Fifty Shades of J: The Jewish Image in British Television from 1965 – 2015

This illustrated talk, written to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Parkes Library in Southampton, will present a variety of different ways in which Jews and Jewishness have been presented on British television since 1965. It will consider predominantly moments when an on-screen character or figure is identified in some way by her/himself or by others as ‘a Jew’ or Jewish. The aim will be not to suggest a reductive essentialist reading of Jewishness with connotations of Sartre – one is a Jew is one says one is a Jew – but to consider how Jewishness has been suggested, recognised and read over the past half century, and the implications this has for our understanding of Jewish/non-Jewish relations. It will draw on comedies, dramas and documentaries,m asking if there is a difference engagement and relationship depending on the context.

Dr James Jordan is based at the University of Southampton where he holds the position of Karten Lecturer at the Parkes Institute for Jewish/non-Jewish Relations.