The Y Word

[Mattspur]

As a fellow synagogue going, Shabbat-observing, skullcap wearing Orthodox Jew, I wholeheartedly agree with everything you've written.

When Spurs fans call themselves YIDS, it's a proud label of fellowship and support against the racism that Spurs fans suffered for years from other clubs.

YID ARMY!

I'd love this to be true, and I'm sure that's what it means to you, but I fear for many, It's just an excuse to be able to shout racist words with impunity. Spurs fans have unfortunately had ample opportunity over the last few years to put their money where their mouth is (Labour Party and the fallout from the Israel Palestine conflict) and stand up for the Jewish fans they apparently have such affection for but on the whole, they didn't.

As for Baddiel, most here seem to think its ok to play the man rather than the ball. Bell-End he may be, but that doesn't make the points he's been making any less relevant.

 

[Wig]

I'm against us singing the Y songs. It helps identify us as a Jewish club in many people's minds
We are not a Jewish club, the vast majority of our support, including me, an English atheist, is not Jewish. The vast majority of our players are not Jewish. It's only on the board aspect that we are strongly Jewish.
For me, we are an English club with a vast multicultural/ multi country following

It's a free country, if that's how you feel then don't sing it. But that doesn't mean we should start telling other people how to express and identify themselves.

 

[Dougal]

I'm against us singing the Y songs. It helps identify us as a Jewish club in many people's minds
We are not a Jewish club, the vast majority of our support, including me, an English atheist, is not Jewish. The vast majority of our players are not Jewish. It's only on the board aspect that we are strongly Jewish.
For me, we are an English club with a vast multicultural/ multi country following

Yid rhymes with Madrid and Kid. Atheist doesn’t rhyme with anything. I find your lack of faith disturbing and it is bringing nothing to the atmosphere. Go and find a God or we’ll never win a bloody cup.

 

[dontcallme]

Yid rhymes with Madrid and Kid. Atheist doesn’t rhyme with anything. I find your lack of faith disturbing and it is bringing nothing to the atmosphere. Go and find a God or we’ll never win a bloody cup.

Near rhymes with atheistB-Rhymes | B-Rhymes

Near rhymes (words that almost rhyme) with atheist: laziest, haziest, craziest, heaviest... Find more near rhymes/false rhymes at B-Rhymes.com

www.b-rhymes.com

 

[0-Tibsy-0]

I'd love this to be true, and I'm sure that's what it means to you, but I fear for many, It's just an excuse to be able to shout racist words with impunity.

If you're talking about match going Spurs fans then I would strongly disagree. I'm not arguing there won't be unpleasant portions of our fan base which will be shown in many different ways - but in all my years of going to Spurs I have never ever though this was the motivation of anyone singing a song containing 'Yid'.

 

[Dougal]

Near rhymes with atheistB-Rhymes | B-Rhymes

Near rhymes (words that almost rhyme) with atheist: laziest, haziest, craziest, heaviest... Find more near rhymes/false rhymes at B-Rhymes.com

www.b-rhymes.com

Beats my ‘who, who, who let the Athiests out?’.

 

[dontcallme]

Beats my ‘who, who, who let the Athiests out?’.

The SpursCommunity charity single really didn't achieve much in the end, did it?

 

[Dougal]

The SpursCommunity charity single really didn't achieve much in the end, did it?

Sadly no one believed it could get to number one. That’s your main problem with Athiests unfortunately.

 

[ShelfWatcher]

It's a free country, if that's how you feel then don't sing it. But that doesn't mean we should start telling other people how to express and identify themselves.

I definitely don't sing it. But I will also happily say I wish others wouldn't sing it as well, because by them singing it, it helps identify us as a Jewish club, which we're not
I'm not of favour of the songs being banned BTW. Just prefer they weren't sung

 

[ShelfWatcher]

Yid rhymes with Madrid and Kid. Atheist doesn’t rhyme with anything. I find your lack of faith disturbing and it is bringing nothing to the atmosphere. Go and find a God or we’ll never win a bloody cup.

Yep, atheists is not much of a rallying cry ? But to the tune of Tot ten ham, it can be done ??
Fortunately, this atheist has seen us win 14 trophies, but I would gladly switch to Jehovah if it got us another one this season ?
Incidentally, I wonder how many of the Y singers actually know what the Torah or Pentateuch is?

 

[dontcallme]

Yep, atheists is not much of a rallying cry ? But to the tune of Tot ten ham, it can be done ??
Fortunately, this atheist has seen us win 14 trophies, but I would gladly switch to Jehovah if it got us another one this season ?

 

[Teemu]

Yid rhymes with Madrid and Kid. Atheist doesn’t rhyme with anything. I find your lack of faith disturbing and it is bringing nothing to the atmosphere. Go and find a God or we’ll never win a bloody cup.

Very pertinent point, also "Jermain Defoe, he's at best agnostic" scans terribly.

 

[Dougal]

Yep, atheists is not much of a rallying cry ? But to the tune of Tot ten ham, it can be done ??
Fortunately, this atheist has seen us win 14 trophies, but I would gladly switch to Jehovah if it got us another one this season ?
Incidentally, I wonder how many of the Y singers actually know what the Torah or Pentateuch is?

To be honest I can stand for women’s rights without understanding them so I can easily stand alongside our Jewish fans without knowing all the funny words.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

We've had so many of these threads now and they all end up the same

 

[Sputic]

It's disappointing that so many posters seem to want to ignore / discount the fact that there are Jewish football fans at Spurs and at other clubs who find the chants offensive and upsetting.

Isn't that enough to suggest that it's time for us to stop chanting it?

You can come up with any number of reasons or contexts why you think it's ok (I did for a long, long time) but as long as there are people out there, including some of our fellow fans, for whom the word is upsetting we really ought to stop.

 

[arthurgrimsdell]

It's disappointing that so many posters seem to want to ignore / discount the fact that there are Jewish football fans at Spurs and at other clubs who find the chants offensive and upsetting.

Isn't that enough to suggest that it's time for us to stop chanting it?

You can come up with any number of reasons or contexts why you think it's ok (I did for a long, long time) but as long as there are people out there, including some of our fellow fans, for whom the word is upsetting we really ought to stop.

If there are people out there who find your views offensive and upsetting, should you stop posting?

Perhaps you feel that they should have no cause to find your views offensive and upsetting, purely because you don't intend them to be, and that only the words you don't like can be considered so.

The word "Yid" in itself is completely inoffensive, and indeed comes from yiddish, just as its counterpart "goyim" does, and its use is clearly, unequivocally, used in Tottenham chants as a mechanism to broadcast the chanters' support for the club, notwithstanding its origin as a riposte to the ignorant abuse Spurs fans received for being a Jewish club, purely because of its situation close to Stamford Hill. In reality the club is no more Jewish than West Ham, Arsenal or Chelsea either in its support or management. Oh! The irony!

This whole furore has been whipped up time and time again by a couple of "celebrity"Jewish Chelsea supporting brothers, who wish to hide their own club's fans' notorious racism and anti-semitism, by pointing their fingers in a different direction, and who cite as justification for this demagoguery their grandad being upset with the word because it sounds like the German "Jüde". To my ear the word "Jew" also sounds like Jüde, perhaps even more so, notwithstanding the pronunciation of the german "j" as a "y", since the german pronunciation of "ü" is something between a "u" and an "e", and not like an "oo" at all. It is formed by forming the word "o" with the mouth but actually saying "e" while doing so.
So to my mind the argument is completely spurious.

Indeed until recent decades the most common intended offensive description of Jewish people certainly in popular literature was "Jewboy", not "Yid" at all.

I have heard some very offensive remarks about Jews in my time, but remarkably they have not contained the word "Yid" nor "Jewboy" but "Jew", admittedly often with the preface "f***ing". So according to the prevailing "logic" the word "Jew" should be banned and also the misused word "Zionist", since these are the words that anti-semites tend to use in their outbursts as epithets in modern times.

Another irony is that the attempts to restrict individual freedoms including freedom of speech are fascist in nature, by definition, since fascism is about controlling the levers of power by regulation rather than ownership, but the perpetrators seem to regard themselves as "anti-fascist".

 

[absolute bobbins]

It's disappointing that so many posters seem to want to ignore / discount the fact that there are Jewish football fans at Spurs and at other clubs who find the chants offensive and upsetting.

Isn't that enough to suggest that it's time for us to stop chanting it?

You can come up with any number of reasons or contexts why you think it's ok (I did for a long, long time) but as long as there are people out there, including some of our fellow fans, for whom the word is upsetting we really ought to stop.

It's disappointing that you seem to ignore the sentiment of actual Jews in the thread.

 

[CanadaSpurs]

I’ve never used it, never will, and it always felt off to me even when I learned the reason for it.

 

[Mattspur]

The word "Yid" in itself is completely inoffensive.

What utter nonsense. calling a Jew a "Yid" is as offensive as calling a black person the N word or calling a South Asian the P word. How the word came to be is irrelevant. It's the way it's used which make it a problem. When I was at school, kids often called me a Yid because I was Jewish. Sometimes when they would get in trouble they would just say it's because I was a Spurs fan, not that they knew I was, and sometimes they'd get away with it. So Spurs fans using "the Y word" has never made the world a better more inclusive place for me. It just let others abuse me with impunity.

 

[wearetheparklane]

If there are people out there who find your views offensive and upsetting, should you stop posting?

You should probably not post things that are offensive and upsetting to people, does this really need to be said?