Image by youtube

London’s Tottenham Hotspur soccer team defended fans who call themselves “Yids,” saying they adopted the term as a defense against anti-Semitic taunting.

The Society of Black Lawyers this week threatened to file a complaint with the Metropolitan police by Nov. 20 unless Tottenham Hotspur and the Football Association make greater efforts to end what they say is anti-Semitic chanting.

In a statement in response, the team said the terms were used to push back against abuse.

Antisemitism Notebook

Your weekly guide through the news and the noise of how rising antisemitism and disputes over how to address it are shaping American Jewish life.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“Our fans adopted the chant as a defence mechanism in order to own the term and thereby deflect anti-Semitic abuse,” the team said. “They do not use the term to others to cause any offence.”

Supporters of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in the 1970s appropriated the terms “Yid,” “Yiddo” and “Yid Army” as a defense against fans from opposing teams who taunted them with the epithets.

Tottenham is a north London neighborhood that in the early 20th century had a substantial Jewish population. The team has long enjoyed Jewish support and was one of the first British teams to farm Israel for players.

The Society of Black Lawyers says Tottenham’s tolerance of the term encourages racist chants from fans of rival teams, often during matches held at Tottenham’s White Hart Lane stadium.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount