The Y-Word: The Development of Anglo-Jewish Identity as Evidenced by Tottenham Hotspur Soccer Club's "Yid Army" Supporters

• Main Author: Laufer, Blake
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarship @ Claremont 2014
• Subjects: Anglo-Jewish; British National Identity; Tottenham Hotspur; Yid Army; Anglo-Jewish Identity Formation; European History
• Online Access: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/367; http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1365&context=scripps_theses

A look at the historical relationship between Britons and Anglo-Jews through the lens of Tottenham Hotspur supporters' "Yid Army." The influx of Eastern European immigrants in the 1880s, the rise of the British Union of Fascists and the continuing evolution of British national identity speaks to a trend within Anglo-Jewish identity formation. Debates within the Jewish community of how best to live in British society, be it through assimilation or reassertion of Jewishness, have continued to the present day. By looking at the history of the Anglo-Jew in Britain one is able to see that the events surrounding the Y-word in soccer are based in a larger history of the Jewish struggle to form an Anglo-Jewish identity in the midst of an ever-evolving notion of Britishness.