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On the occasion of the 2018-19 Champions League semifinals, the internet was flooded with news with the same headline. “The tie between Jewish teams”, in relation to the one between Ajax and Tottenham. The Dutch club has identified with that religion over the years until reaching a point where no one is surprised to see Groups of fans with red and white jerseys, red and white scarves and Israeli flags.
However, not everyone is happy with this cultural appropriation, such a recurring concept lately. And it is not necessary to go back sixty years or listen to a specific profile to find arguments in favor and arguments against. The controversy continues to resonate in our days and that is how it has come down to it.
To understand the Jewish community that was formed in Amsterdam and, consequently, in the Netherlands, many go back to the time of the Catholic Monarchs. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain, called Sephardim, forced them to emigrate to other territories. Among so many destinations, and after passing through Portugal, towards Amsterdam.
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Auschwitz entrance.
ARITZ GABILONDO (DIARIO AS)
Another factor is the decatolization of the government following the Alteratie, a social revolution in Amsterdam on May 26, 1578 through which the churches passed into the hands of the Protestants. This slow and progressive path to freedom of worship (In article 13 of the Union of Utrecht a year later it was already recognized, although it was not real) facilitated the expansion of Judaism in the country, as well as the declaration of independence of the northern provinces of the Netherlands to the Spanish king Felipe II. An example of this is that in 1675 the Portuguese synagogue was built, a landmark building still in the city today.
Central European Jews (Ashkenazis) were also adding to the east of the city, where an important Jewish community was created. With the arrival of the Nazi regime, they concentrated more if possible in the same place, but by force.
The country was not able to stop the German occupation for a week and the population of Amsterdam came under the rule of the III Reich. All citizens over 14 years of age were required to have an identity document and people of full or part Jewish blood register as such. Grouping the Jews in these neighborhoods and keeping them under control was the first step towards deportation. Of the 140,000 Jews estimated to be living in the country in May 1940, around 100,000 died (hunger, disease …) or were murdered.. Up to 107,000 were taken to concentration camps, of which an estimated only 5,000 survived.
It is very difficult to know why and, obviously, it will be the fault of a number of things and not just one, but in Holland many more Jews were exterminated than in other countries that fell into the hands of the Nazi regime. This poor resistance to invaders or even collaborationism When it comes to pointing out the neighbor, it will be a topic that will be mentioned again later.
Amsterdam has a more pronounced relationship with Judaism than other major European capitals, but does Ajax as a club? Johnny Roeg, Benni Muller, Daniël de Ridder (ex from Celta de Vigo) or Eddy Hamel are some of the players in Ajax history with Jewish beliefs. The former survived the war, the latter died at Auschwitz. And some with a Jewish past or ancestry, like Sjaak Swart ‘Mr. Ajax’, a club legend. Salo Muller, a club masseur known for his relationship with Cruyff, belonged to the same religion.
Jack Reynolds, coach during four stages of Ajax (1915-1925, 1928-1940, 1945-1947 and 1950) He was a prisoner of war and ended up in the Gliwice concentration camp, Poland. There he organized matches between the Irish, Scots, English, Belgians and French.
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Jaap van Praag, posing with the European Cup.
Another of the most important figures is that of Jaap van Praag. The president who turned Ajax into a European power he survived the Holocaust in hiding by a former club player, Wim Schoevaart. After the war he lost his entire family. Van praag had the financial help of a Jew of Portuguese origin, Maup Caransa, but also from the Van der Meijden brothers, entrepreneurs who had worked for the III Reich building bunkers (they served time in prison for it).
Cruyff spoke of the cohesion of the club in his autobiography, more typical of a neighborhood club than one so media, and Simon Kuper explained it in his book Ajax, the Dutch, the War: “Non-Jewish Ajax players lived in a Jewish environment that he was almost unique in post-war Netherlands: the president, the old patrons, the masseur, a couple of teammates, the journalists and even the baker. The De Meer stadium used by Ajax from 1934 to 1996 was in the southeast of the city, very close to the Jewish neighborhoods. Everything ajacied arriving from the city had to pass through the Jewish area. Logically, many of those who went to the stadium came from those neighborhoods. Even the market closed earlier on Sundays when there was soccer.
However, officially Ajax was not Jewish at all. In fact, yes there was a Jewish club in Amsterdam, the HEDW, which had to stop playing for the Nazi occupation, something that Ajax did not do.
Although Ajax is not Jewish at all, fans feel it as such. Their songs reaffirm it and nor have trouble yelling the Hava Nagila or display Israeli flags in the stands.
If the ajacied They speak of themselves as Jews, the rivals, unfortunately, use it for soccer insults that immediately turn racist. In 2011, several members of the ADO den Haag were sanctioned after being complicit in antisemitic chants of their fans such as “We are going to hunt Jews “ or “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas chamber”. “Ssssssssssssss”, imitating the sound of gas, It is also another of the usual insults. In March of this year, Utrecht fans were sanctioned for the same and in October on the Groningen-Ajax broadcast these same chants could be heard in artificial ambient sound (recordings of matches from years ago) offered by television .
And they not only reject it from the sports rivalry. Members of the Jewish community point out that this identification does not make any sense and are offended by it. Roonnie Naftaniel, Director of the Israel Information and Documentation Center, stated: “I have already proposed to Ajax that they take their fans to visit Auschwitz.”
For this reason, in 2006 the Ajax board proposed distance themselves from this relationship officially and that, consequently, fans also did it, something that did not end happening. “The ostentatious signs of being a” presumed “Hebrew team, a fact that does not have a historical matrix, It's dangerous, it's painful, and I don't want anti-Semitic hatred to grow”Said President John Jaakke. Michel van Praag, son of the aforementioned Jaap, was president of the club from 1989 to 2003. He stated that Ajax fans explained to him that, after all, they are a Jewish club and that his family helped those in hiding during the years of occupation. However, also that these same fans “They don't know anything about the history of Israel” and that they are “as Jewish as I am Chinese.”
Bennie Muller, a former footballer for the club who experienced the Nazi occupation firsthand, is of the same opinion. At the age of four, he saw how the Nazi soldiers almost took away his mother who, unlike eight of his ten siblings, saved her life thanks to her marriage. “Older people know what happened in the war, but these fans don't. I would like them to stop. When I'm in the stadium and I see euphoric people chanting 'We are Jews and Jews are champions' I get up and go home”. He himself in his time as a player suffered the consequences of anti-Semitism when the goalkeeper Jan Jongbloed told him “dirty bastard Jew”, a few words that, 35 years later, he still remembers with pain: “I never forgave Jongbloed, I never looked at him again.”
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Around the Johan Cruijff ArenA.
Tim Goode – EMPICS (EMPICS / PA Images via Getty Image)
The intention of distancing himself from this association with the Jewish religion had nothing more than the objective of avoiding confrontations with other hobbies. A very reasonable motivation that soon found protests. Vittorio Pavoncello, president of Maccabi Italia, a Jewish sports society, attributed this decision to fear: “I really feel perplexed and in pain. Fear is what worries me the most. The Jewish tradition of Ajax is not born of religion, but of Dutch solidarity during the Nazi occupation. The expressions of the fans are a memory in memory of those who died in the concentration camps. When they also adopted the Star of David, the same as in the final of the 1974 World Cup in Germany, the players of the Dutch team exhibited when the squad did not have Jewish players. Why are Dutch Jews now asking not to wear the Star of David again? Out of fear, and this is what worries me the most“.
The aforementioned writer Simon Kuper also openly complained: “Denying the Jewish identity of Ajax is fundamentally black the existence of all that cheerful and fervent Jewish followers of Ajax that have been assassinated”. A few harsh words from the other side of the controversy.
For now Ajax fans still wear these symbols and from the leadership they seem to have accepted that they cannot control the identification of their fans with Judaism.