He may be in his mid-80s but Barry Humphries proved he is still in rude comic health when delighting guests at a gala dinner on Monday marking the fifth anniversary of JW3.
The creator of Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson revealed he lives only “a short walk from this wonderful oasis. I intend to come as often as possible — if I get past security.”
The laughter flowed with a string of anecdotes to his interviewer, JW3 trustee Claudia Rosencrantz, the former ITV executive who for many years produced the ITV show that helped to make his name.
But he broke from the humour to recall his affinity with the Jewish boys at the Church of England Grammar school in his native Melbourne in the days when it operated a Jewish quota. His best friend from school is a retired Progressive rabbi in the city, John Levi.
“I rather liked them because they were outsiders,” he said. Melbourne, and to some extent Toronto, had the largest population of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi Europe outside Israel, he added.
As a young boy, he became aware that “terrible events were taking place”, remembering the woman who used to give him the stamps from letters sent by her husband still in Germany.
“Some of the stamps had swastikas on them and a horrible man with a little black moustache. I valued these stamps and put them in my collection.
One day she stopped giving me the stamps [saying] ‘I haven’t had any more letters’.”
Also on the bill was Robert Rinder, star of the TV courtroom show Judge Rinder and former Strictly Come dancer, who occupied, he said, the “oy vey slot between the starter and the main course”.
He revealed he had been commissioned by the BBC to present three programmes about the Holocaust, following his own journey back into his family’s pre-war past for the celebrity roots series, Who Do You Think You Are?
While that episode had trended on a social media for nearly a day afterwards, “there had not been a peep of antisemitism”, he noted.
In the five years since JW3 opened, it has had more than a million visits and put on more than 31,000 classes and events.
It has reduced costs from £4.95 million in 2014 to £4.74 million this year while increasing revenue from events from £1.63 million to £2.53 million.
Proceeds from its restaurant Zest have contributed £176,000 towards the centre’s cultural activities.
But in his appeal for support, its chairman Marc Nohr told guests it still needed to secure 47 per cent of its budget — more than £2 million — through fundraising. The dinner raised a record £320,000.
In the brochure, local MP Tulip Siddiq wrote that JW3 was a “magnet for people from across our community”. Its impact “stretches far beyond these walls”.
In a message, Theresa May recalled the JW3 memorial for the victims of the recent Pittsburgh synagogue attack. “Rather than turning inwards, as it would have been all too easy to do, JW3 opened its doors wider and welcomed people in for a cross-communal, multifaith vigil,” she wrote.
“I was inspired by this act of courage and compassion and hope that it is never diminished by fear or hatred.”
