Football and October 7th: “Shalom, Salam, Peace”

There should be no minute of silence, no banners in the mourning color black. Werder Bremen fans also wanted to celebrate life and look to the future. That’s probably what her friend Hersh would have wanted. “Shalom, Salam, Peace”, this message was spread over the curve of the Weserstadion on September 21st before the game against FC Bayern, in the strong colors of red and green. Added to this was the wish: “May your memory be a revolution, my brother.” In the middle, a face rose up with a smile that could certainly be described as disarming.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin was among the approximately 240 people who were abducted from Israel to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, almost a year ago. Goldberg-Polin is said to have been a cheerful and cosmopolitan peace activist, just 23 years old. He became internationally known because his parents were particularly politically committed to his release. But also because he was involved in football. Hersh Goldberg-Polin was a fan of Hapoel Jerusalem and Werder Bremen.

At the end of August, the Israeli army found the bodies of six hostages, including Goldberg-Polin, in an underground tunnel in Rafah. A few days later, 150 people gathered in front of the Weser Stadium. Their meeting point was the green and white flag with the demand “Release Hersh!” The club soon replaced the flag. It now reads: “Rest in peace, Hersh!”

Football can provide a platform for remembrance in times of war. In the environment of your favorite club, the complexity in the Middle East becomes a little more tangible. But that’s not all: a number of associations are committed to combating growing anti-Semitism and hostility towards Israel. In their international supporters, this is also interpreted as one-sided partisanship. But clubs like Werder Bremen and Borussia Dortmund are trying to differentiate themselves, because their work on this topic began long before October 7th.

In Bremen, a group of Werder fans traveled to Israel on an excursion back in 2007. In the years that followed, they became friends primarily with supporters of Hapoel Jerusalem. People visited each other, organized workshops against racism and held football tournaments, including in the West Bank. The exchange between Jews and Arabs was important to the fans of both clubs. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who held US and Israeli citizenship, was also involved in this network. Goldberg-Polin visited his friends in Bremen several times.

After October 7th, SV Werder also wanted to create publicity for the prisoners in Gaza. On the screen in the stadium and on social media, the club showed, among other things, the photo of Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Fans waved banners with messages like: “Stay strong Hersh” and “Bring her home.” They contacted human rights organizations and campaigned for donations to families of Hamas victims. Other institutions such as the Bremen Citizenship or the Theater Bremen also addressed Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s suffering.

And briefly there was hope. In April, Hamas showcased Goldberg-Polin, who was physically severely damaged, in a video. SV Werder did not want to reproduce these images on its channels and intensified its solidarity work. Club employees maintained contact with the Goldberg-Polin family and traveled to Israel, where Werder supporters had now founded a fan club.

Relations between German and Israeli football have become closer since October 7th. A number of fan groups, for example at FC Bayern, at 1. FC Köln or in the regional league at Chemie Leipzig, expressed their solidarity with Israel. Several Bundesliga clubs invited relatives of the hostages to their stadiums. A delegation from the clubs traveled to Israel with the World Jewish Congress and the German Football League.

Many actions take place outside of the public. Several workshops were offered at Borussia Dortmund in which employees and fans could ask questions about the Middle East conflict. The association was able to react so quickly after October 7th because it had built a foundation against anti-Semitism over the years. Since 2014, BVB has carried out at least two educational trips to concentration camp memorial sites every year. The club donated one million euros to expand the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem and supported other memorials with smaller amounts.

The main work takes place in Dortmund. Year after year, BVB remembers its former groundskeeper Heinrich Czerkus, who was murdered by the Nazis as a resistance fighter in 1945. Events against anti-Semitism take place regularly in the stadium, in the club museum or in the fan project, also in coordination with the Jewish community and the Steinwache memorial, a former Gestapo prison.

Just 15 years ago, such commitment from fans was hardly imaginable. In 2012, fans supported the “National Resistance Dortmund”, a banned right-wing extremist organization, with a banner in the Dortmund stadium. The following year, two Dortmund fan workers were attacked by right-wing extremist hooligans at a game in Donetsk. BVB responded to public pressure, sought advice from scientists and initiated change.

More than a decade later, the club’s departments have their own expertise. They can now decide relatively quickly that they will dedicate the song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” in the stadium to a fan who was murdered by Hamas. BVB also joined a network against anti-Semitism in Dortmund. As a representative of these measures, Hans-Joachim Watzke, the club’s managing director, will receive the Leo Baeck Prize, the highest award from the Central Council of Jews, on November 13th. The laudation will be given by the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst.

Watzke is the second football official to receive this prestigious recognition, alongside former DFB President Theo Zwanziger. And yet it also triggers mistrust. In the international fan scene, especially in Arab countries, fans accuse BVB of having a one-sided positioning for Israel. Some of them were apparently happy to spread the pictures from the Champions League on Wednesday. Celtic Glasgow supporters waved Palestinian flags during their game in Dortmund. One group presented the slogan “Free Palestine” on T-shirts.

In this charged atmosphere, it is hardly noticeable that BVB and Israeli unions also support villages where predominantly Arab people live. In addition, the “Israeli Borussians”, a BVB fan club, have been bringing together Jewish, Muslim, Christian and atheist members for years. In Dortmund itself, events with relatives of Hamas victims are sometimes only advertised internally in order to prevent disruption from demonstrators. Other clubs in Germany are taking a similar approach, with fans accusing them of taking sides in favor of Israel.

There is no other country in Europe where football has taken such a clear stance against anti-Semitism since October 7th as in Germany. It is therefore also clubs like BVB that are promoting long-term measures in a network, together with FC Chelsea and Feyenoord Rotterdam.

But their work is also criticized and exploited, for example in Bremen. SV Werder’s publications in memory of Hersh Goldberg-Polin were picked up by various sides on social media. Supporters of the Israeli government and its right-wing ministers celebrated Goldberg-Polin as a patriot. Pro-Palestinian activists demonized him as a Jewish enemy. Both sides distributed, among other things, a picture that shows Goldberg-Polin in an Israeli uniform. During his mandatory military service he worked as a medic.

Those in Bremen who knew him consider such appropriation to be absurd. In Jerusalem, Hersh Goldberg-Polin and his ultra group “Brigade Malcha” campaigned for the exchange of Jews and Palestinians. He designed stadium banners against homophobia and racism. There are photos of him wearing the keffiyeh, the “Palestinian scarf.” The fans in Bremen will honor the memory of their friend. And they will derive ideas for the future from this. “May your memory be a revolution.” A big word, revolution. But just big enough for Hersh Goldberg-Polin.