April 28, 2025 • 42 mins
Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in Australia, the Middle East and the world at large but a little bit ashamed that you don’t know much about it all … because you’re like … not Jewish ? Well you’ve come to the right place!
For the next few episodes, we’ll be inviting someone who isn’t Jewish, to raise all the awkward questions you might be too ashamed to ask.
First up in this week’s spin-off, Tami and co-host Elise Esther Hearst (filling in for Dash) are joined by writer & dramaturg Van Badham who asks them some questions about their experience as Jewish people and creatives. Expect to hear about Jewish mythology, arts community politics + Tami & Elise’s speciality: intergenerational trauma!
Welcome to Ashamed to Ask
If you liked this episode, you’ll like:
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/when-they-ask-about-the-tooth-fairy
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/the-best-jewish-cultural-moments-of-2024
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/jews-and-the-occult-five-myth-busting-insights
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in
Australia, the Middle East andthe world at large?
But a little bit ashamed thatyou're barely keeping up to date
.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, you've come to the right place.
I'm Elise Esther Hurst, fillingin for Dash Lawrence, and in
this special episode of Ashamed,to Admit your, are we distant
enough to shtup third cousinTammy Sussman and I will be
inviting someone who isn'tJewish to raise all the awkward
questions you might be tooashamed to ask.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Join me, and Elise, as we have a go at cutting
through some seriously chewy anddewy topics.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast.
Ashamed to Ask.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Hello everyone, welcome to this very special
episode of Ashamed.
To Admit, we're calling it AShame to Ask.
Joining me today in the studiowhile Dash is away is Elise
Esther Hurst.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Hi Elise, hey Tammy, how are you?
I'm okay.
How are you doing?
I'm so happy to be here.
Thanks for having me Pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Elise.
You're an award-winningMelbourne-based playwright,
author and performer.
Stop.
Your debut novel, one Day we'reAll Going to Die, was
shortlisted for the Age Book ofthe Year Award 2024.
Your work has appeared atvarious theatres around
Australia, including a veryJewish Christmas Carol which was
(01:44):
at Melbourne Theatre CompanyYentl, the winner of the Green
Room Award for OutstandingWriting.
It was first shown at theMalthouse Theatre and the Arts
Centre at Melbourne and then itcame to Sydney and was shown at
the Sydney Opera House.
How else shall I identify youto our listeners?
How?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
else shall I identify you to our listeners.
Just call me the.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Jewish Nicole Kidman with a side of dill pickle
Perfection.
Some of our listeners mightalso recognise you from
Instagram, where you ratepickles.
You have family members rateyour Seder nights, your Friday
night dinners, you do a littlebit of unboxing matzah matzah,
unboxing, amongst other thingsand, of course, you are the
(02:35):
other half of.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Shaw and Bo yeah and occasionally more.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah.
So, happy that you're here.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, thank you for having me, my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
We will now be retiring the South African
accent.
I think that's for the best,yeah, yeah, okay.
So, elise, you're co-hostingwith me today, and the structure
of this episode is a little bitdifferent to how Dash and I
would normally do A Shame toAdmit this episode.
(03:12):
We've invited someone into thestudio to ask us the questions
that they're ashamed to ask, andthat person is ashamed to ask,
and that person is Van Badham.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Van Badham is a writer and dramaturg from
regional Victoria.
Van has had a successfulinternational career as an
award-winning playwright, criticand screenwriter.
She's been called a majortalent by the Guardian and one
of the leading voices of hergeneration by Time Out London.
In addition to writing books,plays, screenplays and criticism
(03:50):
, she writes and performs formusic, theatre and cabaret and
has had an extensive career inradio.
Wow, how do you feel?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Anxious, of course, baseline.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Where to go from here .
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Are you feeling a little bit nervous that she's
going to ask a question that youdon't know how to answer?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Well, obviously I am a bad Jew, as all the good Jews
are.
Yeah, I'm worried, I'm on edge.
Spilkers, I need to go to thetoilet Spilkers.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And you?
I'm on edge, I need to go tothe toilet.
And you, when I'm in non-Jewishspaces, I'm usually the token
Jew who is assumed to have allthe knowledge and I feel really
bad when I don't have theanswers to things.
I hope she doesn't ask me anyquestions that require textual
knowledge.
Yeah, I fumble over like is itTorah, is it Gemara?
(04:55):
There are just so many books,so many.
So I do hope she asks aboutdigestive issues, because I feel
like that's where I'm, yeah,that's where you excel, yeah,
that's where I thrive.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I'm just hoping for a lot of intergenerational trauma
because I feel like that's myspecialty.
Okay, we'll see what we can do.
We'll see.
No, she's amazing and I knowVan is such an ally, so I'm
really excited to speak to her.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I hope you listeners enjoy our ensuing conversation
with Van Badham.
So, van Badham, thank you somuch for joining us in the
(05:40):
Ashamed to Ask studio.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Oh, I'm honoured to be here.
How fun.
Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Elise and I have brought you in here today to ask
us all the ignorant questions,all the saucy, spicy questions
about Judaism, Jewishness, allthe questions you've always been
too ashamed to ask.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I don't know if I actually feel shame.
Are you sure I should be onthis program?
Because I mean, I just blunderinto these things.
Quite honestly, you know theworld's most clumsy, curious
person.
Do you know what I'm reallyinterested in?
And I wanted to take thisopportunity to just acknowledge
Elise, who is one of myfavourite Australian writers.
I love Elise's work.
I've been a big fan for a longtime.
(06:27):
I saw a play that Elise wrotewhen she was a wee baby.
That was at the New Theatre inNewtown.
That was performed on a pile ofdirt and what was so
interesting about the play wasthat Elise just had a really
interesting grasp of symbol andlanguage and how they work
(06:48):
together.
And I saw a very JewishChristmas Carol, which I thought
was hilarious, and EvelynCrapedrist as a gingerbread man
was just literally one of thegreatest theatrical moments of
my life.
But also I saw Yentl and couldsee Elisa's grasp of symbol and
language and how they worktogether, particularly in stage
(07:08):
format and obviously witheverything that's been going on
in the past year, like I was,when that horrible Doxed
Creative list came out.
I knew so many people on thatlist and had just never thought
about their Jewish identity andrealised that as a person who's
involved in the Australian arts,who's been in the arts
(07:30):
community for a really long time, so many of my favourite
writers are Jewish Australians,and so my question is what is it
about Jewish culture thatcreates such a vibrant sort of
engagement with literature, like?
I'm genuinely interested inthat, because when I think about
(07:52):
not only my favourite JewishAustralian writers but also my
favourite writers full stop, somany of them come from Jewish
backgrounds.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Wow, first thing I have to say, besides thank you
and you're amazing is that Tammywas in Dirty Land, and I don't
know if you know that.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
No, because Tammy's wearing a hat and a big pair of
sunglasses.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I also had no lines in the play, so it's totally
fine if Anne doesn't.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
You didn't play the dirt.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
No, she was a mute dragging a sack.
Ah, you were the sack person.
Oh, wow, she was the sackperson.
I had written that play just asa circle back, coming from
living in the UK for two and ahalf years and I think what had
really seeped into my bones fromthat experience of being in
(08:46):
Europe and even just theexperience of being an
Australian in London, being aJewish Australian in London, I
felt that sense of othernessreally profoundly and I felt
that sense of the ghosts of thepast being all around, the
(09:08):
proximity of Europe, of Poland.
That really informed that playand my writing.
And I think for a lot of Jewishartists we're chasing ghosts.
That's how we operate, becauseso much of our culture, our
(09:28):
spirituality, is deeply tied tothe past, to death, to searching
for answers, to being othered.
So that must come into.
I don't know our creative flowand the way that we see the
world and articulate the world.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
There's also a strong storytelling tradition.
So we have our written storiesor our written Jewish laws, but
then we also have the oraldebating, and talking about the
law or the stories is encouragedas well.
So I think it's fair to saythat you'd be hard pressed to
find a Jew whose ancestorshaven't had everything taken
(10:10):
from them, including books.
So a lot of the stories have tobe kept.
I know it sounds kind of wankyto say in our hearts or in our
minds, but you know we need tokeep telling those stories, to
remind each other of thosenarratives so that we don't lose
them.
So do you think that could playinto it as well?
(10:31):
Strong stories.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
It's so interesting, like we're just coming off the
festival of Passover, pesach.
My kids go to a Jewish schooland so they have the story of
Pesach the exodus, you know,being enslaved and delivered
from slavery into freedom.
Really, really strong imageryof death, murder, suffering,
(10:57):
bondage.
My eight-year-old is cominghome and these stories just kind
of fall from her mouth withoutyou know, without a moment's
pause pondering what pause is.
And it's, I think, the beautyof sitting around a table and
the act of telling the story.
You know, we're instructed totell the story.
(11:17):
It is such a big part of thisfestival is the storytelling,
and I get shivers becausetelling the same stories that
we've been telling for thousandsof years and their relevance to
today and what we experience orhow we can empathize with other
people who are experiencingsuffering, it's a huge part of
(11:40):
our culture.
So, yeah, it must, must havesomething to do with Jews and
their creativity.
I don't know if any of thatrings true, van.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Obviously my knowledge of this is external
and quite shallow, but it'sobserving, like the imaginative
heft in that storytelling aswell, that comes from a Jewish
mystical tradition Like we'vejust watched House of David,
which I cannot recommend enoughthe Netflix show, it's basically
Jewish Lord of the Rings, it'sgot a giant and it is absolute,
(12:14):
just fun quality televisionentertainment, despite the
truthful and biblical disclaimerat the beginning of it.
But I am aware of things likethe Dibbuk and giants and the
Nephilim and these sort ofextraordinary creatures from the
Old Testament and the PragueGolem and these sort of quite
(12:36):
powerful sort of manifestationsof symbol which I don't entirely
understand.
But I want to understand wherethose come from, like dybbuks in
particular I'm fascinated byElise, this is your area, for
sure.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yes, shit fuck.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I had a dybbuk in my show, Like what was the
symbolism of the dybbuk?
They possess?
They're dead and they possessthe body of the living.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
They enter Van.
This is very Jewish.
What's happening right now islike we learn something in
school or we know it's Jewish,and then we forget what that's
all about because there's somuch.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
We're like that prayer what is that prayer again
?
Well, the book.
It enters the bride on herwedding night.
So there are all these ritualsaround weddings and marriage and
the bride in particular, toprotect her from, you know,
being entered by a demon asopposed to her husband.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I had never heard of Dibuk before I met Elise.
Oh, I couldn't tell you muchabout it though.
No, but I mean it just wasn'tcovered.
I went to a modern OrthodoxJewish primary school and high
school.
We had the old biblical storiesthe Noah's Ark, exodus, adam
and Eve but that wasn't covered.
(13:59):
No, I agree.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Do you think that might be a phenomenon of what it
means to be a diaspora culture,though?
Because I encountered thesesort of mystical and folkloric
tenets?
Because my sort of firstexperience of living around a
Jewish community was in London,where I hung out with dudes who
(14:21):
had a completely differentsocial take on what it meant to
be Jewish and came from like aBritish Jewish tradition that
just talked about and engagedwith different things.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, and would be different to our experience of
Jewishness as well in living inAustralia and living in a very
post-Holocaust community.
And I think, yes, I also didn'tlearn about it at school.
But then there is thattradition, especially in
Melbourne, of Yiddish theatreand Yiddish culture.
There were basically theHolocaust survivors coming from
(14:56):
Europe and performing the dybbukand telling those stories that
they were telling in Polandbefore the war, during the war
and then surviving the war totell those stories here.
And one of my friends who's afantastic writer, tully Lovey.
I remember she wrote an articlein the Jewish Quarterly about,
and I just remember she talkedabout how they brought the
(15:17):
Dybbuk here to Melbourne and itwas kind of living amongst the
spirits of the dead that allthese survivors brought with
them For us in a post-survivorkind of world.
That is our deep book.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
It's a really interesting comparison that
comes from a sort ofpost-colonial country experience
.
Like, as far as I'm aware andcorrect me if I'm wrong the
majority of the AustralianJewish community comes from
Holocaust survival families,whereas my experience living in
Britain whether they were, youknow, jewish families that had
(15:55):
been in Britain as long asthey'd been in Britain, like
they're hundreds and hundreds ofyears of history, and the guys
who I was particularly close toin London came from a really
their grandfathers were CableStreet guys who had physically
worked with the trade unionsthat they were members of to
drive the black shirts out ofLondon and came from a very
(16:17):
different historical experience.
I mean, what does that mean interms of an international
conversation around Jewishnessto go, well, we carry this
horror and you don't like isthat an ongoing conversation?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
you're both looking at me like no, no, we're all
family, but we're not all thesame.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Oh no way, are you telling me that groups of people
aren't homogenous based on acouple of like common cultural
identifiers?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
it's really surprising look, we're basically
the same.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
A generalisation could be really destructive and
inaccurate, perpetuating astereotype that's used to
further bigotry.
Am I right?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I can talk to that, especially because I was married
to a man who was Jewish, buthis maternal line is Sephardi,
so originally Spanish Jews, whogot kicked out during the
Inquisition and went to Turkey,and his father's a Mizrahi Jew,
so Middle Eastern, who thensettled in Mexico, so both
(17:14):
Jewish, and he was so excited.
When he met me he was like, ohmy God, it's a Jewish woman, my
family's going to be so excited.
Because he felt very quicklythat we would get married and
have kids and there was a lot ofculture shock going on.
There were a lot of differencesand I often felt that he didn't
(17:34):
fully understand.
Being a third generationHolocaust survivor, I would get
very anxious about food waste ormy neuroses.
I often caught myself feeling alittle bit envious about his
family and how, when we went tovisit them, they were just.
They'd experienced their owntrauma for sure, but I just felt
(17:59):
like they were able to kind ofsoak up life or drink life in a
way that I felt that my familyand other families who had
experienced those horrorscouldn't.
There's almost a sense that thepeople who have survived the
(18:19):
Holocaust and their offspringthere's a little bit of them
that's still there.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
And there's degrees.
There's the people who are inthe camps and the family members
of those who are in the campsand the family members of those
who got out.
So my family got out.
Of course there were members ofthe family who didn't get out,
but my grandparents all got outand I think, yeah, there's
measures of kind of how deepthat trauma runs and what we're
(18:48):
waiting for is to see how ourchildren and our children's
children, I guess interpret thattrauma.
And hopefully not.
How do you live with that Like?
Speaker 3 (19:00):
that historical anxiety as a living memory, like
the burden of that, must be attimes unbearable.
Especially, I mean, something Ihave really noticed and I'm a
very dedicated anti-fascist andI'm always very, very happy to
make Nazis unhappy, like that's.
(19:21):
I mean I see that as my role inlife and obviously my
solidarity with the Jewishcommunity is based on.
Never again means never again,like it's pretty easy and in my
experience of political activismthe litmus is always
anti-semitism, becauseanti-semitism, if it's present,
you know that sexism is presentand you know homophobia is
(19:43):
present, you know transphpresent, racism's present, like
because it's a permissionstructure for hatred.
And I'm always absolutelystunned when what I think is,
you know, like acceptablepost-World War II moral basis,
which is Nazis are bad and wefight them and smash them and
marginalise their influence andsend them to jail and get them
(20:05):
arrested.
And I mean this is what we do,where there seem to be
carve-outs amongst people whowould tell you to your face
Nazis were bad, but there arecarve-outs around anti-semitic
justifications, generalizations.
It happened to me at the pub theother day where I was like a
woman who was fairly, you know,convinced of her own left-wing
(20:25):
self-righteousness, made a carveout and I was like, are you
perpetuating an anti-Jewishbigotry?
Because I mean, I'm not goingto accuse you, don't you?
But if I was to draw parallelswith what you're saying
anti-Jewish bigotry I think Icould.
I mean, I think I could findthem fairly comprehensively, and
I mean it was to put that sortof weirdness in the context of a
(20:48):
community that's still carryingthe lived communication of
trauma.
I mean, how is that notcompletely unbearable Medication
?
This is my privilege of notcoming from a survivor community
, but I just I think it kind ofcomes and goes in waves of
unbearability.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I think it kind of comes and goes in waves of
unbearability.
I think it's been really hardfor me to witness what it's been
like for my parents.
They grew up in what theyalways felt was the most idyllic
multicultural society, wherethey were always welcome, and
(21:31):
it's been completely devastatingand heartbreaking for them to
witness the disintegration ofwhat they saw as a safe place
for Jews.
That's been really devastatingand you know you're in strife
when your Israeli family arereading the media about what's
(21:53):
going on in Australia andthey're like are you okay in the
group chat?
Yeah, has that happened to you,elaine?
Yeah, yeah, it's happened to me.
It's like you guys, just you'vegot your own shit going on,
we'll be right.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, I said to my gorgeous Israeli cousin.
I said why are you worriedabout me, like I don't have to
run to a shelter, I'm nothearing the sirens.
And she said, yes, sirens andshelters, and you know shells
and bombs I can handle.
It's people who are scarier andyou're having to deal with the
(22:28):
people.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I think, yeah, seeing my parents and then also on the
other end of the spectrum, thathaving to question whether my
children are safe, is also beenextremely confronting.
We were driving past CaulfieldGrammar and my son said do they
have security guards when it'sschool holidays?
And I said they don't havesecurity guards any of the time.
(22:52):
I believe why do we havesecurity guards?
It's like the birds and thebees talk.
It's like having to give yourkids the anti-Semitism talk.
It's not easy.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
How do you avoid, like avoid, impending traumatic
breakdown?
Well, I don't.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
You just have them, I just have them.
It's so interesting, everyonehandles it differently.
I mean, in my family my parentshandle their intergenerational
trauma by repressing and justbeing these amazing, resilient,
robust people who just get onwith it.
And I think my sister got thosegenes too and I think there was
(23:33):
a glitch with me.
My friends would say I'm veryresilient and I get on with it,
but I feel like I am this spongefor emotion.
And you're the artist.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, that's true, my dad has become a prolific
letter writer, slash emailer.
He will write to everyone andanyone, all the politicians,
just unstoppable.
He's been to kind of everyrally and protest.
(24:04):
That's how he's processing thisexperience and yeah, it's up
and down.
I've been fortunate enough tobe continuing to work in
projects that have a Jewishslant to them and being around
other Jews, and it kind of feelssad to say that in a way,
(24:25):
that's that's how I'm able tomake work right now a, because
it feels safe, uh, and b I don'tknow what work, how much work
there is out there for meotherwise, just at this time.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
We get through it by making funny videos as well.
Funny content is another way ofchanneling that grief and
anxiety into humor.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, that's quite productive.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
I want to reassure you like overwhelmingly my
experience has been that the oldsolidarity holds Like I want
you to understand thatoverwhelmingly in the spaces
that I'm in.
It's just these outliers whoturn up in spaces where you
don't.
It's like if somebody makes aTERF comment and you're like,
hang on, you're in the wrongroom, and it's just happened to
(25:13):
me a couple of times and I'vebeen genuinely surprised, like
as if there's, like I said, acarve-out or exclusion criteria.
It's like looking at somethingthat's 1,000 years old, 2,500
years old, you know this strangesort of hateful rubric that has
been carried and the idea thatpeople wouldn't feel comfortable
(25:35):
, like calling it out and theway that can be manipulated to
inflict more trauma on people.
I just find the most cynicaland disgusting of contemporary
sort of discourse, particularlyonline.
In my QAnon book, obviously, ifyou're studying far-right
conspiracy theories, it's noteven a hop, skip and a jump,
it's just a hop to the protocolsof the elders of Zion, as you
(25:58):
can imagine.
And I went into communities onthe internet because it was
writing about them that I neededtherapy to decompress from
afterwards because they were,I'm sure you can imagine, just
completely insane.
But it's also the way that thatanxiety is weaponized by the
most bad faith actors on earth.
(26:18):
When I wrote my QAnon book, Icame across this horrendous
story.
There was quite a famous viralvideo that went around that was
a woman attacking a mask standin a Kmart in Arizona.
Did you see it?
No, oh, it was, you know, oneof the ultimate Karen videos.
And this middle-class blondewoman just absolutely melting
down in a Kmart and smashed up amask stand and said this is the
(26:41):
new world order and all thissort of conspiracy stuff came
out.
That woman, as it turned out,had had a complete nervous
breakdown, ended up inresidential care and turned it
around and a few weeks latercame out the other side and
talked about her story.
And what had happened was hername was Melissa Raine Lively
and she was actually from afamily of Holocaust survivors
who had settled in Arizona many,many years ago and the family
(27:04):
had a lot of unacknowledgedtrauma and were trying to sort
of deal with it.
I mean, I have no imaginationto understand how you deal with
it, but she talked about whathad happened.
She gave a lot of interviews andone of them was about how she
had been targeted by materialthat used manipulated Holocaust
imagery to portray like maskingand vaccination, as you know,
(27:28):
front of control, and it got toher like it found this part
inside that wasn't healed, thatwasn't addressed and she ended
up.
She didn't sleep for three days.
She consumed all of thispropaganda.
She became convinced that theend was literally nigh and
smashed up a mask, stand inKmart and got arrested.
Her sort of discussion about itreally had an effect on me,
(27:51):
like, and it's that notion thatcommunities that are dealing
with such horror, like thehorror that's just unimaginable
to the vast majority of us inAustralia, I just where do you
find the resilience?
Do you find it in storytelling?
Do you find it in communitylike where do you go to be safe?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
both of those things, I think community and
storytelling.
Community has been a massivesavior.
And community, it gives you asense of place in the world, it
gives you a sense of belongingand meaning, and those things I
mean.
I feel like that's what.
(28:30):
On the other side of it, peopleare missing, they don't have
meaning, they're looking formeaning, they're looking for
answers or community.
I mean we have this culturethat is not necessarily
predicated on needing to believein a God.
It's so much as well about ourcollective history and story and
(28:53):
togetherness.
And I have to say I've made themost incredible connections with
people post-October 7 in theJewish community that I probably
was not open to before.
That I probably was not open tobefore.
So for me that's one of thebiggest gifts of you know.
Having gone through facing anexperience like no other of
(29:18):
anti-Semitism in my own countryand all the kind of you know,
the small kind of moments ofdevastation that I experienced
and that I know many of mycolleagues, my peers, my friends
have experienced.
It's been the thing that'sgotten me through.
I don't know about you, tammy, Iimagine it's similar.
(29:40):
Yeah, it's similar, but, van,every bit of non-Jewish allyship
, every message I receive from anon-Jewish person meeting also
with you and talking with youand having those messages.
You have no idea how much thatmeant to me and to people like
me, because it's like we havebeen running for shelter in our
(30:04):
own way and it's easy to forgetthat most Australians are not
invested in perpetuatingstereotypes about Jews.
Do not blame the Jewishcommunity in Australia for
whatever is happening in acountry far, far away.
(30:26):
It's very easy to forget thosethings and every time a
non-Jewish person would reachout, it was so necessary and so
affirming.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
I just want to remind you, with my disinformation
scholar hat on, that extremismgets clicks and it creates a
distortion effect.
Absolutely.
I mean this horrible, hatefulnonsense is not.
We know this because we'repolling people and going.
You don't really.
You know, I mean no.
And overwhelmingly we know thatinsane majorities of
(31:00):
Australians 85%, 90% think thisis outrageous and, you know,
have no predilection forpolitical bigotry and it doesn't
matter what side they're on, itdoesn't matter if they're on
the left or on the right.
But I started seeing stuff on mysocial media and it attracts
attention because it's a pattern, interruption and going hang on
(31:21):
.
Like, what's this, what are yousaying?
Like, and I think that thatgives the impression obviously
that works in the interest ofbad faith actors to encourage
that and some of the stuff I saw.
Like you might know, I goaround the country doing counter
disinformation workshops and Ibrought out this amazing
American scholar who was in mybook last year, nina Yankovic,
(31:42):
who's one of the foremostcounter disinformation people in
the world and talking aboutthese sort of trauma baits and
like extremist attentionharvesting.
And part of it was because I'dseen people I know share
material that they hadn't sortof.
You know, the material itselfwas sort of neutral, but didn't
(32:03):
realize where it was coming fromand not understanding that.
You know you share somethingthat's sort of understanding,
that you know you sharesomething that's sort of generic
and you know like it's aboutsolidarity and human rights and
all of these things, all ofwhich, obviously, I'm a huge fan
of solidarity and human rightsStrangely enough, this is why I
am here and yet it was beingused as sort of a lure to get
(32:24):
people into more extremistconversations or at least to
witness extremist content.
I mean, that's the front thatI'm choosing to fight on, is to
talk about that and expose that,because I've got to say, elise,
when I met up with you forcoffee last year, I had never
seen you look that fragile and Iwas really concerned.
I came home and talked to myhusband about it and was like I
(32:45):
don't understand why this ishappening, why it's hurting my
community and my friends, and Ithink there's been parts of that
in the arts community that havebeen really difficult, I think,
for the majority of us to evenlook at and just go.
Are you serious?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, it was really those casual kind of shares that
your, your peers in the artscommunity were, the posts that
were going around, which I feellike came from a good place from
their perspective, that theywere sharing things that made
them feel like they were showingsolidarity, as you said, and
(33:25):
support for people who weresuffering, but also, on the
other side of the coin, notseeing that parts of those
things they were sharing, theywere spreading misinformation
that that was having a follow-oneffect for our community.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Yeah, I mean, there was one image in particular that
was shared by an actualAmerican Nazi and I'm like you
really need to check who putsthis stuff out, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Why do you think that intelligent, educated,
empathetic people in the artscommunity do share that kind of
stuff or do still follow the badfaith actors?
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Not everybody in the arts community is intelligent or
empathetic.
Of course they aren't.
There are people who areattracted to the arts because
they want an audience and theywant people to pay attention to
them.
I mean, come on, what do wethink that artistic practice
excludes people withnarcissistic personality
disorder or social dysfunction?
Of course it doesn't.
And the internet makes it veryeasy to get an audience by being
(34:23):
an extremist as opposed todoing the work.
You know Like it's hard towrite a play.
It's easy to be a knob onTikTok.
You know like, quite honestly,and there's our promo clip.
And let's be really honest,there's a lot of rivalry that
goes on in the arts community aswell.
I mean, elise had a massive hitwith Yentl, she's running a
(34:46):
television show, she's receivedawards and support, she had the
Christmas show at the MelbourneTheatre Company.
But do you think that is notgoing to provoke envy from
people, like something that I'vecome to learn because I have to
absorb all this just trollingall the time?
Is that often it's about?
You know, there are people whogo off on the self-righteous
(35:09):
side of the now that your careerprogression or your talent or
your hard work is cancelled outby the fact that I'm morally
superior to you and so thereforeyou haven't earned your
opportunity.
I mean, you and I will lead,all three of us will literally
scrape you two in particular,scrabbling around in the dirt to
make art you had to haul dirtinto the new theatre to do a
(35:31):
show, you know and finding acriteria that cancels you out or
promotes them.
I mean, we can't pretend thatthat doesn't happen.
Of course it does, you knowlike, and if it's not one thing
it's another, and we've all metthose people like the more
morally holy than now, and thisis true across conspiracy
(35:51):
theories, wherever they are, ifthey're anti-semitic in nature,
or you know, about lizard peoplefrom space, or hillary clinton,
or maria abramovich, the grandwitch of the west, and the idea
which is still one of myabsolute favorites, but this
idea that the reason why you'renot successful is because
there's, you know, an evilunderground conspiracy of people
who are plotting to destroy you.
(36:13):
Like I'm getting anti-Semitismby proxy, like apparently I only
have a career because I'm inwith Big Jew and I'm like, well,
guys are really into Bob Dylan.
It's pretty funny.
I mean, it's funny for mebecause obviously it's not my
generational trauma based in,you know, like mass execution or
you know, a deliberate programof extermination.
Sorry if that was a bitinsensitive, jesus.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
No, it's not just like breakfast talk over here.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah, tell me who your favourite Jewish writers
are.
Who illuminates the world foryou and why?
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Elise Esther Hurst.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
She's pretty good.
She is pretty good.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
We're all very proud of her.
It's so funny when you saidwho's your favourite Jewish
author or writer, I just likethought of Fran Drescher
straight away.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
She is your spirit animal.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
She is a good union woman and a comrade of mine.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
And she's a writer.
She wrote the Nanny Exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah.
Co -creator, co-writer.
She has been such aninspiration to me my entire life
.
She was the only Jewishrepresentation on TV when I was
growing up and she was loud andher family were eccentric and
annoying but lovable, and I feellike she was such an important
(37:36):
creative reference point for meat a young age, the nanny was so
Jewish.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
When I re-watch it now I'm like how was this
possible that they made thisshow?
The first episode she's talkingabout tchotchkes and you know
they've got every Jewish holidayand festival in there with no
apologies.
Which is just.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
It's aged really well it has.
When you rewatch Friends andyou like get the ick from all
the homophobic stuff in there.
You don't get that.
In the nanny there's a bit offat phobia, which I don't like.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
But other than that beautiful van, who's your
favorite jewish writer, besidesso many sussman and elisa, so
many, I mean I'm a massive billywilder fan, I think, and it's
hard though, because I do reallyreally love the early Woody
Allen stuff and he's now in theproblematic category.
(38:30):
The Broadway Danny Rose remainsone of my favorite movies just
about haven't seen.
Oh, it's hilarious with me apharaoh yeah, a penguin skates
in dressed as a rabbi.
It's hilarious, like it's.
The humor is so strange andjust because I was such a weird
kid and they used to put all theWoody Allen movies on SBS and I
(38:52):
watched all of them and sort offound this way of looking at
the world, which was obviouslyreally really problematic later
on.
Obviously I really love Kafkaas well.
I I do like Philip Roth.
I think he's very funny.
Rachel Berger from Melbourne wasa huge inspiration to me when I
was a young person as astand-up comedian and I met her
(39:15):
when I did a sort of stand-upfive minutes in Melbourne when I
was maybe 23 or something.
I just couldn't believe shewould talk to me.
I just couldn't believe shewould talk to me, you know, and
so funny.
I love that Self-deprecatingand about storytelling and those
kind of things like thelanguage and the debate.
(39:37):
And I even like the originalBarbara Streisand Yentl movie,
you know, because it's aboutwanting your brain to be awake
and engaging and having.
I mean, I'm so argumentative Idon't know if you've noticed and
I never shut up and Yentl isthe ultimate argumentative women
who never shut up movie Like,come on, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
She knew what she wanted.
She really did.
I'm sorry, van, I just noddedand pretended to know half the
authors you mentioned.
Yeah, same Van Vadim.
Thank you so much for joiningus today on A Shame to Ask even
though you have no shame.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I have no shame, but I just I want to remind you.
You know your friends are withyou, you have solidarity and the
overwhelming majority ofAustralians are not going to let
anything happen to you.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Okay, Thank you, thanks, van.
I feel like you're watchingover us.
I love you and you're aninspiration to me and our people
.
We thank you On behalf of ourpeople.
People we thank you On behalfof our people.
That was Van Badham and that'sit for this week.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
You've been listening to A Shame to Ask, a shame to
admit sister podcast with me,Tammy Sussman and Elise Esther
Hurst, who is filling in forDash Lawrence.
This episode was mixed andedited by Nick King, with theme
music by Donovan Jenks.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
If you like the podcast which I'm sure you do,
leave a positive review, tellyour people or encourage your
third cousin's cousin toadvertise on the show.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
You can tell us what you're ashamed to admit or
ashamed to ask via the contactform on the Jewish Independent
website, or you can just emailashamed at the
jewishindependentcomau.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Thank you so much for listening and for having me and
look out for another instalmentnext week.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
And now for some bloopers.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
The other one is and in this special episode of a
shame to admit, you're availableto emcee your next four
weddings and a bar mitzvah.
Third cousin tammy susman and Iwill be inviting someone who
isn't jewish to raise all theawkward questions you might be
too ashamed to ask.
Also, brilliant will be hard topick you ready for the third.
(42:05):
Yes, and in this specialepisode of Ashamed to Admit,
your and I hear she's singlethird cousin, tammy Sussman and
I will be inviting someone whoisn't Jewish to raise all the
awkward questions you might betoo ashamed to ask.
Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in
Australia, the Middle East andthe world at large?
But a little bit ashamed thatyou're barely keeping up to date
.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, you've come to the right place.
I'm Elise Esther Hurst, fillingin for Dash Lawrence, and in
this special episode of Ashamed,to Admit your, are we distant
enough to shtup third cousinTammy Sussman and I will be
inviting someone who isn'tJewish to raise all the awkward
questions you might be tooashamed to ask.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Join me, and Elise, as we have a go at cutting
through some seriously chewy anddewy topics.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast.
Ashamed to Ask.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Hello everyone, welcome to this very special
episode of Ashamed.
To Admit, we're calling it AShame to Ask.
Joining me today in the studiowhile Dash is away is Elise
Esther Hurst.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Hi Elise, hey Tammy, how are you?
I'm okay.
How are you doing?
I'm so happy to be here.
Thanks for having me Pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Elise.
You're an award-winningMelbourne-based playwright,
author and performer.
Stop.
Your debut novel, one Day we'reAll Going to Die, was
shortlisted for the Age Book ofthe Year Award 2024.
Your work has appeared atvarious theatres around
Australia, including a veryJewish Christmas Carol which was
(01:44):
at Melbourne Theatre CompanyYentl, the winner of the Green
Room Award for OutstandingWriting.
It was first shown at theMalthouse Theatre and the Arts
Centre at Melbourne and then itcame to Sydney and was shown at
the Sydney Opera House.
How else shall I identify youto our listeners?
How?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
else shall I identify you to our listeners.
Just call me the.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Jewish Nicole Kidman with a side of dill pickle
Perfection.
Some of our listeners mightalso recognise you from
Instagram, where you ratepickles.
You have family members rateyour Seder nights, your Friday
night dinners, you do a littlebit of unboxing matzah matzah,
unboxing, amongst other thingsand, of course, you are the
(02:35):
other half of.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Shaw and Bo yeah and occasionally more.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah.
So, happy that you're here.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, thank you for having me, my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
We will now be retiring the South African
accent.
I think that's for the best,yeah, yeah, okay.
So, elise, you're co-hostingwith me today, and the structure
of this episode is a little bitdifferent to how Dash and I
would normally do A Shame toAdmit this episode.
(03:12):
We've invited someone into thestudio to ask us the questions
that they're ashamed to ask, andthat person is ashamed to ask,
and that person is Van Badham.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Van Badham is a writer and dramaturg from
regional Victoria.
Van has had a successfulinternational career as an
award-winning playwright, criticand screenwriter.
She's been called a majortalent by the Guardian and one
of the leading voices of hergeneration by Time Out London.
In addition to writing books,plays, screenplays and criticism
(03:50):
, she writes and performs formusic, theatre and cabaret and
has had an extensive career inradio.
Wow, how do you feel?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Anxious, of course, baseline.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Where to go from here .
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Are you feeling a little bit nervous that she's
going to ask a question that youdon't know how to answer?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Well, obviously I am a bad Jew, as all the good Jews
are.
Yeah, I'm worried, I'm on edge.
Spilkers, I need to go to thetoilet Spilkers.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And you?
I'm on edge, I need to go tothe toilet.
And you, when I'm in non-Jewishspaces, I'm usually the token
Jew who is assumed to have allthe knowledge and I feel really
bad when I don't have theanswers to things.
I hope she doesn't ask me anyquestions that require textual
knowledge.
Yeah, I fumble over like is itTorah, is it Gemara?
(04:55):
There are just so many books,so many.
So I do hope she asks aboutdigestive issues, because I feel
like that's where I'm, yeah,that's where you excel, yeah,
that's where I thrive.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I'm just hoping for a lot of intergenerational trauma
because I feel like that's myspecialty.
Okay, we'll see what we can do.
We'll see.
No, she's amazing and I knowVan is such an ally, so I'm
really excited to speak to her.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I hope you listeners enjoy our ensuing conversation
with Van Badham.
So, van Badham, thank you somuch for joining us in the
(05:40):
Ashamed to Ask studio.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Oh, I'm honoured to be here.
How fun.
Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Elise and I have brought you in here today to ask
us all the ignorant questions,all the saucy, spicy questions
about Judaism, Jewishness, allthe questions you've always been
too ashamed to ask.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I don't know if I actually feel shame.
Are you sure I should be onthis program?
Because I mean, I just blunderinto these things.
Quite honestly, you know theworld's most clumsy, curious
person.
Do you know what I'm reallyinterested in?
And I wanted to take thisopportunity to just acknowledge
Elise, who is one of myfavourite Australian writers.
I love Elise's work.
I've been a big fan for a longtime.
(06:27):
I saw a play that Elise wrotewhen she was a wee baby.
That was at the New Theatre inNewtown.
That was performed on a pile ofdirt and what was so
interesting about the play wasthat Elise just had a really
interesting grasp of symbol andlanguage and how they work
(06:48):
together.
And I saw a very JewishChristmas Carol, which I thought
was hilarious, and EvelynCrapedrist as a gingerbread man
was just literally one of thegreatest theatrical moments of
my life.
But also I saw Yentl and couldsee Elisa's grasp of symbol and
language and how they worktogether, particularly in stage
(07:08):
format and obviously witheverything that's been going on
in the past year, like I was,when that horrible Doxed
Creative list came out.
I knew so many people on thatlist and had just never thought
about their Jewish identity andrealised that as a person who's
involved in the Australian arts,who's been in the arts
(07:30):
community for a really long time, so many of my favourite
writers are Jewish Australians,and so my question is what is it
about Jewish culture thatcreates such a vibrant sort of
engagement with literature, like?
I'm genuinely interested inthat, because when I think about
(07:52):
not only my favourite JewishAustralian writers but also my
favourite writers full stop, somany of them come from Jewish
backgrounds.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Wow, first thing I have to say, besides thank you
and you're amazing is that Tammywas in Dirty Land, and I don't
know if you know that.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
No, because Tammy's wearing a hat and a big pair of
sunglasses.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I also had no lines in the play, so it's totally
fine if Anne doesn't.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
You didn't play the dirt.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
No, she was a mute dragging a sack.
Ah, you were the sack person.
Oh, wow, she was the sackperson.
I had written that play just asa circle back, coming from
living in the UK for two and ahalf years and I think what had
really seeped into my bones fromthat experience of being in
(08:46):
Europe and even just theexperience of being an
Australian in London, being aJewish Australian in London, I
felt that sense of othernessreally profoundly and I felt
that sense of the ghosts of thepast being all around, the
(09:08):
proximity of Europe, of Poland.
That really informed that playand my writing.
And I think for a lot of Jewishartists we're chasing ghosts.
That's how we operate, becauseso much of our culture, our
(09:28):
spirituality, is deeply tied tothe past, to death, to searching
for answers, to being othered.
So that must come into.
I don't know our creative flowand the way that we see the
world and articulate the world.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
There's also a strong storytelling tradition.
So we have our written storiesor our written Jewish laws, but
then we also have the oraldebating, and talking about the
law or the stories is encouragedas well.
So I think it's fair to saythat you'd be hard pressed to
find a Jew whose ancestorshaven't had everything taken
(10:10):
from them, including books.
So a lot of the stories have tobe kept.
I know it sounds kind of wankyto say in our hearts or in our
minds, but you know we need tokeep telling those stories, to
remind each other of thosenarratives so that we don't lose
them.
So do you think that could playinto it as well?
(10:31):
Strong stories.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
It's so interesting, like we're just coming off the
festival of Passover, pesach.
My kids go to a Jewish schooland so they have the story of
Pesach the exodus, you know,being enslaved and delivered
from slavery into freedom.
Really, really strong imageryof death, murder, suffering,
(10:57):
bondage.
My eight-year-old is cominghome and these stories just kind
of fall from her mouth withoutyou know, without a moment's
pause pondering what pause is.
And it's, I think, the beautyof sitting around a table and
the act of telling the story.
You know, we're instructed totell the story.
(11:17):
It is such a big part of thisfestival is the storytelling,
and I get shivers becausetelling the same stories that
we've been telling for thousandsof years and their relevance to
today and what we experience orhow we can empathize with other
people who are experiencingsuffering, it's a huge part of
(11:40):
our culture.
So, yeah, it must, must havesomething to do with Jews and
their creativity.
I don't know if any of thatrings true, van.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Obviously my knowledge of this is external
and quite shallow, but it'sobserving, like the imaginative
heft in that storytelling aswell, that comes from a Jewish
mystical tradition Like we'vejust watched House of David,
which I cannot recommend enoughthe Netflix show, it's basically
Jewish Lord of the Rings, it'sgot a giant and it is absolute,
(12:14):
just fun quality televisionentertainment, despite the
truthful and biblical disclaimerat the beginning of it.
But I am aware of things likethe Dibbuk and giants and the
Nephilim and these sort ofextraordinary creatures from the
Old Testament and the PragueGolem and these sort of quite
(12:36):
powerful sort of manifestationsof symbol which I don't entirely
understand.
But I want to understand wherethose come from, like dybbuks in
particular I'm fascinated byElise, this is your area, for
sure.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yes, shit fuck.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I had a dybbuk in my show, Like what was the
symbolism of the dybbuk?
They possess?
They're dead and they possessthe body of the living.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
They enter Van.
This is very Jewish.
What's happening right now islike we learn something in
school or we know it's Jewish,and then we forget what that's
all about because there's somuch.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
We're like that prayer what is that prayer again
?
Well, the book.
It enters the bride on herwedding night.
So there are all these ritualsaround weddings and marriage and
the bride in particular, toprotect her from, you know,
being entered by a demon asopposed to her husband.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I had never heard of Dibuk before I met Elise.
Oh, I couldn't tell you muchabout it though.
No, but I mean it just wasn'tcovered.
I went to a modern OrthodoxJewish primary school and high
school.
We had the old biblical storiesthe Noah's Ark, exodus, adam
and Eve but that wasn't covered.
(13:59):
No, I agree.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Do you think that might be a phenomenon of what it
means to be a diaspora culture,though?
Because I encountered thesesort of mystical and folkloric
tenets?
Because my sort of firstexperience of living around a
Jewish community was in London,where I hung out with dudes who
(14:21):
had a completely differentsocial take on what it meant to
be Jewish and came from like aBritish Jewish tradition that
just talked about and engagedwith different things.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, and would be different to our experience of
Jewishness as well in living inAustralia and living in a very
post-Holocaust community.
And I think, yes, I also didn'tlearn about it at school.
But then there is thattradition, especially in
Melbourne, of Yiddish theatreand Yiddish culture.
There were basically theHolocaust survivors coming from
(14:56):
Europe and performing the dybbukand telling those stories that
they were telling in Polandbefore the war, during the war
and then surviving the war totell those stories here.
And one of my friends who's afantastic writer, tully Lovey.
I remember she wrote an articlein the Jewish Quarterly about,
and I just remember she talkedabout how they brought the
(15:17):
Dybbuk here to Melbourne and itwas kind of living amongst the
spirits of the dead that allthese survivors brought with
them For us in a post-survivorkind of world.
That is our deep book.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
It's a really interesting comparison that
comes from a sort ofpost-colonial country experience
.
Like, as far as I'm aware andcorrect me if I'm wrong the
majority of the AustralianJewish community comes from
Holocaust survival families,whereas my experience living in
Britain whether they were, youknow, jewish families that had
(15:55):
been in Britain as long asthey'd been in Britain, like
they're hundreds and hundreds ofyears of history, and the guys
who I was particularly close toin London came from a really
their grandfathers were CableStreet guys who had physically
worked with the trade unionsthat they were members of to
drive the black shirts out ofLondon and came from a very
(16:17):
different historical experience.
I mean, what does that mean interms of an international
conversation around Jewishnessto go, well, we carry this
horror and you don't like isthat an ongoing conversation?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
you're both looking at me like no, no, we're all
family, but we're not all thesame.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Oh no way, are you telling me that groups of people
aren't homogenous based on acouple of like common cultural
identifiers?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
it's really surprising look, we're basically
the same.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
A generalisation could be really destructive and
inaccurate, perpetuating astereotype that's used to
further bigotry.
Am I right?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I can talk to that, especially because I was married
to a man who was Jewish, buthis maternal line is Sephardi,
so originally Spanish Jews, whogot kicked out during the
Inquisition and went to Turkey,and his father's a Mizrahi Jew,
so Middle Eastern, who thensettled in Mexico, so both
(17:14):
Jewish, and he was so excited.
When he met me he was like, ohmy God, it's a Jewish woman, my
family's going to be so excited.
Because he felt very quicklythat we would get married and
have kids and there was a lot ofculture shock going on.
There were a lot of differencesand I often felt that he didn't
(17:34):
fully understand.
Being a third generationHolocaust survivor, I would get
very anxious about food waste ormy neuroses.
I often caught myself feeling alittle bit envious about his
family and how, when we went tovisit them, they were just.
They'd experienced their owntrauma for sure, but I just felt
(17:59):
like they were able to kind ofsoak up life or drink life in a
way that I felt that my familyand other families who had
experienced those horrorscouldn't.
There's almost a sense that thepeople who have survived the
(18:19):
Holocaust and their offspringthere's a little bit of them
that's still there.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
And there's degrees.
There's the people who are inthe camps and the family members
of those who are in the campsand the family members of those
who got out.
So my family got out.
Of course there were members ofthe family who didn't get out,
but my grandparents all got outand I think, yeah, there's
measures of kind of how deepthat trauma runs and what we're
(18:48):
waiting for is to see how ourchildren and our children's
children, I guess interpret thattrauma.
And hopefully not.
How do you live with that Like?
Speaker 3 (19:00):
that historical anxiety as a living memory, like
the burden of that, must be attimes unbearable.
Especially, I mean, something Ihave really noticed and I'm a
very dedicated anti-fascist andI'm always very, very happy to
make Nazis unhappy, like that's.
(19:21):
I mean I see that as my role inlife and obviously my
solidarity with the Jewishcommunity is based on.
Never again means never again,like it's pretty easy and in my
experience of political activismthe litmus is always
anti-semitism, becauseanti-semitism, if it's present,
you know that sexism is presentand you know homophobia is
(19:43):
present, you know transphpresent, racism's present, like
because it's a permissionstructure for hatred.
And I'm always absolutelystunned when what I think is,
you know, like acceptablepost-World War II moral basis,
which is Nazis are bad and wefight them and smash them and
marginalise their influence andsend them to jail and get them
(20:05):
arrested.
And I mean this is what we do,where there seem to be
carve-outs amongst people whowould tell you to your face
Nazis were bad, but there arecarve-outs around anti-semitic
justifications, generalizations.
It happened to me at the pub theother day where I was like a
woman who was fairly, you know,convinced of her own left-wing
(20:25):
self-righteousness, made a carveout and I was like, are you
perpetuating an anti-Jewishbigotry?
Because I mean, I'm not goingto accuse you, don't you?
But if I was to draw parallelswith what you're saying
anti-Jewish bigotry I think Icould.
I mean, I think I could findthem fairly comprehensively, and
I mean it was to put that sortof weirdness in the context of a
(20:48):
community that's still carryingthe lived communication of
trauma.
I mean, how is that notcompletely unbearable Medication
?
This is my privilege of notcoming from a survivor community
, but I just I think it kind ofcomes and goes in waves of
unbearability.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I think it kind of comes and goes in waves of
unbearability.
I think it's been really hardfor me to witness what it's been
like for my parents.
They grew up in what theyalways felt was the most idyllic
multicultural society, wherethey were always welcome, and
(21:31):
it's been completely devastatingand heartbreaking for them to
witness the disintegration ofwhat they saw as a safe place
for Jews.
That's been really devastatingand you know you're in strife
when your Israeli family arereading the media about what's
(21:53):
going on in Australia andthey're like are you okay in the
group chat?
Yeah, has that happened to you,elaine?
Yeah, yeah, it's happened to me.
It's like you guys, just you'vegot your own shit going on,
we'll be right.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, I said to my gorgeous Israeli cousin.
I said why are you worriedabout me, like I don't have to
run to a shelter, I'm nothearing the sirens.
And she said, yes, sirens andshelters, and you know shells
and bombs I can handle.
It's people who are scarier andyou're having to deal with the
(22:28):
people.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I think, yeah, seeing my parents and then also on the
other end of the spectrum, thathaving to question whether my
children are safe, is also beenextremely confronting.
We were driving past CaulfieldGrammar and my son said do they
have security guards when it'sschool holidays?
And I said they don't havesecurity guards any of the time.
(22:52):
I believe why do we havesecurity guards?
It's like the birds and thebees talk.
It's like having to give yourkids the anti-Semitism talk.
It's not easy.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
How do you avoid, like avoid, impending traumatic
breakdown?
Well, I don't.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
You just have them, I just have them.
It's so interesting, everyonehandles it differently.
I mean, in my family my parentshandle their intergenerational
trauma by repressing and justbeing these amazing, resilient,
robust people who just get onwith it.
And I think my sister got thosegenes too and I think there was
(23:33):
a glitch with me.
My friends would say I'm veryresilient and I get on with it,
but I feel like I am this spongefor emotion.
And you're the artist.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, that's true, my dad has become a prolific
letter writer, slash emailer.
He will write to everyone andanyone, all the politicians,
just unstoppable.
He's been to kind of everyrally and protest.
(24:04):
That's how he's processing thisexperience and yeah, it's up
and down.
I've been fortunate enough tobe continuing to work in
projects that have a Jewishslant to them and being around
other Jews, and it kind of feelssad to say that in a way,
(24:25):
that's that's how I'm able tomake work right now a, because
it feels safe, uh, and b I don'tknow what work, how much work
there is out there for meotherwise, just at this time.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
We get through it by making funny videos as well.
Funny content is another way ofchanneling that grief and
anxiety into humor.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, that's quite productive.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
I want to reassure you like overwhelmingly my
experience has been that the oldsolidarity holds Like I want
you to understand thatoverwhelmingly in the spaces
that I'm in.
It's just these outliers whoturn up in spaces where you
don't.
It's like if somebody makes aTERF comment and you're like,
hang on, you're in the wrongroom, and it's just happened to
(25:13):
me a couple of times and I'vebeen genuinely surprised, like
as if there's, like I said, acarve-out or exclusion criteria.
It's like looking at somethingthat's 1,000 years old, 2,500
years old, you know this strangesort of hateful rubric that has
been carried and the idea thatpeople wouldn't feel comfortable
(25:35):
, like calling it out and theway that can be manipulated to
inflict more trauma on people.
I just find the most cynicaland disgusting of contemporary
sort of discourse, particularlyonline.
In my QAnon book, obviously, ifyou're studying far-right
conspiracy theories, it's noteven a hop, skip and a jump,
it's just a hop to the protocolsof the elders of Zion, as you
(25:58):
can imagine.
And I went into communities onthe internet because it was
writing about them that I neededtherapy to decompress from
afterwards because they were,I'm sure you can imagine, just
completely insane.
But it's also the way that thatanxiety is weaponized by the
most bad faith actors on earth.
(26:18):
When I wrote my QAnon book, Icame across this horrendous
story.
There was quite a famous viralvideo that went around that was
a woman attacking a mask standin a Kmart in Arizona.
Did you see it?
No, oh, it was, you know, oneof the ultimate Karen videos.
And this middle-class blondewoman just absolutely melting
down in a Kmart and smashed up amask stand and said this is the
(26:41):
new world order and all thissort of conspiracy stuff came
out.
That woman, as it turned out,had had a complete nervous
breakdown, ended up inresidential care and turned it
around and a few weeks latercame out the other side and
talked about her story.
And what had happened was hername was Melissa Raine Lively
and she was actually from afamily of Holocaust survivors
who had settled in Arizona many,many years ago and the family
(27:04):
had a lot of unacknowledgedtrauma and were trying to sort
of deal with it.
I mean, I have no imaginationto understand how you deal with
it, but she talked about whathad happened.
She gave a lot of interviews andone of them was about how she
had been targeted by materialthat used manipulated Holocaust
imagery to portray like maskingand vaccination, as you know,
(27:28):
front of control, and it got toher like it found this part
inside that wasn't healed, thatwasn't addressed and she ended
up.
She didn't sleep for three days.
She consumed all of thispropaganda.
She became convinced that theend was literally nigh and
smashed up a mask, stand inKmart and got arrested.
Her sort of discussion about itreally had an effect on me,
(27:51):
like, and it's that notion thatcommunities that are dealing
with such horror, like thehorror that's just unimaginable
to the vast majority of us inAustralia, I just where do you
find the resilience?
Do you find it in storytelling?
Do you find it in communitylike where do you go to be safe?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
both of those things, I think community and
storytelling.
Community has been a massivesavior.
And community, it gives you asense of place in the world, it
gives you a sense of belongingand meaning, and those things I
mean.
I feel like that's what.
(28:30):
On the other side of it, peopleare missing, they don't have
meaning, they're looking formeaning, they're looking for
answers or community.
I mean we have this culturethat is not necessarily
predicated on needing to believein a God.
It's so much as well about ourcollective history and story and
(28:53):
togetherness.
And I have to say I've made themost incredible connections with
people post-October 7 in theJewish community that I probably
was not open to before.
That I probably was not open tobefore.
So for me that's one of thebiggest gifts of you know.
Having gone through facing anexperience like no other of
(29:18):
anti-Semitism in my own countryand all the kind of you know,
the small kind of moments ofdevastation that I experienced
and that I know many of mycolleagues, my peers, my friends
have experienced.
It's been the thing that'sgotten me through.
I don't know about you, tammy, Iimagine it's similar.
(29:40):
Yeah, it's similar, but, van,every bit of non-Jewish allyship
, every message I receive from anon-Jewish person meeting also
with you and talking with youand having those messages.
You have no idea how much thatmeant to me and to people like
me, because it's like we havebeen running for shelter in our
(30:04):
own way and it's easy to forgetthat most Australians are not
invested in perpetuatingstereotypes about Jews.
Do not blame the Jewishcommunity in Australia for
whatever is happening in acountry far, far away.
(30:26):
It's very easy to forget thosethings and every time a
non-Jewish person would reachout, it was so necessary and so
affirming.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
I just want to remind you, with my disinformation
scholar hat on, that extremismgets clicks and it creates a
distortion effect.
Absolutely.
I mean this horrible, hatefulnonsense is not.
We know this because we'repolling people and going.
You don't really.
You know, I mean no.
And overwhelmingly we know thatinsane majorities of
(31:00):
Australians 85%, 90% think thisis outrageous and, you know,
have no predilection forpolitical bigotry and it doesn't
matter what side they're on, itdoesn't matter if they're on
the left or on the right.
But I started seeing stuff on mysocial media and it attracts
attention because it's a pattern, interruption and going hang on
(31:21):
.
Like, what's this, what are yousaying?
Like, and I think that thatgives the impression obviously
that works in the interest ofbad faith actors to encourage
that and some of the stuff I saw.
Like you might know, I goaround the country doing counter
disinformation workshops and Ibrought out this amazing
American scholar who was in mybook last year, nina Yankovic,
(31:42):
who's one of the foremostcounter disinformation people in
the world and talking aboutthese sort of trauma baits and
like extremist attentionharvesting.
And part of it was because I'dseen people I know share
material that they hadn't sortof.
You know, the material itselfwas sort of neutral, but didn't
(32:03):
realize where it was coming fromand not understanding that.
You know you share somethingthat's sort of understanding,
that you know you sharesomething that's sort of generic
and you know like it's aboutsolidarity and human rights and
all of these things, all ofwhich, obviously, I'm a huge fan
of solidarity and human rightsStrangely enough, this is why I
am here and yet it was beingused as sort of a lure to get
(32:24):
people into more extremistconversations or at least to
witness extremist content.
I mean, that's the front thatI'm choosing to fight on, is to
talk about that and expose that,because I've got to say, elise,
when I met up with you forcoffee last year, I had never
seen you look that fragile and Iwas really concerned.
I came home and talked to myhusband about it and was like I
(32:45):
don't understand why this ishappening, why it's hurting my
community and my friends, and Ithink there's been parts of that
in the arts community that havebeen really difficult, I think,
for the majority of us to evenlook at and just go.
Are you serious?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, it was really those casual kind of shares that
your, your peers in the artscommunity were, the posts that
were going around, which I feellike came from a good place from
their perspective, that theywere sharing things that made
them feel like they were showingsolidarity, as you said, and
(33:25):
support for people who weresuffering, but also, on the
other side of the coin, notseeing that parts of those
things they were sharing, theywere spreading misinformation
that that was having a follow-oneffect for our community.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Yeah, I mean, there was one image in particular that
was shared by an actualAmerican Nazi and I'm like you
really need to check who putsthis stuff out, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Why do you think that intelligent, educated,
empathetic people in the artscommunity do share that kind of
stuff or do still follow the badfaith actors?
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Not everybody in the arts community is intelligent or
empathetic.
Of course they aren't.
There are people who areattracted to the arts because
they want an audience and theywant people to pay attention to
them.
I mean, come on, what do wethink that artistic practice
excludes people withnarcissistic personality
disorder or social dysfunction?
Of course it doesn't.
And the internet makes it veryeasy to get an audience by being
(34:23):
an extremist as opposed todoing the work.
You know Like it's hard towrite a play.
It's easy to be a knob onTikTok.
You know like, quite honestly,and there's our promo clip.
And let's be really honest,there's a lot of rivalry that
goes on in the arts community aswell.
I mean, elise had a massive hitwith Yentl, she's running a
(34:46):
television show, she's receivedawards and support, she had the
Christmas show at the MelbourneTheatre Company.
But do you think that is notgoing to provoke envy from
people, like something that I'vecome to learn because I have to
absorb all this just trollingall the time?
Is that often it's about?
You know, there are people whogo off on the self-righteous
(35:09):
side of the now that your careerprogression or your talent or
your hard work is cancelled outby the fact that I'm morally
superior to you and so thereforeyou haven't earned your
opportunity.
I mean, you and I will lead,all three of us will literally
scrape you two in particular,scrabbling around in the dirt to
make art you had to haul dirtinto the new theatre to do a
(35:31):
show, you know and finding acriteria that cancels you out or
promotes them.
I mean, we can't pretend thatthat doesn't happen.
Of course it does, you knowlike, and if it's not one thing
it's another, and we've all metthose people like the more
morally holy than now, and thisis true across conspiracy
(35:51):
theories, wherever they are, ifthey're anti-semitic in nature,
or you know, about lizard peoplefrom space, or hillary clinton,
or maria abramovich, the grandwitch of the west, and the idea
which is still one of myabsolute favorites, but this
idea that the reason why you'renot successful is because
there's, you know, an evilunderground conspiracy of people
who are plotting to destroy you.
(36:13):
Like I'm getting anti-Semitismby proxy, like apparently I only
have a career because I'm inwith Big Jew and I'm like, well,
guys are really into Bob Dylan.
It's pretty funny.
I mean, it's funny for mebecause obviously it's not my
generational trauma based in,you know, like mass execution or
you know, a deliberate programof extermination.
Sorry if that was a bitinsensitive, jesus.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
No, it's not just like breakfast talk over here.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah, tell me who your favourite Jewish writers
are.
Who illuminates the world foryou and why?
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Elise Esther Hurst.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
She's pretty good.
She is pretty good.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
We're all very proud of her.
It's so funny when you saidwho's your favourite Jewish
author or writer, I just likethought of Fran Drescher
straight away.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
She is your spirit animal.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
She is a good union woman and a comrade of mine.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
And she's a writer.
She wrote the Nanny Exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah.
Co -creator, co-writer.
She has been such aninspiration to me my entire life
.
She was the only Jewishrepresentation on TV when I was
growing up and she was loud andher family were eccentric and
annoying but lovable, and I feellike she was such an important
(37:36):
creative reference point for meat a young age, the nanny was so
Jewish.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
When I re-watch it now I'm like how was this
possible that they made thisshow?
The first episode she's talkingabout tchotchkes and you know
they've got every Jewish holidayand festival in there with no
apologies.
Which is just.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
It's aged really well it has.
When you rewatch Friends andyou like get the ick from all
the homophobic stuff in there.
You don't get that.
In the nanny there's a bit offat phobia, which I don't like.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
But other than that beautiful van, who's your
favorite jewish writer, besidesso many sussman and elisa, so
many, I mean I'm a massive billywilder fan, I think, and it's
hard though, because I do reallyreally love the early Woody
Allen stuff and he's now in theproblematic category.
(38:30):
The Broadway Danny Rose remainsone of my favorite movies just
about haven't seen.
Oh, it's hilarious with me apharaoh yeah, a penguin skates
in dressed as a rabbi.
It's hilarious, like it's.
The humor is so strange andjust because I was such a weird
kid and they used to put all theWoody Allen movies on SBS and I
(38:52):
watched all of them and sort offound this way of looking at
the world, which was obviouslyreally really problematic later
on.
Obviously I really love Kafkaas well.
I I do like Philip Roth.
I think he's very funny.
Rachel Berger from Melbourne wasa huge inspiration to me when I
was a young person as astand-up comedian and I met her
(39:15):
when I did a sort of stand-upfive minutes in Melbourne when I
was maybe 23 or something.
I just couldn't believe shewould talk to me.
I just couldn't believe shewould talk to me, you know, and
so funny.
I love that Self-deprecatingand about storytelling and those
kind of things like thelanguage and the debate.
(39:37):
And I even like the originalBarbara Streisand Yentl movie,
you know, because it's aboutwanting your brain to be awake
and engaging and having.
I mean, I'm so argumentative Idon't know if you've noticed and
I never shut up and Yentl isthe ultimate argumentative women
who never shut up movie Like,come on, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
She knew what she wanted.
She really did.
I'm sorry, van, I just noddedand pretended to know half the
authors you mentioned.
Yeah, same Van Vadim.
Thank you so much for joiningus today on A Shame to Ask even
though you have no shame.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I have no shame, but I just I want to remind you.
You know your friends are withyou, you have solidarity and the
overwhelming majority ofAustralians are not going to let
anything happen to you.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Okay, Thank you, thanks, van.
I feel like you're watchingover us.
I love you and you're aninspiration to me and our people
.
We thank you On behalf of ourpeople.
People we thank you On behalfof our people.
That was Van Badham and that'sit for this week.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
You've been listening to A Shame to Ask, a shame to
admit sister podcast with me,Tammy Sussman and Elise Esther
Hurst, who is filling in forDash Lawrence.
This episode was mixed andedited by Nick King, with theme
music by Donovan Jenks.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
If you like the podcast which I'm sure you do,
leave a positive review, tellyour people or encourage your
third cousin's cousin toadvertise on the show.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
You can tell us what you're ashamed to admit or
ashamed to ask via the contactform on the Jewish Independent
website, or you can just emailashamed at the
jewishindependentcomau.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Thank you so much for listening and for having me and
look out for another instalmentnext week.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
And now for some bloopers.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
The other one is and in this special episode of a
shame to admit, you're availableto emcee your next four
weddings and a bar mitzvah.
Third cousin tammy susman and Iwill be inviting someone who
isn't jewish to raise all theawkward questions you might be
too ashamed to ask.
Also, brilliant will be hard topick you ready for the third.
(42:05):
Yes, and in this specialepisode of Ashamed to Admit,
your and I hear she's singlethird cousin, tammy Sussman and
I will be inviting someone whoisn't Jewish to raise all the
awkward questions you might betoo ashamed to ask.
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