Americans Save Israeli Soccer Team Beitar Jerusalem
One of Israel’s most storied — and racism-tarnished — sports teams has new owners, a pair of Americans who hope to change the atmosphere at games.
Dan Adler, a former Hollywood talent agent and vice president at Walt Disney Imagineering, purchased the team with fellow US investor Adam Levine. The duo are taking on a sports franchise that was once one of Israel’s wealthiest, but has suffered a series of financial and administrative problems in the last half-decade.
Adler’s purchase of the team drew extra attention in Israel because of his affiliation with dovish organizations that support a two-state solution — a position many Beitar supporters reject. Fans of the club have appalled many Israelis — but no doubt pleased others — with racist chants at games, including “Death to Arabs” and “Terrorist, Terrorist.” The team has never had an Arab player, and in 2009 a team captain apologized, due to fan anger, for suggesting that an Arab player might someday join the team.
The son of a Holocaust survivor, Adler mostly avoided politics during an interview with Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot. But he told the paper, “I know Beitar has a certain reputation — or rather, that a portion of the fans has a certain reputation.”
Referring to himself and Levine, he added, “We believe that Jerusalem is a city where all types of people must live,” and said, “We will change the character of the crowd.”
An Israel Policy Forum board member and a member of the American Jewish Committee’s National Board of Governors, Adler ran for congress earlier this year as a Democrat. Though the bid was unsuccessful, he earned brief national attention for one of the campaign’s more memorable, and more unusual, commercials.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30