Jonathan Miller - I'm Jewish only for anti-semites (5/48)

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Jonathan Miller (1934-2019) was a British theatre and opera director whose work includes a West End production of "The Merchant of Venice" which starred Laurence Olivier and a modern, Mafia-themed version of "Rigoletto". [Listener: Christopher Sykes; date recorded: 2008]
TRANSCRIPT: I had a sister and she’s died… she was injured in a car accident. She wasn’t really...
[CS] Was she older than you?
No, she was younger than I, she was about two years younger than I was. And she worked for the BBC as a secretary to, I think to the Music and Arts Department, and she worked there for quite a long time, about 20 or 25 years.
[CS] Oh right.
We had disagreements, she and I, because I was less interested than she was in being Jewish. I think my mother was totally uninterested in it, and I think in some respects fell out with my father over her reluctance to identify with ‘her people’, as people might’ve said. My father was much more… he was 20 years older than my mother and I think was still rather preoccupied, partly as a result of what had happened during the Second World War, he felt that some sort of conscious relationship to one's ethnic group was required of one, and she wasn’t interested at all.
In fact one of her novels is about marrying someone who turned out to have been much more interested in being Jewish than she was, it was a novel called 'Farewell Leicester Square', which has been recently republished. But… and I felt the same way, but my sister, I think, was much more, I think, affiliated with my father in that respect and felt that I was disloyal - what some people have always called a self-hating Jew. And I’m not. I’m neither a self-hating Jew nor a particularly enthusiastic Jew. I don’t know what it means, really, since I have no interest in the religion and not much interest in the Jewish culture. I think of myself, if anything, as just simply a sort of reluctant Englishman. I mean, I’m Jewish for anti-Semites and that’s all.

[@morganfisherart]

This is the second Miller episode I have seen where it is not at all clear who he is talking about. I presume it is his sister this time. It would be much appreciated if you could either (a) cut the video so he begins by saying who he is talking about, or (b) add a brief note in the description to make that clear. Thank you.

[@webofstories]

Hello, thank you for your comment! The interviewer is Christopher Sykes, a TV documentary producer based in London. This information is included in the description. Regards, Web of Stories

[@kloschuessel773]

Well...
The last sentence may sound very catchy but it would make jews antisemites themselves.
Atleast those that view themselves not just as a religion but a people which judaism technically is by design...
Thats neither good nor is it bad. And its both the source of pride as it is also the reason for hate.

[@pileshmuzma9406]

Your comment would suggest that the jews belief in themselves as great people is to the necessary mutual exclusion of some other fellow thinking his people are great, or even the greatest. No, I think the hate arrives at the point at which the other fellows realize the jews may have a point!