There are no Kosher restaurants currently in New York’s Capital District. This would give members of the Capital District Jewish community the opportunity to come together, enjoy good food, and celebrate our common heritage.
http://www.change.org/petitions/we-want-a-kosher-restaurant-in-the-capital-district

Kick This Around: Jews & Soccer

I was struck by the reference to soccer fans in a September 10, 2011 New York Times report from Cairo, Egypt about a mob attack on the Israeli Embassy: “A demonstration that brought tens of thousands to [Cairo’s] central Tahrir Square turned violent on Friday [September 9] when thousands of people – led by a heavy contingent of soccer fans – tore down a protective wall around the Israeli Embassy, while others defaced the headquarters of the Egyptian Interior Ministry.”

The news report added: “Thousands of hard-core soccer fans – known here as ultras – were for the first time a conspicuous presence in the protests and a dominant force in the violence. They led the attacks on the Interior Ministry and the security building near the Israeli Embassy, and they kept up the fight outside the embassy long after others had gone home. At the Interior Ministry, political activists tried to form human barriers to protect the building, urging protesters to retreat to the square and chanting, ‘Peacefully, peacefully.’…The soccer fans turned out in response to a melee with the police after a match on Tuesday [September 6 that reportedly had resulted in over 20 arrests and had left over 100 people injured]. Long known for their obscene chants and reckless brawls, the ultras have become increasingly engaged in politics since the [early 2011 Egyptian] revolution.”

The term ultras actually is used more broadly than to refer to “hard-core” Egyptian “soccer fans.” While there are variant versions of the origins of groups known as ultras, usually dedicated followers of specific soccer teams who generally do not engage in violence but who have organized in support of their teams, the term itself has been used to identify such groups in Italy for at least 40 years and refers to similar groups in other European countries as well. In many instances, ultras have close working relationships with the managements of the teams they support.

There have been instances of ultras being aligned with specific politicians and political organizations, and such ultras have at times been involved in violence and mob behavior. The news about the Egyptian ultras and their role in street violence prompted me to write here about Franklin Foer’s 2004 book How Soccer Explains the World (published by Harper Collins). As if the title isn’t audacious enough, the book’s sub-title is An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. (Foer currently is an editor-at-large at the New Republic magazine.)

The title and sub-title of the Foer book certainly could be dismissed as the kind of hyperbole to which many ardent sports fans are given; and soccer fans, with the knowledge of the global appeal of the sport, might be more hyperbolic than most in this regard. Still, in assessing Foer’s titles – while accepting the degree to which he has planted his tongue in his cheek – one must keep in mind such events (neither mentioned in the Foer book) as the 1994 shooting death of a Colombian national team member after he accidentally scored a decisive goal against his own team in an international match and the 1969 “Soccer War” between El Salvador and Honduras. Yet, despite the few examples that Foer cites, it is difficult to accept his assertion (on page 204): “There’s a long history of resistance movements igniting in the soccer stadium.”

Foer’s opening chapter deals with the nexus between soccer and political movements in the area of the former Yugoslavia. He provides special focus on the violent behavior of a group known as the Ultra Bad Boys, supporters of Belgrade’s Red Star team. Later chapters deal further with what might be called the underside of worldwide soccer. Foer’s second chapter, for example, recounts the violence associated with the rivalry between Glasgow’s Rangers and Celtic soccer teams, the former traditionally Protestant and the latter Catholic. As Foer puts it: “It is an unfinished fight over the Protestant Reformation.”

At several points in his book, Foer refers to issues related to Jews and Israel. While not the central focus of that part of the book, a chapter titled “How Soccer Explains Islam’s Hope” notes the political significance in Iran at the time of a 1967 soccer match in Tehran between the Israeli and Iranian national teams at which the crowd displayed significant anti-Israel sentiment. Foer states that some analysts have suggested that Israel’s 2 to 1 loss was their favor to the Shah, a committed soccer fan since his youth, for the quiet cooperation he permitted between the two countries away from the athletic field.

Foer would need an addendum to his book to deal with the early 2010 resignation of an Iranian national soccer official. He quit after a new year’s greeting routinely sent via e-mail by the Iranian organization to all members of FIFA, the world’s umbrella organization for international soccer, made its way to the office of Israel’s national soccer federation. Iranian officials explained that “the football [soccer] federation of the Zionist regime” was supposed to have been deleted from the mailing list. The current government of Iran prohibits any athletic competition between Iranians and Israelis.

There is a chapter of Foer’s book that does focus on Jews and soccer. Part of the chapter, titled “How Soccer Explains the Jewish Question,” outlines the histories of an Austrian soccer team founded in the early twentieth century to showcase Jewish athleticism and a Hungarian team founded by Jewish businessmen in 1888 – and how anti-Semitic taunts continue to flow from opposing fans. Foer discusses the Dutch team Ajax whose management “has made Judaism part of its ethos” and outside whose stadium “Israeli flags…can be purchased on game day…” Struggling to explain this phenomenon, Foer finally suggests “a parallel to the American use of Indians as their sporting mascots…”

Some have suggested that the Ajax fans adopted their Jewish identification from the supporters of the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, one of London’s several professional soccer teams, whose fans call themselves “Yids” or “Yiddos” despite the absence of any affiliation with Judaism for most of them or for the team. Foer believes that the practice of “Tottenham fans actually [coming to] apply the [Yid] moniker to themselves in a complimentary, prideful way” was a reaction to the anti-Semitic taunts of visiting team fans who associated the Tottenham club with the predominantly Orthodox Jewish residents of the neighborhood near Tottenham’s North London stadium. If that, indeed, is the best explanation, it seems not to be part of the consciousness of most of the fans who consider themselves part of Tottenham’s “Yid Army.”

As if for balance, Foer’s following chapter, “How Soccer Explains the Sentimental Hooligan,” focuses on a supporter of Chelsea, another London soccer team, whom Foer describes as “a Jewish soccer fan who proudly taunts opposing teams with anti-Semitic insults.” Sadly, Foer does not lack for examples, throughout the soccer world, of religious and racial bigotry on the part of fans. He seems hopeful that the globalization of soccer – in terms of the international trade in players and the relatively recent expansion of international television exposure – will help ameliorate that problem. Still, Foer’s book does not necessarily encourage such hope.

For my part, I am pleased that soccer’s globalization often permits me to watch on television at exactly the same time that my British cousin sits in the stadium of his favorite team, the Manchester City Football Club, and that we can root on the team together – a team composed of the best international soccer talent that Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi owners can afford.