Rowson revisited: drawing Jews, apologies and antisemitism

In May 2019 Martin Rowson, the celebrated Guardian cartoonist, e-mailed me a cartoon as part of an exchange about our times at Broadsheet (a wonderfully scabrous weekly student listings magazine in Cambridge for which I wrote film and theatre reviews and for which Martin drew superb covers). I e-mailed his drawing to members of my family and wrote, “There he was in 1981, a talent already perfectly formed.”

Martin and I know each other a little. I admire his work enormously. At a time of so many gifted cartoonists and illustrators, Martin has been one of the best for years. My favourite of all his political cartoons is a superb image of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, the best cartoon of Trump I have ever seen (see below).

On 29 April, at the height of the allegations about the relationship between Richard Sharp, then Chairman of the BBC, and Boris Johnson, Martin drew a cartoon of Sharp for The Guardian which led to a firestorm on social media (see below).

Many accused him of using antisemitic tropes: Sharp’s thick lips, large nose, hooded eyes, the squid, a nearby pig’s head. Sharp is shown holding a cardboard box on which was written Goldman Sachs, where Sharp used to be a senior executive, but you can only read “Gold” and “Sach”, though the last letter should probably be read as “Sack”. I was one of those who had no doubt these were antisemitic tropes.

On the next day, 30 April, Martin and I exchanged Direct Messages on Twitter. Martin wrote,

“David – I’d hoped in my apology that I’d failed to realise I was using antisemitic tropes because I thought I was drawing something else, signifying different things. I’m sorry if I failed to make that clear, and I apologise to you personally for the upset I’ve caused, whether unconsciously or carelessly or thoughtlessly. The upset remains real whatever its cause. Please believe me when I say I would not use such tropes deliberately as I’m not an antisemite – the opposite, in fact – despite what a lot of Twitter thinks. I am mortified & ashamed, not least by my own idiocy. With very best wishes, Martin. April 30 2023.”

I replied immediately:

“Dear Martin, Thank you so much for taking the time to write. I appreciate it. I never for a moment thought you were antisemitic. Obviously not. That’s why I find this so puzzling. How does someone as thoughtful and sensitive to these issues end up drawing a cartoon that nevertheless draws on so many antisemitic tropes and themes and then writes an apology which doesn’t really come to terms with much of this or the context of the times we are in? I really don’t wish to add to your burdens at the moment and I won’t tweet about this any more but please understand that many British Jews like myself feel more under attack, in various ways, than we have at any time in my lifetime. Be well and warmest wishes, of course, to all the family. David April 30 2023.”

On Wednesday Martin published on The Guardian website an apologia for the original cartoon: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/26/britain-prejudices-cartoon-antisemitic-tropes.

Early on in the piece, Rowson writes, “Years ago I drew up this simple set of rules for myself. I should never attack anyone less powerful than me. I should never attack people for what they are – their ethnicity, gender or sexuality. Only for what they think and do. And should I ever offend anyone I hadn’t targeted, I would always apologise.”

He then gets to the heart of the matter. “You can read my account of what I thought I’d drawn on my website [https://www.martinrowson.com/]… In the same piece I apologised unconditionally and took full responsibility for the enormous hurt and upset I had unintentionally caused. … I had drawn an antisemitic cartoon, yet I had not been aware I was doing so. … I could now only see what … thousands of others saw, and saw it for what it was. I was now consumed with deep, devouring shame.”

Towards the end, Rowson writes,

“Worst of all, [Sharp was] victimised and bullied by me, in ways wholly anathema to me both personally and professionally. Carelessly and terrifyingly easily, I had utterly and comprehensively failed. It was and is inexcusable on every level.”

It is a powerful and moving apology. Rowson now sees that the original cartoon drew on antisemitic tropes and apologises for this. But why did someone who is not an antisemite not see this at the time? This remains puzzling and worrying. We don’t live in the 1930s and 1940s, when so much of British culture was soaked in mostly unthinking antisemitism. For years now, we have become familiar with the debate about antisemitism and, in particular, the literary and visual tropes which Jew-hatred has drawn on for centuries, from Fagin to T.S. Eliot.

Martin Rowson is smart and well-read. He has published books on Tristram Shandy, Gulliver’s Travels and The Waste Land. How could he have been blind to the references to “GOLD”, to the use of the pig’s head, the big nose and the hooded eyes, in his cartoon?

Secondly, he doesn’t address the context. He drew this image in The Guardian, a newspaper which has consistently attacked Israel in recent years, often making errors of fact in its reporting (documented by @CAMERAorg.UK); which supported Corbyn when many British Jews, including a number of eminent Jewish Labour MPs, and others said Corbyn was an antisemite; and, crucially, in this case, which failed to see the problem with Rowson’s cartoon. This isn’t just Rowson’s problem. This is a problem with The Guardian and parts of the British Left.

But there is a larger context which is even more important. As I wrote to Martin in April, many British Jews today feel embattled and have felt under attack for some years, partly because of attacks on Israel, but also because of attacks on Jews at British universities, or in Jewish neighbourhoods such as Stamford Hill. Go to any synagogue on a Friday evening or a Saturday and you will see security guards outside.

None of this has been properly addressed by the BBC’s flagship news programmes. There have been some news stories and interviews with leading Jewish Labour politicians, but not enough was said about this on the Today programme or on Newsnight. The best coverage of the crisis of antisemitism on both sides of the Atlantic has not come from the mainstream media but from The Jewish Chronicle, first under Stephen Pollard and now under Jake Wallis Simons, the Jewish News, and a number of Jewish websites and individual journalists in America.

I don’t doubt the seriousness or sincerity of Martin Rowson’s apology. But I remain puzzled by the absences, the lack of interest in these centuries-old tropes and to the larger context today. Did he ask any of the editors and sub-editors at the Guardian why they didn’t see the problems with his cartoon of Richard Sharp, just as they didn’t see the problem with Steve Bell’s nasty cartoon of Priti Patel?

I still like Martin personally and I admire much of his work. He was gifted in 1981 and he’s talented now. I am glad he apologised for the antisemitic tropes in his cartoon in April, but I remain puzzled by the silences in both his apologies.

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