David Baddiels comment about Corbyn

[Minionoftheantichrist]

I’ve looked for a thread about this but can’t see one.
David Baddiel picked up that on the leaders debate Corbyn pronounced Epstein in a way that made it sound more Jewish ie Epshteen as opposed to Epsteen. He said every Jew will have noticed this and that it’s another example of Corbyns antisemitism.

I’m Jewish. I’m no fan of Corbyn but really hadn’t noticed this and even now David Baddiel has pointed it out, am struggling to see this as an example of antisemitism. Am I missing something here? Is this antisemitic?

@pigeononthegate
“Supporting the Palestinian people in their disgusting, international disgrace of a plight isn't anti-semitic. Whatever the Israeli government would like us to think. That is the root cause of the "anti-semitism" smear campaign against Corbyn.”

Hmmm seems almost like you’re suggesting an international conspiracy, one involving hidden dark powers trying to control the media and the thoughts of ordinary people. And it’s the Israeli government in charge is it?

Funnily enough there’s something about your ideas mentioned in the definition of antisemitism...

@Halleli
FFS. There is no one correct pronunciation. Jews have adapted their surnames for centuries to avoid to make ourselves seem less obviously Jewish. As a result, many surnames have a variety of different CORRECT pronunciations. A Jewish person's surname is pronounced how they and their family pronounce it. Just like with any other person's surname. Telling a Jewish person that you know better how to pronounce their surname than they do is incredibly antisemitic and offensive.

You are obviously right, but this is one of their new tactics. They recently told Luciana Berger that she is pronouncing her own surname wrong. I thought that was perhaps the ultimate goysplaining/mansplaining combination.

It is, obviously, intended to emphasise the 'otherness' and to draw attention to the fact that this particular revolting corrupt paedophile happened to be Jewish. Which it has done very successfully. In a completely faux-innocent deniable way.

I'm so, so fucking sick of this shit.

Funny. I pronounce my own surname differently depending on which country I'm in. Half of me must be racist against the other half.

@Halleli Thanks for calling me a liar 🙄
Yes I really do have a linguistics degree and yes, it actually is completely normal and instinctive to pronounce Epstein as Ep-shtine (rhyming with 'wine') in Europe. I myself would find it hard to do pronounce it any other way, from sheer habit. Corbyn is multilingual and presumably shares this instinct.

I feel very depressed that people are trivialising antisemitism this way when there is a very dangerous swell of real antisemitism growing across mainland Europe but hardly being reported or discussed.

Hmmm seems almost like you’re suggesting an international conspiracy, one involving hidden dark powers trying to control the media and the thoughts of ordinary people. And it’s the Israeli government in charge is it?

I don't think this helps. Bigots do mask anti-semitism behind criticism of the Israeli government, but PP was only criticising the Israeli government.

The actions of the Israeli government are nothing to do with Jewish people and it's perfectly OK to slag them off. Conflating this with anti-semitism does the bigots work for them.

@Halleli you are wilfully misunderstanding a lot of posters

No one is saying you have to pronounce it 'epshtyne' and that Epstein is wrong to pronounce it as he did, just that that is how it naturally reads and there's nothing antisemitic about pronouncing a name with the German prounounciation.

@DuchessMustard

I’m sick of it too. It’s the gaslighting more than anything else, I think.

Aliyah is looking more and more appealing day by day...

@Halleli Yes, it is gaslighting. There's an extra layer of it on top of the standard MN denial of all racism (by racists).

No matter how astonishingly antisemitic Corbyn shows himself to be, time & time again, no matter how much he encourages & stokes & not-very-slyly gives the wink to his supporters to ramp it up, people will continue to deny it.

Their latest tactic is to say, in response to any example of it, "this trivialises/detracts from REAL antisemitism". I was told on Twitter yesterday that Jews are embarrassing ourselves by complaining about 'verbal abuse and employment discrimination' because (verbatim quote) that's 'benign antisemitism' which 'any sensible person would shrug off'.

I don't think they would count anything as antisemitic short of marching Jewish women & children into gas chambers in front of their eyes, & even then I suspect a good proportion of them would have a terribly good explanation for it.

After all, 'he doesn't have a racist bone in his body' (excuse me while I...)

@Willowcat77 , I'm multilingual but I do people the courtesy of pronouncing their names the way they pronounce them. Even bastards. Epstein was an American and pronounced his name, as far as I know from hearing US journalists, without some ridiculous German affectation. He was a bastard whose surname was pronounced Epsteen.
Corbyn wasn't being an antisemite, he was being a poseur. As usual.

Corbyn wasn't being an antisemite, he was being a poseur. As usual

He was most definitely being a tedious poseur, I agree.

@DuchessMustard

I don't think they would count anything as antisemitic short of marching Jewish women & children into gas chambers in front of their eyes, & even then I suspect a good proportion of them would have a terribly good explanation for it

100 times this. I saw a poster on another thread a couple of days ago claim that as only far-right terrorists, and no left wing ones, have committed shootings at synagogues, Jews should focus only on right wing antisemitism.

‘Not shooting up a synagogue’ seems quite a low bar to me...

I’m not Jewish but my Dads family are and I would consider myself and my family culturally Jewish. I did notice but didn’t think it was antisemitic, quite the opposite, I thought that he was going out of his way to pronounce it correctly.

@AllTheWhoresOfMalta the problem with that is that it isn't correct. Because it's not how he or anyone else pronounces his name, because it's not how his name is said.

It has, however, achieved its actual aim of getting everyone to talk about how this disgusting corrupt shadowy paedophile was Jewish. So well done again, Magical Grandpa.

@Halleli Given that Labour members in Brighton have openly called for people to 'march on the synagogue' to protest against the suspension of a party member for antisemitism, I'm pretty sure they'd find a way around that one too.

is looking more and more appealing day by day...

If my ivrit was better I’d be on the next plane. Really keen for my kids to keep theirs up. Something rather appealing about popping off to the beach after work. Of course, it’s only the Jews who can do that. The wealthy, beautifully dressed and expensively jewelled Arab Israelis I saw on the beach and enjoying big family nights out in the ridiculously overpriced restaurants in tel Aviv and hertzlia couldn’t do that.

Hey there - cannot believe that nobody has pointed out that the surname EPSTEIN (pronounced the German way, roughly, EP-SCH-TAIN) is actually quite popular in Britain - for instance there is an extremely famous - almost a celebrity - sculptor called Jacob Epstein* - he died in the late 1950s but was really really famous in the 1960s and 1970s - or the super famous Brian Epstein, the manager of the Beatles - my two cents is that "Magic Grandpa", being a bit old and all, has just reverted to the usual British pronunciation of Epstein.

• Born in the US but moved to the UK in the early 1900s.

ridiculous German affectation

Germany is one of our closest neighbours and German is one of the major foreign languages taught in schools, so a lot of people are going to have some exposure to it. It's hardly a "ridiculous affectation" to pronounce a name with obvious German roots in accordance with German pronunciation, particularly as there are loads of other culturally familiar names ending in -stein that are always pronounced the German way.

@MonnaLIza No one has ever pronounced either Jacob or Brian as EPSHTEIN.

@Answerthequestion I've never even been there (missed out on tour because I wanted to go to Reading instead, & missed out on Birthright because it was the millennium & I wanted to spend it with my partner) & it's more appealing to me by the day too.

Especially when my mate in Jerusalem sends me pics of her & her boys chilling out on the beach while I'm walking through grey biting cold here only to be told, yet again, that I'm not really British & don't belong here.

@DuchessMustard I beg to differ in my world (the arts, London, South East) everyone pronounces Epstein the German way for both Jacob and Brian. We are cosmopolitans y'know! :)

We’ve heard Epstein’s name pronounced probably hundreds of times on the news and I’ve heard three different pronunciations of it including ’epsteen’ ‘epschtine’ and ‘Epstein’. I’ve never heard it suggested that you can pronounce a name in an anti Semitic way. Epschtine is after all the correct Germanic pronunciation.

Dh’s family anglicised their name when they came to Britain. His grandfather wanted it returned to its original form once they were settled here and changed it back. There’s far more potential baggage around anglicisation of names than pronouncing them ‘correctly’. If we’re suggesting JC really thought it through that much in the 2 seconds he had before answering the question.

And I do think the Daily mail having this story as their headline news this morning makes a bit of a mockery when I noticed the story yesterday about the Tory candidate denying the holocaust was a tiny feature near the bottom of the website.

It's hardly a "ridiculous affectation" to pronounce a name with obvious German roots in accordance with German pronunciation
It's ridiculous when you know its not said that way by the person, Corbyn knows how it's pronounced as presumably he's listened to a news show in the last year.

If you are convinced Corbyn is Anti Semitic, even though he's spent his life campaigning against any kind of discrimination or racism, then you will find antisemitism in everything he does and says. It's a very successful smear campaign in a similar vein to who voted for Brexit because the money was going to be put back into the NHS.

The smear campaign is so successful that you are focusing on the pronunciation of a paedophile's name and wondering if the way it was pronounced is 'anti-semitic'.

@MonnaLIza DuchessMustard I beg to differ in my world (the arts, London, South East) everyone pronounces Epstein the German way for both Jacob and Brian. We are cosmopolitans y'know! smile

I'm from Finchley. My parents are from Golders Green. My grandparents are from Stepney/Whitechapel.

I work in theatre & knew Leon Kossoff. I'm closely related to Dick James & my family knew Brian Epstein.

No one pronounces it Epshtein. We are cosmopolitans you know!! Smile. Hun.

@12345kbm If you are convinced Corbyn is Anti Semitic, even though he's spent his life campaigning against any kind of discrimination or racism, then you will find antisemitism in everything he does and says.

That'll be because of his words & actions. And the fact that he's not even bothering to hide it any more.