Germany’s top soccer league aims to tackle its antisemitism problem

© (photo credit: Rolf Vennenbernd/picture alliance via Getty Images) Borussia Dortmund fans burn pyrotechnics at a game in Cologne, March 20, 2022.

BERLIN (JTA) — When German soccer fans said they were “building a train to Auschwitz” for their Makkabi Jewish youth team opponents in 2006, it caused a sensation. Fan culture has changed for the better since then, observers say.

But it’s not good enough.

Earlier this week, a 28-year-old fan displayed a Hitler salute — which is banned in Germany — at a game between the national teams of Germany and Israel, in the southwest German town of Sinsheim. Police are investigating the incident.

From chants and insults in stadiums to offensive banners and stickers, antisemitism is still prevalent in Europe’s soccer stadiums, where — reflecting society at large — a right-wing fringe equates the word “Jew” with “loser,” and anything Israel related is demonized. The topic is much more prominent worldwide in the English Premier League, where opponents (and some affectionate fans) of the Tottenham Hotspur routinely call the team’s fans “Yids,” and Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich — who is selling his Chelsea club over his ties to Vladimir Putin — started a high-profile campaign to combat antisemitism in football.

But the issue persists in the German Bundesliga, one of the world’s top leagues, as well. On Wednesday, experts and Jewish leaders gathered in Dortmund to call for a united voice against antisemitism in soccer culture, and by extension throughout society.

At a daylong conference titled “Antisemitism and Professional Football: Challenges, Opportunities, Network,” organized by the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the World Jewish Congress and the Deutsche Fußball Liga