Epstein is a quintessential Jewish sounding name so surely it’s absolutely obvious to people that he was Jewish no matter how it’s pronounced?
In all honesty, it had not occurred to me to even think about whether or not Epstein was Jewish. It simply didn't cross my mind. I'm obviously aware that lots of Jewish people have surnames that end in the suffix -stein, but I've never really thought about whether everyone with such a name is Jewish. To me, it just sounds Germanic, and had it not been for this thread, I'd probably have defaulted to the German pronunciation, epshtine. Yes, I must have heard it pronounced otherwise on the news, but I can't say that I've paid that much attention. I also hadn't realised that Weinstein was pronounced as Weensteen until reading this thread - I've listened to plenty of stories on the news about Harvey Weinstein, but I obviously didn't register how they were saying it. Or perhaps I just assumed that they were ignorant.
I can't stand Corbyn, and I do think that he has shown very poor leadership with regard to the issue of tackling anti-Semitism in the Labour party. I also think he should have acknowledged in the debate yesterday that he had failed to do enough. However, I think it's a real stretch to suggest that his pronunciation of this name was a reflection of anti-Semitic feeling . I just don't buy that at all, and I think this kind of allegation sadly detracts from the real issues which have clearly been causing a lot of distress for many long-standing members of the party.
FWIW, my daughter always laughs because I apparently say the word "emoji" in a "weird Japanese way". I can't help it, it looks like a Japanese word to me and even though she keeps telling me that I say it "wrong", I always default back to what seems like the right pronunciation to me. I suspect that's what has happened with Corbyn here.
Ironically, I think David Baddiel has drawn far more attention to Epstein's Jewish heritage than any mispronunciation of Corbyn's. Not that it should matter anyway.