Anti-Semitic chants against the Maccabi soccer team and a severe mob attack on Indian immigrants in eastern Germany have local Jews up in arms about racism in the country.
At a summer festival Saturday night, a group of about 50 Germans, some shouting neo-Nazi slogans, chased eight Indians through the streets of the town of Muegeln and broke down the door of a pizzeria where they had sought refuge. Three of the Indians, residents of Muegeln or other towns in the region, were so brutally beaten they needed hospital treatment, according to European Jewish Press.
The general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, said the government had not managed to stop right-wing extremists from creating "no-go areas" for foreigners in the east. "Officials make the same statements every time (there is an attack on foreigners) but there is never a noticeable change in the strategy to fight xenophobia," Kraemer told the online news service Netzeitung.
"Subway to Auschwitz"
In Berlin, meanwhile, an anti-Semitic incident in the amateur soccer league has led to a prolonged crisis and court action by Jewish soccer club Maccabi TuS.
The affair began in September 2006, when home-team fans of Altglienicke II chanted "Death to the Jews," "synagogues must burn," and "we're building a subway line to Auschwitz" during a game against its 8th division B-level opponents, Maccabi TuS. No one tried to stop the anti-Semitic catcalls, according to media reports.
Maccabi captain Vernen Liebermann was ejected after criticizing the referee for not intervening. Lieberman then pulled his team off the field and the game was suspended. Maccabi board president Tuvia Schlesing
Three of the Indians were so brutally beaten they needed hospital treatment.
er called it the "worst thing that has happened to a Jewish club since the Hitler dictatorship in Germany," and then turned to the local sport court.
The court reprimanded the Altglienicke team and its directors and required the players to attend an anti-racism seminar. It also ordered that the game be replayed in a neutral stadium.
From this point onwards things got complicated. A JTA report explains that Maccabi turned to the sports court again after the rematch, claiming Altglienicke had bent the rules. The court decided in favor of Maccabi at first, and gave it bonus points that allowed it to advance to a higher league, the A League, but then reversed its decision when Altglienicke appealed. Maccabi would have none of it and became the first sports club to go outside the sports court for a resolution.
Dirty laundry
On August 10 the Berlin District Court determined that the sports court had made procedural errors and issued a temporary injunction allowing the Maccabi team to advance to the A League. The Berlin Soccer Association said it would fight the injunction.
Maccabi, meanwhile, has been coming under fire for taking the league's dirty laundry outside the sports court. A Bavarian soccer official said the club's action was a sign of "the bankruptcy of amateur soccer."
Maccabi's Schlesinger said that the sports court had made so many procedural errors, that he had
Are we being treated this way because our association has Jewish roots? no choice but to go around it. "Are we being treated this way," he asked, "because we are an association with Jewish roots?"
Maccabi's predecessor club, Bar Kochba Berlin, was created in 1898 and by 1930 was one of the largest Jewish organizations in the world, with over 40,000 members. In 1929 Bar Kochba merged with Hakoah Berlin, a successful soccer club, to form the sports club Bar Kochba-Hakoah.
By 1933, with the Nazis in power, Jewish teams were excluded from competition with non-Jewish teams. In 1938 Jewish teams were banned outright.
After World War II, Jewish sports and cultural associations eventually re-emerged in Germany. In 1970 TuS Maccabi Berlin was formed out of the merger of Bar-Kochba, Hakoah and Maccabi Berlin. Today the club has some 500 members and is one of the largest Maccabi associations in the country.