JULIE SZEGO

IS Dvir Abramovich kidding? The question popped into my head while reading his thunderous attack on John Safran (“No Laughing Matter” AJN 29/11). For a moment, I wondered if Abramovich’s case against the Melbourne comic was, in fact, a satire of an outraged columnist.

Abramovich accuses Safran’s TV series, Race Relations, of using “the murder of millions for cheap gags”. He gives as examples Safran’s prank against Holocaust denier David Irving and his making out with a “blonde-haired Aryan girl” in Anne Frank’s attic so as to purge himself of guilt.
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DVIR ABRAMOVICH

BY now, many have watched the antics of John Safran’s deliberately provocative Race Relations. Supposedly, Safran’s show is about the shock-comedian’s exploration of deeply personal attitudes and obsessions about race and intermarriage.

Yet, in essence, Race Relations is about Safran’s search for a way to escape and erase his Jewishness. It’s as if being a Jew has ruined his life and left him emotionally and psychologically scarred. So he attempts a circumcision reversal, participates in an African death ritual to purge himself of the past, wants to create “Jellystinian” -– a new Jewish-Arab baby – by donating sperm to a Palestinian sperm bank and, in the ultimate obliteration of his Jewish identity, is nailed to a wooden cross in a crucifixion ritual in Manila.
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Comedian John Safran

Comedian John Safran’s new series, Race Relations, screens on the ABC-TV on Wednesday, October 21 at 9.30pm. What do you think of the show? Send us your comments.

INTERVIEW BY ADAM KAMIEN

The Australian Family Association has described your new show John Safran’s Race Relations as the lowest point in the history of Australian television. Do you court controversy?

The thing that’s funny to me about the Family Association and the Herald Sun getting angry is that with my work – not just this series – I’m not even talking to them. My style is I’ve got this audience and I try to wind that audience up. It’s not like Michael Moore who has his audience and then tries to rile up the enemies of his audience. I just want to say to the Herald Sun and the Family Association “seriously, I’m so not trying to annoy you”, but it’s like I’ve inadvertently annoyed them or something.
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John Safran … new TV series.

ADAM KAMIEN

COMEDIAN John Safran’s new show has caused a public outcry, even though its debut on ABC TV is still days away.

The Australian Family Association last week hit out at the show, John Safran’s Race Relations, describing it as “filth”.

In episode one of the series, in which Safran explores interracial attraction, the former Yeshivah College student donates sperm at a Palestinian sperm bank while looking at a picture of US President Barack Obama.

He also steals women’s underwear to perform “sniff tests”. In a later episode, Safran is crucified as part of a religious ritual in the Philippines.

But the scene that will likely generate the most controversy in the Jewish community involves Safran going to his mother’s grave, with a shovel and a Kabbalah prayer book to discover what she thinks of him marrying a non-Jew.
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Yvette Coppersmith’s Archibald entry of John Safran.

LEXI LANDSMAN

TWO leading Jewish artists are vying for this year’s $35,000 Archibald Prize after their works were short-listed for Australia’s most prestigious portrait prize.

Media personality John Safran is the subject of Jewish artist Yvette Coppersmith’s Archibald entry, titled John Safran, which is one of 39 short-listed portraits vying for the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ $35,000 Archibald Prize.

It was completed on two panels with oil and acrylic on plywood and depicts Safran with his shirt off. Read the full story