Kirsty’s question about which character had first resonated with her as a child, saying: “Oh, Fagin. Without question. Jewish and vile. I didn’t know Jews like that then sadly, I do now.”
Despite laughter from the audience, the BBC decided to remove the remarks from the broadcast.
I will never stop being surprised at how proactively the Jewish community is censored by the establishment trying to prevent antisemitism.
In their heads anti-Semitism means criticism. Even justifiable criticism.
Especially justifiable criticism.
Wait a sec, I always thought she was Jewish herself?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Margolyes
To be honest I’m not surprised as she is famous for her verbal diarrhoea. People seem to love it when she’s calling Boris a cunt on the radio. Not so much now though.
Wait a sec, I always thought she was Jewish herself?
She is, but being pro-Corbyn and against the war in Gaza, and outspoken, she’s always going to cause broadcasters problems.
I think this incident says more about others (i.e. the BBC being unable to countenance such a thought) than her.
In 1863 a Jewish mother-of-ten called Eliza Davis wrote to berate, in the most charm-mixed-with-chutzpah of ways, the author Charles Dickens about his character Fagin in Oliver Twist.
Eliza had little more than a passing acquaintance with the novelist; she and her husband had bought his London home three years earlier. She wrote to him to request some funds for a Jewish home for convalescents adding that perhaps a donation could ameliorate some of the wrongs he had done.
“Charles Dickens, the large-hearted, whose works plead so eloquently and so nobly for the oppressed of his country… has encouraged a vile prejudice against the despised Hebrew,” she wrote. “Fagin, I fear, admits only of one interpretation but while Charles Dickens lives, the author can justify himself or atone for a great wrong.”
Fagin’s back - the villain Charles Dickens tried to cancel, Jewish Chronicle
Thanks for this. I never knew about this. In retrospect, Fagin was a pretty shoddy stereotype. But, in general most of Dickens’ books deal in such tropes. The real question is, was Miriam wrong to say what she did? And was the BBC wrong in censoring her? While your anecdote was interesting I’m not sure it spoke to those questions specifically.
What I find odd (and this might be the fault of whoever wrote the piece) is that the “‘shocking’ three word remark” that is said to have got the interview pulled isn’t shocking - it’s actually the other bit of her statement.
Who forced them, and who are they quoting as saying it was ‘shocking’?
I read it as a self-censor by The Beeb. Or, more to the point, they censored Miriam. And maybe it was just the BBC that found it shocking.
[Edit] after rereading the article, it appears that listeners forced this action. Thinking about it more something is off about the presentation of facts in this article. How can the BBC pull something from a broadcast that’s already been broadcast? Maybe the iPlayer version is changed and any rebroadcasts.
The point is that the newspaper — and possibly someone at the BBC although it seems impossible to say what really happened there without looking for other sources, which doesn’t seem likely to be a worthwhile activity — is attempting only to stir up controversy out of nothing at all. It is not “shocking” to point out that the character of Fagin is both vile and Jewish. On the contrary it should not be surprising to anyone who knows anything about it.
She’s just saying that some people are Jewish and are unpleasant I don’t quite understand how that’s a extreme comment.
This is just an example of the BBC being sensitive again isn’t it. Whatever you do, don’t call genocide a genocide, for some reason.
