On the Border

Shaul Adar

Description

In December 2020, an Israeli football club made worldwide headlines. The news that a UAE royal had bought 50 per cent of Beitar's shares shook Israel and the football world. Beitar, proclaimed by some of its own fans as 'the most racist club in the country', is a club like no other in Israel. While Israeli football as a whole is a space where Israelis of all ethnicities and foreigners can co-exist, Beitar won't even sign a Muslim player for fear of its own far-right supporters' group, La Familia. On the Border is the fascinating tale of a club that began as a sports movement of a liberal national Zionism party and became an overt symbol of right-wing views, Mizrahi identity and eventually hardcore racism and nationalism. The book explores the radicalisation of Beitar and the fight for the soul of the club between the racists and open-minded fans. It is also a story of Jerusalem, the most volatile place on Earth, and how the holy city and the influence of religion have shaped Beitar.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 16 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781801502610
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2022
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Shaul Adar, 2022
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Print ISBN 9781801500951
eBook ISBN 9781801502610
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Contents
Glossary
Introduction: The Navel of the World
1. The Syndrome
2. Mandate
3. Holy Wars
4. Outlaws
5. Us or Them
6. Scapegoat
7. Status Quo
8. Dust of the Earth
9. The Seventh Day
10. O Clouds Unfold
11. Eli
12. Holy Light
13. Hamizrahi
14. Goliath
15. Al Aqsa
16. Curses
17. Forever Pure
18. Repent
19. The Passion of Beitar
20. Apocalypse
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Photos
In memory of my mother, Yael Adar
Glossary
Ashkenazi - Jew of European descent. Plural: Ashkenazim
Beitar - sport and youth movement of Herut and the Revisionist movement
Bibi - Benjamin Netanyahu s nickname
Bibism - the cult of Netanyahu
Hamizrahi - the east stand at Teddy Stadium
Hapoel - sport organisation of the Histadrut (General Organization of Workers)
Haredi - ultra-orthodox Jews
Hasbara - Israeli propaganda
Herut - Menachem Begin s party, predecessor of the Likud
Histadrut - the General Organisation of Workers in Israel
Intifada - Palestinian uprising
Kibbutz - a communal settlement in Israel. Plural: Kibbutzim
Kibbutznik - member of a kibbutz. Plural: Kibbutznikim
Likud - Israel s main right-wing party, came to power in 1977
Likudnik - supporter of Likud
Maccabi - sport organisation of the liberal movement
Mahapakh - a revolution, upheaval, turnover but in a smooth way
Hamahapakh (the mahapakh) - Likud victory in the 1977 elections
Mahane Yehuda (Maknneyuda) - Jerusalem s market
Mapai - Workers Party of Israel, in power from 1948 until 1977, later as Labour party
Mizrahi - Jew of Muslim country descent. Plural: Mizrahim
Mukadisin - Palestinian Jerusalemites
Nakba - the Palestinian Catastrophe, the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948
Ole - Jewish immigrant to Israel. Plural: Olim
Waqf - the Islamic religious trust that controls and manages Temple Mount
Yerushalmi - Jerusalemite. Plural: Yerushalmim
Yishuv - the Jewish community in Palestine before the forming of Israel
Introduction
The Navel of the World
The air over Jerusalem is saturated with prayers and dreams like the air over cities with heavy industry. It s hard to breathe.
Ecology of Jerusalem , Yehuda Amichai
IN SEPTEMBER 2021 Hapoel Tel Aviv hosted Beitar Jerusalem for another one of their never-ending clashes of narratives. Both sets of fans pelted their rival goalkeepers with items but it was the brutal attack on a young woman that made the news. The disabled 23-year-old Beitar fan was deliberately hit on her fragile legs and needed hospitalisation. However, the attackers weren t Hapoel Tel Aviv fans. They claimed to be Beitar followers but were, in fact, supporters of La Familia, the racist organisation that runs the show at Beitar s matches.
The young woman, among others, was viciously set upon because she dared to support her team in a crucial match despite an order from La Familia not to do so.
The reason for the ban on singing was that a Beitar player named Kamso Mara was warming up. Mara is a Guinean Muslim and for Beitar ultras it s unacceptable to have such a player in their team. La Familia are killing Beitar. They re a cancerous body, but see it as a holy mission. In fact, there are a lot of people with holy sacred missions in Jerusalem.

Welcome to the Holy City! said the young clerk at the Jerusalem branch of the Home Office when I moved there in 1989, just before the high holidays. No, seriously, you will soon understand, she added when she saw my bemused face.
She was right.
Almost 30 years to the day of that meeting I returned to Jerusalem to research this book. I ve lived in London for over 20 years, since 11 September 2001, but I often come back to Jerusalem, in my writing and in person. The city attracts me for some of the reasons that I love football. It s passionate, unfiltered, dramatic and multi-layered. The story of Jerusalem is the story of the world, wrote Simon Sebag Montefiore in his book Jerusalem: The Biography , and the story of Beitar is the story of Jerusalem. To understand Beitar you need to first understand and feel Jerusalem. Then you ll understand how a club that used to have an alliance with Arab clubs in the 1940s has become the most racist in the country .
Legend has it that Jerusalem is the centre of the world. According to the Jewish faith the navel of the world is a huge rock known as the Foundation Stone on Temple Mount. Christians believe it s the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus Christ was buried and resurrected. Muslims believe that Muhammad rose to heaven from the same foundation rock. It s an axis mundi : the stem through the earth s centre connecting its surface to the underworld and the heavens and around which the universe revolves.
There isn t a place on earth with so many legends to its name. Legends or maybe beliefs, faiths, agendas, narratives, storylines, spins, propagandas, lies, politics or folklore, but when you stand at the Tzahal (Israel Defense Force) Square it feels like you re standing in the centre of the world, or at least the centre of Jerusalem.
Coming from the bustling Jaffa Street there s the breathtaking view of the north-westerly corner of the Old City walls, built from 1537 over four years by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. For a better view you can go to the top of Notre Dame Center just down the road, where from the roof you can see the Old City, the domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the golden Dome of the Rock in Temple Mount just above the holy Foundation Stone. There, the story goes, Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, his son, when just in time an angel stopped him. Below, on the side of Temple Mount, lies the Western Wall - the Kotel, the religious focal point of the State of Israel. All of these sites are within a short walking distance of each other.
To the east, the Old City is surrounded by the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus, plus Israeli neighbourhoods and Arab villages and suburbs. You can even see the infamous separation wall meandering over the hills and the Judean desert. The south is dominated by the large valley called Guy Ben Hinom - Valley of Hinom - the root in Hebrew and Arabic to the word Hell (Geheynom in Hebrew). To the west are major institutes of Israel and in between are many borders, old and new, visible and hidden. In the city of countless communities, you can cross one street and find yourself in foreign, sometimes hostile but very enchanting territory. Some of these area feel like a different country.
Back on ground level lies the area of Musrara, a small neighbourhood that encapsulates the history of the city. It s a wonderful place to get lost in the streets and the stories. The name, meaning graceful in Arabic, is apt as it s mainly two-storey stone houses, cobbled alleys and some of the most beautiful buildings in the city. It started out in the 1880s as a posh residential district for wealthy Arabs, Christians and Muslims, who wanted to have a better standard of life outside the walls of the Old City. Some of the Palestinian elite families lived there until 1948 when the city spilled out from the confinement of the walls to the nearby area. Today Musrara spreads from the Damascus Gate, the main gate to the Muslim quarter and the hub of Palestinian Jerusalem, up the hill behind Jaffa Street and the big city hall, but is divided by a wide road, history, ethnicity and hate.
Nearby on Nevi im Street (Prophets Street) are the great European strongholds. The name tells you how special this city is as the British called it Prophets Street but not after a single prophet, for fear of causing trouble between religious devotees. In a little plot of land bordering Musrara you can find a great Russian compound with typical onion-shaped domes, French institutes, an Italian colony that looks like it was flown straight from Florence and the beautiful St Paul s Church, a neo-Romanesque gem built by the British missionaries who brought modernity to the city.
In a time when the European powers were competing for influence in Jerusalem, the British, mainly the Anglican Church, tried to win the hearts of the locals in the hope of gaining political power and new believers. The missionaries built St George s Cathedral and a school nearby on Nablus Road, plus a hospital. Like many other compatriots around the world they spread the gospel of football.
Some of the heaviest battles of the 1948 war in Jerusalem were fought around Musrara and they determined the fate of the city. When the war ended, the charming neighbourhood became the border between the newly formed Israel and the West Bank, which was under the rule of the Jordanian kingdom. Walls were erected, with barbed wire stretched between them, and clear warnings of what lay ahead were posted.
The Arab residents left their homes during the war and Jewish immigrants, mainly from Arab countries, were housed in the empty properties. Musrara became one of t