Jewish Opinions On 'yid army'

[riggi]

I really don't mind, it does not offend me as a Jew.......It might bother few Muslims though.....

Litally everything offends muslims. "Sits and waits for Mullers"

 

[Tomdon]

Litally everything offends muslims. "Sits and waits for Mullers"

Yes, now days you need to be politically correct....

 

[riggi]

I'm Jewish and think that the chant has a time and a place.

The time was the 70's and 80's and the place was WHL.

I don't think that the chant has a positive effect on discrimination towards Jews and it certainly hasn't taken any of the power out of the word as if the word is used in a discriminatory context it is still as powerful as it ever was, especially as, and this may come as a shock to people, most Jews are not Spurs fans or fans of football at all. It is selfish and thoughtless that a minority of Jewish people (Spurs fans) encourage the use of this word which many Jews would be offended by if called it by a non Jew.

I would be interested to know from the Jews who are supportive of the 'Yid Army' chant and say that it has completely taken the power out of the word, would they be more offended if they went into their local shop and were a penny short and the guy serving them said "fuck off you yid" than if he were to just say "fuck off"? I know I would.

So yes, it may take some of the power out of the word at the Lane once every two weeks but what about the other 14 days and 22 hours.

I would agree with that. I do seriously believe though, spurs fans chanting yid army brings no where near the amount of casual anti semitisim than shows like south park etc bring. I love south park and i get its ironic humour however, your average teenager etc is just hearing "fucking jew" etc. o and i can comment on my thread as i wear a star of david from Israel and i like bagels....i dont eat pork either.

 

[riggi]

Shit, i think i might be more jewish than Cosmic.

 

[sweyid]

I would be interested to know from the Jews who are supportive of the 'Yid Army' chant and say that it has completely taken the power out of the word, would they be more offended if they went into their local shop and were a penny short and the guy serving them said "fuck off you yid" than if he were to just say "fuck off"? I know I would.

I suppose anyone would. If he says "fuck off you yid" you get "fuck offed" for being jewish, if he says "fuck off" you get "fuck offed" for being a penny short. Put any race/religion/ethnicity/nationality/sexual orientation/gender etc behind "fuck off you XXX" and it's a racial/ethnic etc insult. Would John Terry have been suspended if he had just called Anton Ferdinand black or ****? No. But when he called him a black ****, he called him a **** on basis of being black - not on the basis of just being a ****.

 

[riggi]

I get what your saying but my brain got stuck in a knott reading that.

 

[CosmicHotspur]

Of course it's about the intent behind a word and how it's used and this has been said many times before on SC.

 

[wevegotledleyattheback]

Not offended at all actually love the chants! That said whilst this was not the case back in the day i do feel that us embracing it encourages rival fans a la Wet Spam to send anti semetic bile our way. Answer is clearly not to ban it overnight rather educate over a long period time. Easier said than done I'm sure...

 

[FITZ]

I'm not Jewish and very naive to the situation.

Seems to me (in my limited experience) that most football fans that aren't over 40 or spurs fans think that the word "yid" just means spurs supporter. I know that I did not know the background for some time, but when I was younger and it was explained to me that it meant I was a spurs fan. So when I was asked what it meant by other friends this would be my answer!

I have no idea how often Jewish people get called yid on a daily/weekly basis. I've always expected it to be very low. It would interesting to hear if it is a regular occurrence?

Is it a case that - if the papers and usual suspects did not bring it up every 6 months and if spurs went the whole hog and started merchandising the "yid army" over the last 10 years - that actually people would have moved passed the original meaning?

Or as someone earlier mentionned earlier that the wider Jewish community are not football fans let alone spurs fans and that it would have just benn 100 times worse?

(Expecting some negative responses - but it's just a few questions from someone not in the know!)

 

[hellava_tough]

I think we should ask the People's Front of Judea :

 

[sloth]

Cosmic? I could have sworn, during one of the Sunday SC match thread's you posted about: " making the ol' man a bacon sarny, and heard him shout from the lounge, in dismay: 'Fuck Me! What have I done there!? "

EDIT: oh wait, perhaps that was someone else?

The guy who works for me and his wife both eat pork and are Jewish. Jewishness describes a bloodline as often as it does a religion, so it's perfectly possible to have, for example, atheist jews, and I guess most Christians could be described as non-Jewish followers of a judaic cult; non-jewish jews.

 

[whitelightwhiteheat]

I think we'd still get anti-Semitic abuse even if we stopped singing "Yid Army" and "Yiddo"

Then what?

I think this way it shows the opposition fans that we couldn't give a flying F... what they say, we're going to still come back at them, and stronger, en masse as an "army"! BOOM! HAVE THAT!

It's good to let them know they can't get to us, in my opinion. Which was entirely the point in the first place, I would have thought.

 

[Mattspur]

I think we'd still get anti-Semitic abuse even if we stopped singing "Yid Army" and "Yiddo"

Then what?

I'm not sure we would but even if we did, we live in a very different world today to that which fans did who created this chant and I think that the authorities, PL, FA and clubs would stamp it out. That sort of anti-semitic abuse is not tolerated today in the way it was back then.

 

[specspurs]

As I commented on a previous thread, I fail to see how being called a Yid,which just means Jew anyway in Yiddish, can offend you if you are a Jew like me. I personally like the chant, however since this controversy has occurred, I have decided to take a survey of non-Spurs supporting Jews that I know and there are plenty of them.
Without exception everyone said it doesn't bother them and wondered what all the fuss was about. Undoubtedly though,it was all about context or what was in front or behind the word 'Yid'.
Finally,this unscientific survey included a couple of people who are members of the CST,which provides security at synagogues and other Jewish functions, which is as official as I can get.