"Yid" chanting...

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Yid chants, offensive?

  • Yes

    Votes: 27 7.8%

  • No

    Votes: 317 92.2%
  • Total voters
    344
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FYI - just off a conference call with the lawyer representing all 3 and she says 4th of Feb will only be a plea hearing so it's best not to have any kind of protest or mass gathering at this stage.

She will review it on a hearing to hearing basis along with the Barrister and possible QC and feed back to me/THST to get the word our when anything needs to be organised.

Hope this helps
 
I was having a look at some of the comments on John Crace's Guardian article and found something from that rarest of things, a sensible Woolwich fan, which hits the nail on the head for me:


'In the second world war the king of Denmark (not a Jew) wore a yellow star and encouraged all his subjects to do the same. They did. It worked. The occupying Nazis were not able to identify Jews.
To my mind this was one of the greatest acts of communal heroism in human history. Spurs fans singing 'Yid army" is not exactly an act of heroism, but comes from the same heroic way of thinking.
I'm an Woolwich fan and a Jew'
Click to expand...
 
It's interesting how the FA finds the word Yid such an easy subject to deal with and yet doesn't seem to know where to begin with hissing, for example, isn't it?
 
Here we go again, the thought police at the FA are deciding whats offensive now! A WORD!!!
Well i'm fucking offended with the fucking FA, in 81 i stood on the Leppings lane terrace at Hillsborough while Spurs fans were being crushed, in a stadium without a fucking safety certificate. In 89 Liverpool fans went happy and hopefull to another semi final and 96 football fans never came home that day! And guess what? the ground still didn't have a safety certificate!!! Thats the responcibility of the FA, it has now been proven that the authorities covered up the events on that day and blamed it on the fans. We have the same thing with this issue, racist fans out there?? i know lets blame the Spurs fans for encouraging the racists. You really couldn't make this shit up!

I'm offended with the FA, and 96 families are still awaiting justice!
 
Thanks @ Johnboy40 Johnboy40 and @ Sunglasses Ron Sunglasses Ron

I find it rich that the guy who blacked up and put a pineapple on his head to mock Jason Lee and did a "Phoenix From The Flames" for Avi Cohen that was utterly laced with Spurs references simply down to his Jewishness should be any kind of mouthpiece when it comes to offending people.
 
Saying "stop calling yourself yids and other people will stop the anti-semitism" is a bit like saying "stop being fat and you won't be bullied so much" - completely mis-identifying the problem. The anti-semitic abuse is the unacceptable part, rather than us identifying ourselves collectively and defiantly as the 'yid army'.

Also I think the "reclaiming" process is working, I know there's a range of ages on this board but if you were to ask a general person around my age (18-21) what a "yid" I genuinely think the majority would say "Spurs fan" - certainly before all of this flared up a few years ago I had no idea of its racial connotations.

And anyhow, it would be virtually impossible to totally eradicate the usage of the word amongst the 100,000 or so people that attend games every season.
 
i actually thougth baddiel's article was more reasonably argued than in the past. But for me it's not the word itself that needs banning. I actually don't care that other fans call us 'the yids' because that is what we call ourselves. What fucks me off is the songs about gassing and auschwitz etc. You don't need to use the y word to sing those. you can just say Jew(s) which is apparently not offensive.

The argument has become too focussed on 'the y word' and not on anti-semitism in my opinion
 
Don't know if this has already been posted here, great letter, although not sure about warmest regards:

http://www.thstofficial.com/latest-news/a-letter-from-a-jewish-tottenham-fan-to-david-baddiel.aspx#

A letter from a Jewish Tottenham fan to David Baddiel

Dear David,
Here we are again. The Y word. Or to refer to its real name, The C Word. Because as you and I both know this little problem is not about Spurs fans using the word Yid in a positive or negative manner. It’s about feeling uncomfortable at Chelsea games.

I can appreciate where you are coming from. As a Jewish Tottenham fan myself, going to Stamford Bridge is an incredibly difficult day out for me. I’m 37 and I look like a typical NW London Jew. You and I would pick each other out as Jews from 100 yards at any holiday destination on Earth. I even have a brilliant Jewish hooter to top off the look. I am what I am. Getting off the tube at Fulham Broadway though, I might as well have that yellow star sewn to my coat, because you are quite right this is not what football is about. It’s a quite vile experience and as a father of two boys, one that I won’t be putting them through until they are a lot older, if at all. To be honest though, this is your problem and not mine. We turned an insult into a positive. All on our own. The gay community did it with the word ‘queer’. It’s quite clever really. Quite why you suggest that those who turned the insult into a term of fraternity should lead the way, so those that use it as a racial insult can be told not to use it, is quite frankly illogical.

Chelsea, West Ham, Leeds. These are the three places where I have heard the gassing noises and felt that pang of nausea in my stomach. A pang you describe and which I’m sure you feel somewhat ashamed about. Be that as it may, Tottenham on a match day is probably the safest environment in England for a Jewish person. Isn’t that lovely? My family have 4 tickets and we are reform Jews. However I often give any spares to two ultra orthodox Spurs fans. They both wear kippot and one of them looks like every rabbi you’ve ever seen in your haggadah. They get cheered through the streets of Tottenham. They love it! People smile at them, chant ‘Yiddo’ at them and they wear their spurs shirts and their tzitzit with pride. How wonderful is that? In an era where there is so much bitterness and negativity, these two fellas can enjoy their football and their religion and feel totally safe. Thirty years ago that might have not been the case as the bananas hailed down on black wingers and coins were thrown at Jews to see if they would pick them up.

David, I am a huge fan of your work, but in this you are so wide of the mark that I find your view offensive. I find what you are trying to do, actually borderline anti-semetic. Don’t hide away the victims and shut them up because it makes your match day experience difficult. This is Chelsea’s problem. This is West Ham’s problem. This is Leeds United’s problem.

In Germany in 1933, SS men stood outside Jewish shops to deter anyone from entering. In 1934, buses, trains and park benches had seats marked out for us to sit on and our children were taught specifically anti-semetic ideas. In 1935 the Nuremberg Law was passed and Jews lost their rights to be German citizens and marriage between Jews and non-Jews became illegal. You know how this story ends.

In 2013 Jews and non Jews in a small corner of London, are united. Please please please, don’t f**k that up.

Warmest Regards,

Nick Cowan.
 
1882 said:
Ha ha ha ha..... Funny!
Funny 'cos like Avi Cohen is a JEW.... SO HE OBVIOUSLY PLAYS FOR TOTTENHAM.... Just like that Hasidic Jew that Andy Jacobs is depicting.... Stoopid Jew! No wonder he drives a Volvo!

Lucky less than 5% of Spurs fans are Jewish, otherwise it might be deemed offensive!
But who gives a shit about less than 5% of a soppy Jewish club's support?
Eh David!!!!
Abramovitch, Benayoun, Avram Grant... Equally loved by Chelsea's hardcore Nazi scum cunt fans aren't they.....?

Hypocritical cunt!
Click to expand...
course he's a hypocritical cunt.

this is the great anti racism campaigner, David Baddiel clearly being not racist....

lee2.jpg
 
was reading the mail, due to the extracts of Redknapp's book...this is Martin Samuel's opionion on the matter:

Words changed but the attitude remains

We live in a post-modern world. Everything is knowing, everything ironic. Ironic sexism, ironic racism. We are too clever by half, really.

So the only person to be arrested for shouting the word Yid at White Hart Lane on Sunday turned out to be a Tottenham Hotspur fan. He may even be Jewish for all we know, although the majority of Tottenham’s followers are not. Nobody in West Ham United’s corner did enough to cause offence.

Does this mean they refused to engage? Not really. They just knew exactly how far to push it.

'He's coming for you, he’s coming for you, we won’t say his name, but he’s coming for you.' That was one song. He who must not be named isn’t Voldemort. It’s Adolf Hitler. That song, with Hitler inserted, used to be directed at Tottenham fans due to their perceived Jewishness.


Here’s another one. 'Without the Y word, you’ve got f*** all.'See what they did there? Mocked the fact that Tottenham had lost ownership of the 'Yid Army' chant, while at the same time taunting them to break ranks in defiant response and get arrested. Maybe one bloke did. He obviously wasn’t in a post-modern place.

So we’re right back where we were last year. 'Always the victims, it’s never your fault,' the Manchester United fans sang at Anfield. It’s a Hillsborough chant, except it isn’t. It’s more subtle than that. Makes the same point, but stays the right side of the law. As West Ham did on Sunday. They sung about Hitler but with a fresh twist, an ironic twist, a post-modern twist. See where we are?

There is no point changing the words if you don’t change the attitude. The song directed at Jermain Defoe was the most offensive language of the afternoon, but as it didn’t involve racism, sexism or homophobia, nobody was interested. And right there is the problem.
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Nutter-Naylor said:
...we would once again remind our fans that the Metropolitan Police has stated that the use of the word can be considered a criminal offence on the basis that it can cause offence...
Click to expand...

Offensive things are considered a criminal offence?

...so Plod are going to start arresting producers for persistently putting Katie Hopkins on tv?
 
Walking up high rd after the game yesterday, bloke in a car with loads of facial hair, skull cap on. As he turns into junction, raises his fist, face beaming. Starts shouting"Yid Army!"

Legend.
Made my day.

Eat that Baddiel!:soldadowatch:
 
Smoked Salmon said:
Then you're under qualified to opine on what I have said.
Click to expand...

Haha... That is low.
So you can define that I`m not qualified to have an opinion on Spurs fans chanting "Yid" because I`m not jewish and norwegian? Right. Great logic (Sarcasm)

I`m sorry, but I feel more than qualified enough.

From Oxford dictionary:

Definition of Yid in English:
noun
informal, offensive
Jew.

So, we can agree on what the word means I guess. And from that we can deduce that the word can be used purely descriptive or as racial slur. Had it been only the latter, I`d have no problem with your position,
But that`s not how we (as in Spurs fans, probably not you though) use it, is it?

Had the police actually thought that to be the case, I am pretty confident the metropolitan police wouldn`t have
made the comment we`re discussing.
Neither would the Tottenham Hotspur Supporter Trust have helped the 3 fans being charged in the first place.
I suspect the Crown Prosecution Service wouldn`t have dropped the case either (because of lack of evidence).

I am also sensitive to the fact that probably almost all opposition fans that use the word, mean to use it as racial slur. But that`s, I guess, where we differ in opinion. I see no reason why any jewish person should take offense when, contrary to for instance the N word, yid actually has an informal use and it is in this context Spurs fans use it.

And for me, it boils down to this: Why on earth should we let facist/racist/nazi cunts be allowed to take a word that used to be purely informal and make it into a racist word?
If you choose to use norwegian negatively, you can. Call me a fucking norwegian and you have.
If enough people do it, at some point Oxford dictionary will ad "offensive" behind informal in the dictionary.
I`m sure, after some time, some norwegians would take offense, just as some jews and pakis (paki is also informal in the right context, as opposed to the N word) would take offense even when the word is used informally. But I choose not to be so fucking politically correct,
In my world, YOU don`t get to define that my identity (being norwegian) is a negative thing disqualifying me from having an opinion. And racist motherfucking Chelsea fans don`t get to define Spurs`s (albeit exaggerated) jewish background as being negative.

Only my non jewish norwegian opinion, but sod off for saying I can`t have it.
 
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