Recent street violence in Amsterdam reveals profound changes in how the left and right deal with antisemitism. For European Jews, it’s a strange new world.
Palestine supporters march through Amsterdam. What started last week as a standard outbreak of European soccer hooliganism at an Ajax match ending up looking and sounding a lot like a pogrom. AP
Ajax Amsterdam sits at the pinnacle of Dutch soccer: they’ve won the Eredivisie title so often – 36 times – that they are almost in a league of their own. It’s a remarkable achievement, but it isn’t the most distinctive thing about this 124-year-old team.
Before every home match, the team’s most vocal fans chant “Jews, Jews, Jews”, and might even sing Jewish folk song Hava Nagila. Ajax diehards have tattoos of the Star of David on their arms. Yet, they aren’t Jewish. It’s just an indelible affinity: the team’s history and traditions are bound up with a Dutch city that was once, until the Nazis arrived in May 1940, a home and haven for European Jews. This is the team of committed philosemites.
Hans van LeeuwenJournalistHans van Leeuwen is The Australian Financial Review’s former Europe correspondent. He is now International Economy editor for The Telegraph UK.
