the cover didn't help, because I don't expect the Murdoch press to be a reliable ally against racism, and it rather reinforces the idea that being against antisemitism is the establishment's favourite kind of antiracism).

I've never been a fan of Baddiel's comedy, and I had ingested the criticism of him as having done "blackface" in his comedy act, so how can he possibly have an opinion about racism? But actually he deals with that quite well in the book - he admits that the act was racist, and he apologizes, and asks why that disqualifies him from ever commenting about any other kind of racism. 

And yeah, the book is mainly about antisemitism among progressives - or more accurately, about the failure of progressives to respond to antisemitism, however blatant. And actually having read it has changed my perceptions of stuff that I wouldn't have made a fuss about a few weeks ago - a "Roald Dahl" show at our local theatre venue, because he may have been a Jew-hater, but that doesn't stop him being a posthumous national treasure. A friend who thinks of herself as an anti-racist springing to the defence of Kayne West on social media, because she thinks it's terrible the way the media persecutes Black men. Friends who say Jeremy Corbyn is a nice and sincere man (I'm sure he is, and there is so much about him to admire) so he can't possibly be antisemitic. 

For me there's still too much about Twitter in the book - I just don't engage with it that much, and I will engage lef