‘A Muslim & A Jew Go There’: Baroness Sayeeda Warsi And Comedian David Baddiel Launch Co-Hosted Podcast

Tory peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and comedian David Baddiel launched the first episode of their new weekly podcast to discuss the “lived experience” or Jewish and Muslim minorities in Britain.

The odd pairing hopes that the podcast, called A Muslim & A Jew Go There, can become a crucial platform for understanding and empathy, especially given the Middle East’s political impact on discourse around Jewish and Muslim communities in Britain.

Baddiel and Warsi appeared on Good Morning Britain Thursday morning, as their debut episode went live, to discuss the project, produced by Jemima Khan’s Instinct Productions.

Warsi said: “What’s important in these conversations that we’re having is about the lived experience. What was it like growing up as a young Jewish boy? What was it like growing up as a young Muslim girl? What are the challenges that we face? We’re also beginning to see the overlaps and the patterns in anti-Jewish racism and anti-Muslim racism. The way in which governments work, the way in which the public sphere talks about us.

She added: “Almost every single day you can turn on the TV and there will be a story which is either talking about Jews, about Muslims, or the relationship between the two. And we just thought it was time for us to talk about ourselves, in our way, and tackle some of these really tough issues head on.”

Host Kate Garraway asked the pair how they met, pointing out that their social circles might not necessarily cross; Warsi, a Tory politician, and Baddiel, a Labour voting comedian.

“We became friends, I think, on a show we did for Stand Up To Cancer where comedians mentored people who were not comedians to do some stand up. And I was doing the Reverend Richard Coles, who was really good, but I did instantly think Sayeeda was going to win this,” Baddiel said. “She was really good and really funny.”

He continued: “But we had, in fact, met before that, which was quite an awkward moment, where I did a film called The Infidel back in 2010 about a Muslim who suddenly discovers that he was biologically Jewish. The producer, Arvind David, said, let’s go and meet Baroness Sayeeda Warsi. She’ll be able to help. So we went to the House of Lords, and all she talked about was the rival film, Four Lions. And how much she liked that.”

Episode one of A Muslim & A Jew Go There is available now on Apple and Spotify.