Jonny Gould’s Jewish State

89: Julie Burchill: "Without Jewish people, we'd all be sitting in caves grunting"

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Episode notes

She’s one of Britain’s most successful and irreverent writers. I met Julie Burchill at one of her favourite places on the Sussex coast - in Hove, actually, her home town for the last 27 years.

Julie started her glittering career at the NME in 1976, aged 17 and left when after just two years as she thought that people in their twenties who still wrote about music were ‘sad old men'.

Since then she’s had number one best-selling novels, won an Emmy and been condemned in the House of Commons.

Now, in her sixties, she proclaims she’s in glorious decline - but still a cracking little scribbler. And there’s another consistent dimension to her writings.

She’s always loved Jews and Israel. For a while she learned modern Hebrew at night class and even joined a synagogue.

We got together to promote her brand-new substack articles, www.julieburchill.substack.com and in particular her new novella, the Judgement of Solomons, the story of an unlikely Aliyah between an Israeli and his second wife, a non-Jewish woman with the son from his first marriage hanging around.

But the story has an extraordinary raison d’être, stay tuned to find what that is. Then our conversation moved onto the themes of her brilliant book, Unchosen, an autobiography through the prism of her long held philosemitic views. There’s also the why and when she quit cocaine, we lift the lid on what motivates her prolific writing career and why Israelis are turned on by the raw sex appeal of the Birmingham accent!

Though this is the first time I'd met Julie, it's not the first time she came up in conversation in Jonny Gould's Jewish State and I include a tribute to her from fellow writer and commentator, Brendan O'Neill.

Stay tuned for a lovely conversation practicing her three favourite hobbies. luncheon, Modern Hebrew and spite. Jonny Gould’s Jewish State is supported by UK Toremet. Help support Jonny Gould’s Jewish State (including Gift Aid) at https://www.donorbox.org/jgpodcast

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