“Thousands of speeches and nationalist reproofs could not do as much as one [soccer] game to bring our youngsters back toward Jewishness”
Thank you to Professors Jeffrey S. Gurock and John Bunzl, whose research on this topic was utilized in the preparation of this article.
An event emblematic of American Jewry’s spiritual descent during the early 20th century was the Shabbos game of the visiting Hakoah Vienna soccer club in 1926. Hakoah’s founding in 1909 was an answer to Zionist leader Max Nordau’s call for a new “muscular Judaism” and served as a response to exclusionary, anti-Semitic policies prevalent in Austria. In addition to offering sports activities, the club trained its athletes in self-defense and formed an orchestra.
Hakoah’s soccer club garnered attention when it catapulted to Austrian soccer’s highest division in the early 1920s, and became known around the world after trouncing England’s famous West Ham United 5-0 in September 1923, just months after the London club had appeared in the new Wembley Stadium for the Football Association Cup Final. Among Hakoah’s star players was striker Alex Neufeld. Known by the nickname “Emes,” he was said to have been “as popular in Austria as Babe Ruth was in America.”
In 1926 the club was invited by the Zionist Organization of America to play a series of exhibitions in the United States. The ZOA hoped to translate passion for the team in blue and white into support for Zionism among American Jewish youth. Tens of thousands turned out for Hakoah matches in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Providence, and St. Louis.
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