Itai Tzur (guestblogging at Shaister) notes a NYT article about antisemitic gestures and utterances among Dutch soccer fans (rooting for teams other than Ajax [Amsterdam]), and the affected "we are the super-Jews" stance of Ajax supporters. The NYT journalist said he didn't have a clue why Ajax is associated with Jews, and why Ajax supporters would adopt Jewish imagery.
Itai notes that if the journalist had done his homework, he would have found an online book by Simon Kuper on the history of the club. It contains an
extensive section on its Jewish roots.
The fact that there is such a connection will not surprise anybody who is aware of Amsterdam's very large prewar Jewish population. [In fact, the colloquial name for Amsterdam, "Mokum", is a corruption of the Hebrew "Makom" or "place". Amsterdam used to be known as "Makom Aleph", "The A place", in medieval Hebrew.] One very obvious indication of that are the large number of Yiddish [and some Ladino!] borrowings in Amsterdam Dutch slang, a number of which slipped into colloquial Dutch at large: "tof", "slemiel", "mazzel", "gesjochten", "gabber", "bajes", "meier" [from Hebrew "meah" for 100], etc. etc. etc.
Hi ... my blog has a big post about the Utrecht vs. Ajax game in Amsterdam, which is now the Euro Poster for the modern resurgence of racism and antisemitism throughout Europe.
That was my perfect peaceful lovely quiet Sunday in Amsterdam, when I didn't notice that Mayor Job Cohen declared martial law and suspended all civil liberties.
I've GOT to start paying more attention! (I wasn't even stoned.)
Here's my Ajax post:
http://vleeptron.blogspot.com/2005/04/its-not-what-it-seems-or-maybe-it-is.html
Posted by: Elmer Elevator | April 23, 2005 at 01:45 PM