Blog 2: Religious Strife at Israeli Football Matches

          Israel, much like other countries enamored with the World’s Game, has a Premier League that plays competitive football within the nation. One of the teams in Jerusalem, called Betar Jerusalem, has recently received staunch criticism for “racist” banners and chants that have appeared at their matches and some see this terrible phenomenon as a microcosm for some problems within Israel itself and the issues between Jews, Arabs, and Christians. “Someone who thinks [racism] is just in Betar Jerusalem, like it’s a protected nature reserve – well, that’s just ridiculous,” said Dr. Gadi Gvaryahu, overseer of a group called Bright Tag that seeks to counter the ethnocentrism with tolerance.

          One of the reasons for this extreme hatred (that often advocates violence) is a book called The King’s Torah which declared that it is okay for Jews to kill Gentiles that threaten Israel – any Gentiles: men, women, and children. Bright Tag wants to start relatively small – with Betar Jerusalem – to counter the message of the book, with its main argument amounting to turnabout being fair play – what if at European football matches people were spouting hatred about Jewish people in a similar fashion? It would be decried as racist and a relic of the archaic past – as should the violence shown at Betar Jerusalem, Gvaryahu believes.

          Bright Tag wants increased government involvement in racially/religiously charged attacks, such as vandalism of holy spaces, in which very few people are every arrested in conjunction with the crimes. I know of other groups, such as B’Tselem, which are interested in similar goals – B’Tselem is documenting human rights violations done by the IDF in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestinian BDS movement (boycott, divestment, sanctions) seeks economic results. But Bright Tag is focused on Israel proper, and not just on soldiers who commit acts of violence.

          Jewish people, especially Israeli Jews, could face some struggle in reconciling some of the contradictions that come from concepts in the Scripture of the Hebrew Bible – the Jews as Chosen People, but also the remembrance of being strangers in a strange land. Bright Tag wants to help with these theological questions by highlighting curricula in schools that preach tolerance as opposed to hatred of others. Some may think that “Betar is Pure Forever,” but Bright Tag is working very hard to sway those who are still confused.

          In Israel this mix of faith and race is especially volatile and could erupt further with any spark. This may be a cliché fear, but it is nonetheless true. If venues such as football stadiums that should promote the sport and cross-cultural love of the game are rife with religious strife and ethnocentrism, then Gvaryahu is correct in asserting that for as bad as Betar Jerusalem is, those negative feelings are in no way limited to matches. What remains to be seen is if Bright Tag and other groups interested in promoting tolerance will be successful in their struggle to counter ultra-Orthodox violence that stem from books like The King’s Torah.

Bright Tag to protest racism at Betar matches

http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=302581

Maureen Fischer, 2:14PM, 02/08/2013