The hair salon is never the easiest place to make conversation. There’s the roar of the dryer and the spine-crunching arc of the neck as your head tips back over the basin.
So when a familiar-looking woman took her place at the adjacent sink to mine for a pre-Shabbat pampering, we exchanged a brief sideways smile before the hand showers set to work.

Later it came to me that I’d actually been double-parked with a teacher from my junior school days. The next time I went in, I mentioned this to the new member of staff who had done my hair the previous week. She knew exactly who I meant. “Oh, yes,” she said. “After you left, the lady asked who you were, as she said she recognised you too.” Ah, that’s nice, I thought. I was always a bit of a swot. But then the dénouement : “But I told her she wouldn’t have known you since you’re not Jewish.”

Oh dear, there goes the neighbourhood. Though actually, being conferred with this kind of reverse imposter syndrome isn’t new to me. It’s happened countless times over the years. And when I step out from behind the screen — like a successful contestant on Blind Date — to reveal my heritage, the response is always the same. “Really? But you don’t look Jewish!”

Perhaps it’s my red hair (a genetic throwback to my grandfather who apparently hailed from a Ukrainian village swarming with carrot-topped Jews). And, unlike other Jewish Mancunians, I don’t misplace the definite article when talking about celebrity mags (as in “I read it in the Hello!”).

It makes me something of a curveball in those toe-curling discussions about so-called Jewface, the phenomenon of non-Jewish actors securing Jewish roles (step forward The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel).

Only recently Maureen Lipman stirred the cholent pot in this very newspaper when she flinched at Helen Mirren bagging the role of Golda Meir in a new film about the legendary Israeli PM. Although agreeing Mirren will be “marvellous”, Maureen lamented the lack of “Jewishness” integral to the part. Expanding the point further on Radio 4 she conceded that most people wouldn’t be able to see the join — although Brenda from Hendon would.
I’ll leave arguments about the need for lived experience for another time (frankly, I always thought Tamsin Greig was Jewish, even though she belatedly said she “probably” should not have been cast in sitcom Friday Night Dinner.)

GettyImages-1211404547

Tamsin Greig attends the "Friday Night Dinner" photocall at Curzon Soho in 2020 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

Instead, I’ve been reflecting from the other side of the mirror — does it matter when our physiognomy fails to cross-check with the expectations of the gentile world?

Certainly there have been times when I’ve felt like an entry-level Mossad agent when people unaware of my heritage make some madly sweeping generalisation about Jewish people. (The best was that “Jews have good teeth.” Me neither.) At least there’s something inherently satisfying about allowing people enough rope to hang themselves before unmasking your identity.

Equally, as a broadcaster, though always grateful that I have a platform to, say, defend antisemitism, I apparently exert a subliminal pull away from the essence of my Jewishness. Friends have said that, if anything I “go more Northern” during such debates — and my teenage daughter even suggests that I bear a resemblance to Angela Rayner.

Even fellow Jews are surprised sometimes when I declare my hand, say when chatting in a doctor’s waiting room or supermarket queue. The imbalance of our respective Jewdars can make me work harder to throw my fellow tribe members off the scent .

But what does a Jew look like? I had no idea, for example, that businesswoman and television personality Caprice was Jewish when we met at a television studio. Since it was just before Pesach I mentioned something in passing about taking time off for Passover. Bang, the conversation went off like a rocket as she reflected on seders past. Call me a matzo pudding, but I hadn’t seen that one coming. But then who knew Harrison Ford — son of Dora Nidelman, grandson of Anna Lifschutz and Harry Nidelman from Minsk — was halachically one of ours?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m hugely proud of being Jewish, showcasing my Magen David in my places of work, or weaving a bissle Yiddish into the water (or vasser) cooler chat.

However, when you don’t look Jewish, you have the gift of choice. Though, sadly, as my old teacher demonstrated, perhaps that makes mine a forgettable mush too.