The Making of “Jew Clubs”: Performing Jewishness and Antisemitism in European Football and Fan Cultures

Why do non-Jewish football fans chant “Yid Army” or wave “Super Jews” banners—especially in support of clubs that are not Jewish? The Making of “Jew Clubs” explores how four major European football clubs—FC Bayern Munich, FK Austria Vienna, Ajax Amsterdam, and Tottenham Hotspur—came to be seen as “Jew Clubs,” even though they have never officially identified as Jewish.

In this transnational study, Pavel Brunssen traces how both Jewish and non-Jewish actors perform Jewishness, antisemitism, and philosemitism within European football cultures over the 20th and 21st centuries. Drawing on a wide array of primary sources—from fan chants and matchday rituals to media portrayals and club histories—the book reveals how football stadiums have become unexpected stages for negotiating memory, identity, and historical trauma.

Offering a new approach to Holocaust memory, sports history, and Jewish studies, The Making of “Jew Clubs” shows how football cultures reflect and reshape Europe’s conflicted relationship with its Jewish past.

Dr. Pavel Brunssen is a Research Associate and Alfred Landecker Lecturer at the Research Center on Antigypsyism at Heidelberg University. Brunssen’s research interests include antisemitism, antigypsyism, memory cultures, European soccer, and fan cultures. He holds a PhD in German Studies from the University of Michigan, where he received the Marshall Weinberg Prize for his dissertation on “The Making of ‘Jew Clubs’: Performing Jewishness and Antisemitism in European Soccer and Fan Cultures.” Brunssen also earned a graduate certificate in Judaic Studies and a Graduate Teacher Certificate from the University of Michigan.

Webinar Registration
Poster