Abstract: This study considers the flying of Palestinian flags by Celtic Football Club supporters in Scotland as an illustration of political activism in sport. Despite being over 4000 kilometres away and holding no ethnic, national or religious connections with any community involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle-East, fans wave these flags to demonstrate backing for Palestinian people. With reference to an historical context of the ethno-religious origins of Celtic FC and its supporting fanbase being significantly composed of members of a multi-generational Irish-Catholic diasporic minority community in Scotland, through utilizing fan writings, self-representations, and the results of a small survey of supporters, this research provides for deeper understanding of the intermittent use of sport as a space for ‘taking sides’ in conflicts that have ethnic, national, religious, and political resonances. Critically, this insight also offers important reflections regarding narratives of antisemitism in football and beyond.
Abstract: The European soccer clubs FC Bayern Munich, Austria Vienna, Ajax Amsterdam, and Tottenham Hotspur (London) are known as “Jew Clubs,” although none of them is explicitly Jewish. This study approaches the conundrum of identity performances, (e.g., Jew as self and “Jew” as other) from a transnational perspective. Using the “Jew Clubs” as case studies, I unpack the connection between collective memories and identity formations in post-Holocaust societies through the lens of sports. With the help of a wide range of primary sources and archival material such as fanzines, fan performances, street art, photographs, films, monuments, and museums, this study illustrates how soccer cultures function as a key site for the construction of collective memories and collective identities. As such, this dissertation joins the extant and growing international scholarship on sport and fan cultures, popular culture, Judaic studies, memory cultures, performance studies, museum studies, and German studies. The work also enhances our understanding of antisemitism, philosemitism, and gentile-Jewish relationships. Chapter 1 examines the “Jew Club” as memory culture and provides a detailed analysis of FC Bayern Munich’s “rediscovery” of its German-Jewish former club president Kurt Landauer in the early 21st century. By analyzing how the club’s turn to Landauer overshadowed the club’s role in expelling its Jewish members, this chapter puts forward the argument that memory is always also a form of forgetting. Chapter 2 illustrates how the “Jew Club” FK Austria Vienna (FAK) functions as a “cultural code,” that, in the interwar period, became associated with stereotypically “Jewish” features such as modernity, cosmopolitanism, and rootlessness. It analyzes the puzzling case of a “Jew Club” that is now supported by a neo-Nazi fan base. Finally, this chapter claims that a new “cultural code” emerges, as the club embraces its “Jew Club” identity to counter neo-Nazi fans. Chapter 3 assesses the “Jew Club” as fan performance. It analyzes how Ajax Amsterdam’s supporters developed their identity as “Super Jews” in reaction to the antisemitic taunts by rival fans. The chapter is grounded in a thorough discussion of fan and club cultures, as well as the transformations of Dutch memory culture and Dutch antisemitism. It argues that fan performances offer a particular opportunity to engage with the unmastered history of the Holocaust. Chapter 4 addresses the “Jew Club” as a problem by discussing the case of Tottenham Hotspur. It analyzes the debates about Spurs fans’ appropriation of the term “Yid,” which had previously been used by antisemitic rival supporters. This chapter introduces a new model of linguistic appropriation, which alters our understanding of linguistic reclamation. Ultimately, by engaging Jewish perspectives, it argues that the “Jew Club” offers a unique space for anti-antisemitic agency. The conclusion summarizes the findings of this study, identifies the similarities and differences among the four case studies, and applies the study’s results to reconsider the concept of a “(negative) German-Jewish symbiosis.” In essence, this study illuminates the ways sport clubs and fan cultures perform memory cultures and thus function as an important societal arena for constructing collective identities. The work clarifies the common features and distinctive characteristics of “Jew Clubs” from a transnational perspective. It shows how “soccer” serves as a contested space for questions of identity, subjectivity, and belonging, with implications reaching far beyond the stadium gate.
Abstract: Antisemitism is a problem that is prevalent throughout the world. Violence and riots have frequently occurred for many years in football games in many countries, committed by fans of a club or by hooligans. Antisemitism has also become common at games, with football clubs using antisemitic language and symbols against their rivals. Sometimes, antisemitism is used by far-right political organizations at football stadiums for propaganda purposes and as a device to incite violence. It is interesting, and puzzling, that some fans of two teams, Spurs in London, and Ajax in Amsterdam, have declared themselves “Jewish,” and adopted and displayed Jewish symbols, as a response to antisemitic attacks on their club. While it is difficult to eradicate manifestations of antisemitism, it is encouraging that various private organizations, football clubs, and local and national governmental bodies have begun to formulate rules to punish those responsible for antisemitic language and actions.
Abstract: In June 2020, Black Lives Matter UK (BLM-UK) posted a series of tweets in which they endorsed the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Calling for ‘targeted sanctions in line with international law against Israel’s colonial, apartheid regime,’ one tweet claimed that ‘mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism’. The tweets were seen by some to be antisemitic and resulted in the English Premier League, the BBC and Sky Sports, which had hitherto been supportive of the Black Lives Matter protests, distance themselves from the Black Lives Matter movement. One month later, during the BLM protests in the USA, Black NFL player DeSean Jackson posted material to his Instagram story that was also viewed as antisemitic. This article unpacks, via these two sports-based incidents, the relationship between anti-racism, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism. I discuss how these tensions are not new, but a clear echo of the tensions that existed in the 1960s and 1970s during the height of the Civil Rights Movement; these tensions continue because the foundational issues remain unchanged. These two incidents raise important questions about how sports organisations operate in a world where sport is seen as ‘apolitical’ and strive for ‘neutrality’ but fail to recognise sport is political and that a position of neutrality cannot be successfully achieved. The article assesses the challenges that arise when sports organisations, and their athletes, choose to engage in a certain kind of sport politics.
Abstract: In June 2015, the Anne Frank House organised an international conference in Amsterdam in order to compare the situations in four different European countries. Relevant representatives of government authorities, football associations, football clubs, anti-discrimination organisations and supporters from Engeland, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands were invited to join the event.In each of these countries, football-related antisemitism is a well-known phenomenon, yet the incidents vary with regard to background, context and scope. The primary objective of the Anne Frank House was to come to a mutual cross-fertilisation of know-how and experiences with regard to this topic.
This report is based on this two-day conference, and discusses the most significant and illuminating aspects of the expert lectures and additional seminars. The most significant and insightful results from the two-day conference in Amsterdam will form a starting point for future developments in the fight against football-related antisemitism in the aforementioned countries.
