Don't worry, Tamsin Greig, you made a great Jewish mum - The Jewish Chronicle

We were out the other night at a very cool but dimly lit restaurant, and my husband insisted on using the torch on his phone to illuminate the menu. As he did so — ignoring the fashionable diners all around us, dazzling the waiter by shining it into his face — our kids cringed. “Dad! You’re being so Martin!”

By Martin, they meant Martin Goodman, patriarch of the Jewish family in the Channel 4 comedy series Friday Night Dinner, who was played by the late, much lamented actor Paul Ritter. This led to a conversation about whether the rest of us could also be identified with the Goodmans. And although my daughter firmly rejected any possible connection to Adam, we all agreed that my son had certain things in common with Jonny. As for me and the Goodman’s mother Jackie — “100 per cent accuracy”, according to my beloveds.
I mention this because Tamsin Greig, who played Jackie, was quoted this week saying that perhaps she should not have. “I think, given our sensitivity today about these issues, I probably shouldn’t have been in that show,” she told the Telegraph. “We are much more conscious today than we were when that show was first aired.”

Well, maybe. Certainly it feels strange now that none of the actors cast as the Goodman family were Jewish. It left them more open to being criticised as inauthentic and stereotypical, and indeed there are some who found the show embarrassing. And there’s a much wider debate raging about representation, about the lack of jobs available in the creative industries for people from minority backgrounds, and about cultural appropriation when a completely non-Jewish ensemble gets to work on Jewish content.

But Friday Night Dinner had a Jewish writer — Robert Popper — who based the characters on his own family. That lived experience shines through in the performances. As Jackie, Tamsin Greig is very Jewish (uncannily so in some episodes) but also has universal appeal — exasperated, loving, hopeful, disappointed — she is everymum.

I am sometimes asked by writers and editors to advise on the Jewish content of books and plays. This is known as ‘sensitivity reading’, although I have also heard it called ‘authenticity reading’. It’s something that I enjoy — how much more fun to criticise other people’s work than create your own? And I usually have something to say, whether it is a historical inaccuracy or the nuance that a Jewish reader sees that a non-Jew might miss.

The job of the sensitivity reader is portrayed in today’s ‘culture wars’ as a finger-wagging ‘woke’ bore, intent on censorship and slamming the door in the face of the likes of Tamsin Greig. In fact, I think the opposite is true. If anything, I am enabling non-Jewish writers to write about Jews with understanding and knowledge.

I am also called on to read books by Jewish writers. Sometimes I feel my role is to give them permission to write about Jewish subjects. Are they Jewish enough, they wonder — do they know enough? Will other Jews criticise them? The fear of misrepresenting one’s own heritage and community can be stifling. This is especially true for people who have only one Jewish parent, or who have grown up outside the mainstream community.

We’ve heard a lot recently about how Jews in theatre can feel isolated and attacked by anti-Zionist attitudes. I once worked with a group of drama students who casually used the word ‘Jew’ to mean stingy. The collaborative nature of much creative work makes it difficult to speak out — you don’t want to rock the boat. Does that make it more difficult for Jewish people to have creative careers? How can we offer support?

The most cringe-worthy — and funny — moments in Friday Night Dinner come from Jim, the family’s next door neighbour, who finds their Jewishness fascinating and turns up on their doorstep every Friday night with a cheery “Shalom!”, hoping to be invited in. The Goodmans find every reason they can to keep him out.

Let’s not make talented actors like Tamsin Greig feel like Jim, crassly pushing in where they are not wanted. Instead, let’s do all we can to nurture creative talent within the Jewish community — actors, writers, directors — so that there’s another show which is as big a hit as Friday Night Dinner, and there are plenty of Jewish actors competing for roles on it.

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