For Ajax, the image of being a Jewish club comes from the fact that Amsterdam was called the "Jerusalem of the West" before World War II. Some 80,000 Jews are said to have lived in the city at that time, and many were Ajax fans. The De Meer Stadium, where the team played home games until the 1990s, was in eastern Amsterdam, where most of the city's Jews lived at the time.
"When Ajax played teams from more provincial regions, the guest fans would take streetcars to the stadium from the main train station and go through the Jewish quarter. That's how many people saw Jews for the first time in their lives," says Hans Knoop, a Jewish journalist and spokesperson for a foundation that addresses anti-Semitism in Dutch
football.
After World War II, Ajax also had some prominent Jewish leaders, among them Jaap van Prag and his son Michael, who both served as club president, along with Uri Coronel, who also served in that position. Among the players on the club's celebrated teams in the 1960s and early 1970s were Jews Bennie Muller and Sjaak Swaart, not to mention Salo Muller, a physiotherapist loved by players and fans alike.
During and after the 1970s, Ajax was repeatedly subjected to anti-Semitic hostility in the Dutch national league. To fight back, the hooligan group "F Side" demonstratively took on a Jewish image in 1976. The group is still active today, though its members aren't particularly interested in solidarity with Israel or Judaism, says journalist Knoop. "Some 90 percent of Ajax fans don't even know where Israel is," he tells SPIEGEL ONLINE. "When they yell 'Jews, Jews!' or 'Super Jews,' it's about firing up the team and nothing else."
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