Jewish History and Fan Culture: A Visit to the "Super Jews

Der Standard, July 11, 2023

German original: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000178481/juedische-geschichte-in-de-fankulturbesuch-bei-den-superjuden

A special exhibition at the Jewish Museum Vienna deals with Jewish identity in the soccer stadium. The selected examples provide surprising insights into fan culture.

After almost a quarter of a century at Tottenham Hotspur, moving to FC Bayern in Munich would certainly be a big change for Harry Kane. However, the club from the north of London and the German record champion have one thing in common that might not even have caught the eye of the English team captain, for whom Bayern is said to have recently offered 80 million euros.

In addition to the Viennese clubs Vienna and Austria Wien and the Dutch record champion Ajax Amsterdam, the exhibition Superjuden - Jüdische Identität im Fußballstadion (Super Jews - Jewish Identity in Football Stadiums), which opened on Tuesday evening at the Jewish Museum Vienna, is also devoted to aspects of the past and present of Spurs and Bayern. In three rooms on the Beletage of Palais Eskeles, the curators, director Barbara Staudinger and Agnes Meisinger of the Institute of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna, trace the Jewish history of these five clubs. Jewish officials, coaches and players of the clubs are recalled, but the focus of the exhibition is even more on fan culture - for director Staudinger the "be-all and end-all of soccer. This is also expressed in the exhibition architecture by Robert Rüf, which is reminiscent of fan stands.

SC Hakoah, whose epochal victory at West Ham United (5-0) will mark its centenary in September and which won the first professional championship in Austria in 1925, is largely left out of the exhibition. After all, Jewish soccer history is not the story of just one club, says Staudinger. The aim is to tell lesser-known stories, for example of the few women who played a role in this context. In addition to Paul Meissner's well-known painting Das Wunderteam, a portrait painting by Ella Zirner-Zwieback also adorns the first exhibition room. With the financial support of the department store owner and fashion designer, the Women's Soccer Union was founded in 1936, a league that brought two championship seasons (two titles for DFC Austria) under President Zwieback before the National Socialists banned women's soccer.

Vienna and Austria

Room two of the exhibition is dedicated to Vienna and Austria. Above all, fans of the Döblinger proudly point to the founding of Austria's first soccer club in 1894 thanks to significant support from Nathaniel Mayer Freiherr von Rothschild, to whom the club also owes its colors - blue and yellow. The memory of Jewish officials is kept alive, especially by fan collectives such as "Partisan*Rothschild".

Austria, often derogatorily dubbed the "Jewish Club," has only recently devoted attention to its history. At the time of its founding, it was considered a club of the assimilated Jewish bourgeoisie. Jewish officials such as President Emanuel Schwarz and club secretary Norbert Lopper were responsible for the Violets' heyday. The fact that there are also right-wing groups among the fans was only perceived as a problem by the club itself rather late.

Bayern, Ajax and Tottenham

FC Bayern, like Vienna - the club with the most fan clubs in the world, albeit on a different scale - upholds its Jewish past and also markets it successfully. For example, by means of fan articles dedicated to the legendary club president Hans Landauer.

A fan group of the Dutch record champion Ajax Amsterdam provided the exhibition with its title. The "Superjoden," or "Super Jews," a group of ultra fans that is also quite violent, was used to illustrate how Jewish history is integrated into the fan culture of a soccer club. Ajax's reputation as a Jewish club is based primarily on the fact that its first stadium, Het Houten, was located in a Jewish neighborhood.

The situation is no different at Tottenham. The hallmarking as a "Jewish club" ultimately led to ultra formations of the Londoners resorting to the self-definition as "Yids" or "Yiddos" and thus appropriating a pejoratively used Yiddish term for themselves - not to the undivided delight of the club and the Jewish community. (Sigi Lützow, 11.7.2023)