To celebrate the evening, the Teddy-Kollek Stadium is illuminated with festive lights. The round shines in red and black, these are the colors of Hapoel Jerusalem. The newcomer receives city rivals Beitar for the first Jerusalem first division derby in more than two decades. That is pure excitement. It’s about three points in the championship, it’s about football supremacy in the city – and that’s not all. Because when Hapoel and Beitar compete against each other, it’s more than just a game: two worlds collide, and football becomes the continuation of politics by other means.
Hapoel, the workers’ club – Beitar, the revisionists
In Israel, sport has been in service from the start, or at least overshadowed by politics. The clubs sprang from different camps: Hapoel, that is the workers’ clubs, rooted in the left wing. Beitar refers to the origin of the right wing, the so-called revisionist wing of the Zionist movement.
The two Jerusalem football clubs in particular couldn’t be more different. Beitar is notorious for racism on the grass and in the stands. His fan group called La Familia not only fights its way through the stadiums, but also ensures right-wing violence at political demonstrations. Most recently, the entry of an investor from the United Arab Emirates, which had been announced as a spectacular turnaround, failed, and the owner Mosche Hogeg, who wanted to give Beitar a more cosmopolitan image, annoyed the sale of the club last week.
Hapoel, on the other hand, stands for peaceful coexistence in Jerusalem. The club, which is the only club in Israel that belongs to its fans alone, campaigns for social projects and runs a “neighborhood league”, in which Jewish and Arab children not only play football together, but also get help with their homework.
That is the starting position when the derby kicked off in front of almost 20,000 fans on Monday evening at 8.30 p.m. The yellow wall of the Beitar supporters stands on the packed east stand. Opposite at Hapoel the rows are a little lighter, but more colorful. Many families with children have come, and a single Bayern-Munich jersey or a kippah with the Real Madrid emblem can be used as evidence of the tolerance that is cultivated here.
Every attack is fired by the respective fans, every foul whistled, and there are many whistles in a game that is quite rough from the start. Beitar quickly takes the lead, it is 0: 1 in the 19th minute. “I love you, Beitar”, it rang out from the east stand, and a little less romantic the battle cry follows shortly after: “Milchama”, in German: war.
In the end it was 0: 3, Hapoel had no chance. The players in red and black still get a flag-waved hero’s applause from their loyal supporters when they walk into the dressing room. The season is still long, and that was only the second matchday. Meanwhile, the winning team can still be celebrated extensively on the pitch. “Israel has won,” booms from the Beitar block, “Jerusalem is yellow.” But there is still a second leg.
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