Why the “Y” Word
In this “Bonus” episode of “First Time, Long Time” we’re exploring a single song that’s sung by the fans of Tottenham Hotspur. It’s a song about a word that Spurs fans use to refer to themselves: the word “Yid” or Jew. Some see it as a co-opting of identity, others see it as an act of solidarity and allyship. Where ever you fall on that spectrum (if it is a spectrum), there’s something I want you to know:
There’s a scene in the movie “Airplane!” that always makes people laugh. The flight attendant asks a little old lady if she’d like anything to read and the woman asks, “do you have anything light?” The attendant pulls out a tiny pamphlet ands says “how about this leaflet, ‘famous Jewish sports legends?’” To this day that joke absolutely kills. It even cracks me up. But I don’t like the joke.
There’s a very specific type of antisemitism, similar to a specific anti-Asianism, that is absolutely still allowed in mainstream culture. It’s cloaked in this faux-philosemitic reductionism that paints Jews as “intelligent, wily, and prioritizing education over physical prowess” in the same way that people talk about “Asians being good at math” or whatever. It may sound positive but it stinks of veiled hostility and, to be frank, outright racism.
And to be clear, I’m not immune from making these jokes. It’s an easy way to get a giggle. I’m a Jew so I’m good at thinking and worrying and I’m afraid of getting punched in the nose. See? I didn’t even mean the nose part, it just happened.
I hate that “Airplane!” joke. Even if it was written by a Jew. Even if I make the same kinds of jokes all the time. I hate it because it erases the actually incredible stories of Jews in sports. Koufax. Greenberg. The boxers. The soccer players. The tough Jews. There have always been tough Jews.
I grew up at a Jewish summer camp that was rooted in the philosophy of two people: A.D. Gordon and Ber Borochov. These two men grew up around the turn of the century in a Europe that was openly hostile to Jews. For centuries, European Jews were forbidden from being landowners so they turned to education and business. Borochov and Gordon were sick and tired of the characterization of the “nebbishy, weak, dangerously intelligent Jew” and pushed their people to return to the land, to become laborers, and builders, and doers, and dreamers.
My grandfather carried blocks of ice for a living when he was a kid.
He punched an antisemite who threatened his mother.
He worked designing and cutting gravestones.
Borochov and Gordon would have been proud.
All of this is to say that in this episode I lovingly describe a group of Jews being protected by a group of non-Jews and I want to make something explicit:
Jews do NOT need protecting because they are weak.
Jews need protection because they are targeted over and over again for who they are by people with MUCH more power than them.
During WWII when the Jewish groundskeeper for the club Bayern Munich was to be sent to the extermination camps by the Nazis, the club hid him and his family in the stadium. In the 70s when skinhead thugs screamed antisemitism at the Jewish fans of Tottenham, a group of Spurs fans shouted back that if you target the minority amongst us then you target all of us.
These two acts of solidarity are cut from the same cloth. And, in no small way, that is what this episode is about, told through the lens of a single song.
It’s complicated, it’s messy, and there are no easy answers to any of the hard questions that are asked in the episode. But I hope that you’ll listen with an open mind and the knowledge that antisemitism and racism come in many forms and the only way to defeat it is to actively fight back.
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