I felt deep sadness and wanted to get back to that sense of being an out-and-proud Jew. The podcast felt like the perfect vehicle
It is a laugh I sorely needed. Arron, a TV producer, has been my friend for more than 30 years and pitched the concept of this podcast to me back in spring in a hilariously formal way. Our families are best friends, we are always in and out of each other’s houses with our kids running wild but we met alone in our local café, and Arron arrived with a fancy leather-bound notebook so I knew he meant business.
Local heroes: Abigail and Arron namecheck Jewish favourites in their podcast such as kosher baker Estelle Shiers, who has made their birthday cakes for several years[Missing Credit]
Since October 7, the two of us had spent a lot of time discussing and bemoaning the news and the biased representations of Jews, and we shared the heart-sinking habit of reading our “friends’” social media posts. Like so many, we consumed a lot of content and most of it depressed us. Arron suggested we put something positive and light out there about being British and Jewish. “You know, why we do all the bats*** stuff we do.” I was thrilled by the idea.
In my early career as a journalist I wrote a lot about the “fun” side of being Jewish, in various columns for the JC as well as in national broadsheets. That felt like a very different time, when I wouldn’t think twice about flaunting my identity with pride. In that café with Arron I recognised how I had spent the previous 18 months in a radically different head space. My eldest child started Jewish primary school a month before October 7. It was heartbreaking watching her fall in love with her identity for the first time while I started to feel like I had to slightly hide mine – a topic we touched on in our episode on the intricacies of attending Jewish schools. I detailed the time I shut a conversation down in a shop when my sweet, innocent six-year-old was about to “out” us as Jews. As I schlepped her out before she had the chance to do so, I hoped she hadn’t noticed and then felt a deep sense of sadness and shame. I wanted to get back to that sense of being an out-and-proud Jew and this podcast felt like the perfect vehicle.
[Missing Credit]
We agreed on a name, Nisht For Me, largely because it’s something I say a lot and a concept that amusingly typifies Jewish conversation. Each episode concludes with our Nisht For Me of the week – picking something that may be popular or enjoyed by many but is just… nisht for us. Our lists have covered everything from schmaltz herring to giving birth.
We play Jewish Top Trumps where we compare our shtetls of origin and our defects which span shvitzing (me) and BRCA (him)
We loosely agreed content parameters – we don’t pretend antisemitism doesn’t exist nor that October 7 never happened (how can you chat about modern British Jewish life otherwise?) but we just don’t dwell on it. So many other platforms do that so well and we wanted our humble podcast to be a place where the community felt “seen” in a positive way and the feedback we’ve received since launch suggests we’ve delivered on that more than we could have anticipated. Listeners say they have been crying with laughter on their commutes, dog walks and school runs.
It was also very important to make this feel distinctly British. The American Jewish identity tends to dominate diaspora culture, understandably so, but we wanted to carve out a space that felt particularly British and, well, heimishe. Nothing exemplifies that more than our season finale, devoted to lessons from our grandparents, which takes us in numerous directions, from the way my grandma Edie taught me the time and place to be strong for others, to the horror of Arron’s grandma Clair finding porn on his computer as a teenager.
The podcast is, at times, very Mancunian. No broiges here, but we often feel like London Jews get a lot of airtime so we get a kick out of dropping niche Mancunian Jewish references, such as our love for Estelle Shiers, a kosher baker in Whitefield who has been making – and exquisitely icing – our birthday cakes since we can remember.
This USP became especially poignant after Yom Kippur, of course. We had set out to put Mancunian Jewry on the map in a positive, upbeat way and suddenly our community was at the centre of the world’s attention for all the wrong reasons. We had a show recorded and ready to go for the following Monday as per usual that felt all wrong in the aftermath. So we pivoted and did something slightly different, completely unscripted, in an episode recorded the very next day. We attempted to process what had happened together. It was tough, raw, sad and angry but we were glad we did it – for ourselves and our listeners.
Despite our locale, we’ve been taken aback by how far and wide our content has resonated. It’s a very homegrown podcast, just the two of us, and at first, we thought “well if we make our friends and family laugh, that would be nice” but it seems we’ve reached beyond our (kvelling) relatives. We even have a fan on a Texas ranch (a Jewish Texan rancher, who knew?!)
But we’ve also been stopped by non-Jews who tell us they are enjoying it. I think that is partly down to them genuinely wanting to learn more about us and also down to the fact that if you dust away the kosher coating, Jewish life revolves around family, friendship, relationships, identity – all universal topics. In the episode on sitting shivah, I share the time Arron’s wife, Anna, came to my rescue, just after I had finished sitting shivah for my mum. It is a story about a friend being there when you need it most.
Now we are planning season two, which will feature more guests facing tough questioning, like “What was your most lusted after bar mitzvah present?” And, of course, “What’s your heimishe flex?”
In this break between seasons, I have had a chance to reflect on the absolute joy it has been to ponder the delightfully weird and wonderful intricacies of our culture on a regular basis. In unpicking the ways we contort ourselves to do what we do, I remembered exactly why we do all the “bats*** stuff we do” – because our Jewish identities are something to be truly proud of and cherished.
So the next time my daughter wants to announce who we are I won’t feel the urge to silence her. In fact, I might follow up with a podcast recommendation.
Season 1 of Nisht For Me on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Season 2 launches on December 1.
Follow @nishtforme on Instagram.
