Published by Orion Books.
One of the themes we have featured in FF over the years has been the exploration of the interaction between sport, culture, religion and politics around the world. In particular, the curious phenomenon which only in Scotland derides the existence of a culturally Protestant team when the same critics fall over themselves to praise the politics of, for instance, Barcelona and St Pauli fans.
Ajax is an interesting study of the phenomena - Ajax¹s supposed Jewishness is never criticised in liberal media circles - even those where support for anti-Israeli terrorism is strong.
On the Tuesday before the Ajax v Arsenal game I went to launch of the new book by Simon Kuper ‘Ajax, the Dutch, the War’. Simon wrote ‘Football Against The Enemy’ about ten years ago when I first met him.
Between the book and some chatting with other Ajax punters over the years like Ervert Vermeer who has written books about Ajax the story about Ajax always being a Jewish club is vastly exaggerated.
In fact the identification of Ajax as a ‘Jewish club’ only really started in the 60s.
Certainly some Jews (13% of Amsterdam’s prewar population) supported the club but it wasn¹t a massive club then - only one of four of the larger Amsterdam clubs - DWS and Blu-Wit for instance - and the Jewish influence in terms of membership, support and Board influence seems to have been no bigger than any other Dutch club - Sparta Rotterdam seems to have had more for instance but even there it was Jewish membership of the various sports sections - football, cricket, tennis, etc - rather than a conscious use of the club as a Jewish social club.
There were four or five mainly Jewish football clubs in Amsterdam before the war but none of them were very successful. For Ajax the identification of the club with Israel and the Jewish community seems to have taken off in the 60s - coinciding with the arrival of both Cruyff and success. Even so, the main power-brokers in the club in that period were the van der Meijden brothers - known as the ‘bunker builders’ because they had made their fortunes building defensive works for the Germans during the occupation.
The Ajax winger Eddy Hamel perished in Auschwitz, major Jewish businessmen in the city became patrons of the club and members of Cruyff¹s family married Jews and he has always supported the state of Israel. Our own Ronald De Boer married Sharon, the grand-daughter of one of the major Jewish backers of the club in the post-war era and he has publicly endorsed Israel and Ajax as a Jewish club on several occasions.
From the evidence I¹ve seen Ajax¹s Jewishness is a largely post-war phenomenon bolstered to a large extent by a reaction amongst the fans to anti-Jewish sentiment displayed by the fans of other Dutch clubs.
At both the recent Feyenoord and Arsenal games the whole Ajax support joined in singing and dancing to the famous Jewish folk song Hava Nagila. The Ajax fans, very few of them Jewish - identify with Israel and the Jews – mostly as a reaction to attacks from other clubs but also as a positive identification with the Resistance movement.
Kuper¹s book is not an easy read. In fact, I read it twice in quick succession as on first reading it seemed very disjointed and more like a collection of ‘stories about the war and football I find interesting’ rather than a study of Ajax per se.
The club denied him access to their archives as they¹ve always been careful, indeed terrified, about promoting Ajax as a Jewish club.
Upon a second reading the themes Kuper brings together are more understandable - it isn¹t a simple book because the truth is often not simple. By comparing Holland with other countries and Ajax with other Dutch clubs he teases out the truth. In doing so he has uncovered some unpleasant truths about the Dutch and Ajax which don¹t fit easily with the image they have of themselves.
For the Dutch nation they believe themselves to have stood up rather well to the Germans despite having the highest rate of Jewish extermination outside of Poland.
Ajax for many years comforted themselves as somehow having made a few gestures against the totalitarian occupiers - members stealing coal and potatoes from Germans garrisoned in their old stadium - or beating a German army team so badly (by 13 goals) that the Germans never came back to ask for another game.
In fact Ajax as a club membership didn¹t act as an anti-fascist force – a former club captain took a leading role in confiscating Jewish property, one member was convicted of murdering concentration camp inmates - beating them to death with a bullwhip, others for plundering Jewish homes, for membership of collaborationist organisations, etc.
Like Barcelona, another club often hero-worshipped for it’s supposed politics, the membership of Ajax proved themselves to be no more special than most groups of people faced with the terror of a totalitarian regime. They had a few heroes of the Resistance - Ruud Krool¹s father Kuki helped Jews escape for instance - but most looked the other way, made their excuses, did nothing and waited for the war to end.
The ‘bunker builders’ - the brothers Freek and Wim van der Meijden – built their family firm into a giant contracting company building gun emplacements for the Germans and Freek served three years in prison for his collaboration after the war - but that didn¹t stop them becoming major backers and power brokers in the club - financing transfers, giving players houses, etc. Some small fry at Ajax - the beast who beat people to death was obviously beyond the pale - were thrown into social disgrace, but those with good manners, friendships with prominent members and, above all, money were quickly able to come back into the fold.
Kuper¹s book is not an easy read - it deals with complicated concepts and often takes a country mile to make a point. But the depth of the research and the material he has uncovered make it very valuable whether you are an Ajax fan or not - or even a football fan or not. A definite recommended buy.