Jews Don’t Count: A Times Book of the Year 2021

* He said in a Guardian interview, ‘The last proper Jew in our family was four generations back.’ Interestingly, I was once interviewed by his dad, Jim Rosenthal. It was on FA Cup Final day, a Saturday – obviously – outside Wembley Stadium. I said, jokingly, ‘Should you really be here on Shabbos, Jim?’ Jim stopped the interview, and very pressingly made the point that he wasn’t Jewish. ‘I get out of that because of my dad,’ he said. Which is weird, as most Jews, who worry about that kind of stuff, prescribe Jewishness as coming down the mother’s line. Either way, it’s not up to me to tell Jim Rosenthal he is Jewish (I actually bumped into him much later on in a sauna, naked, and it still seemed to me he was, but anyway).