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How Arnold Horween, an unsung Jewish Harvard hero, changed American sports
(JTA) — Decades before Sandy Koufax sat out the first game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, and 18 years before Greenberg chased Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record in the late 1930s, a college athlete made some overlooked Jewish sports history.
Arnold Horween, a burly Chicagoan, became the first Jewish captain of the Harvard University football team in 1920 — an achievement that sent ripples through American culture.
Horween, who would later play and coach in the early years of what would become the NFL, was born to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. He became a star player at Harvard, helping the Crimson go undefeated in both 1919 and 1920 after returning from serving in World War I. (His brother Ralph also played at Harvard and in the NFL, and they were the first and only Jewish brothers to play in the NFL until Geoff and Mitchell Schwartz.)
But it was Horween’s unanimous selection as the team’s captain, and more importantly, his appointment in 1926 as the team’s coach, that would prove unprecedented.
“In American Jewish culture, the only thing greater than being the captain of the Harvard Crimson, the only higher station in American culture might have been the president, or the coach of Harvard, which he eventually becomes,” said Zev Eleff, the president of Gratz College and a scholar of American Jewish history.
Eleff explores Horween’s story and its impact in his recent book, “Dyed in Crimson: Football, Faith, and Remaking Harvard’s America,” released earlier this year. He traces the history of Harvard athletics in the early 1900s, exploring how Horween, along with Harvard’s first athletic director, Bill Bingham, altered the landscape of America’s most prestigious college.
Horween’s ascendance came at a time when Harvard instituted quotas to limit the number of Jewish and other minority students it accepted — a practice the school would employ throughout the 1920s and 30s. His story also took place amid a political landscape that featured the rise of Father Charles Coughlin, the antisemitic “radio priest,” and the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan.
As Eleff underscores in the book, Horween did not fit the model of a “Boston Brahmin,” the class of elite, Christian, aspirationally manly men whose supremacy was unquestioned at Harvard Yard. Horween broke that mold, instead instilling a team culture where a love of the sport was almost as important as winning — the Ted Lasso effect, if you will.
“Dyed in Crimson” also uses early 20th century Harvard as an allegory for the broader theme of how sports can change society.
“The theme of the book, something that’s uniquely American, is how the periphery can influence the mainstream,” said Eleff. “How people on the sidelines can really make an influence.”
Eleff spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about how Horween’s story fits into the pantheon of Jewish American sports legends and what it says about Jews’ ability to succeed in America.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Let’s dig into Horween’s story. I liked the idea of him as like an earlier version of Koufax or a Greenberg, but to be honest, I had never heard of him. Why do you think his story isn’t as well known as other Jewish athletes?
I think it has everything to do with the emergence of Major League Baseball. College football was America’s sport in the 1910s and 1920s. It was a big money sport, when there was very little money outside of the New York Yankees. And I think that Horween’s star started to sort of decline with Harvard football, but also the emergence of other sports.
The other reason is because the idea of the Jewish ballplayer loomed large. The New York Giants, for decades, tried to identify a Jewish superstar. They actually passed on Greenberg. There was a thought after Greenberg that there was Jewish DNA for baseball, and the signing of Koufax was directly linked to this notion. It was this eugenics-like link that you need a Jewish ballplayer. For the Giants, it was ticket sales. So the commotion about Greenberg and Koufax is more about Jewish identity. And baseball is, as a professional sport in New York, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, different than college football, particularly in New England at this time. Frankly, Jews lived near the Polo Grounds, they didn’t live near Harvard Yard.
Arnold Horween shown in The Baltimore Sun on November 16, 1927. (Wikimedia Commons)
For Horween, obviously he’s not at the level of a Greenberg or Koufax talent-wise, but he also didn’t seem to care as much personally about his Jewish identity. You write in the book that there were some Jews who took issue with the fact that Horween was not practicing, but there were also many Jews who were simply proud he was Jewish. What do you think about that dynamic?
There becomes a sort of disconnect between lived religion and the perception and what they come to represent — the mantle that they wear almost towers above the practice. Horween eschewed the opportunity to claim the mantle of Jewish leadership, Jewish celebrity. But we do see in its moment that he is the topic of rabbinic sermons, that The American Hebrew and other Jewish press are reporting on him. They are elated. In American Jewish culture, the only thing greater than being the captain of the Harvard Crimson — it’s hard for people to realize, but in the moment when they were part of the big three [alongside Princeton and Yale] — the only higher station in American culture might have been the president, or the coach of Harvard, which he eventually becomes.
One of the parts of this book that I enjoyed learning about is the extent to which college football in the early 20th century was all about honor, masculinity, gentlemanliness. And at the time, that kind of stands in contrast to how Jews were viewed — that Jews were not masculine, Jews couldn’t fit into that mold of the “Harvard man.”
Being on the sports team, that was probably far beyond Jewish expectations. Not to say that Jews could not be athletic, but very often the varsity players weren’t picked for their talent but rather their surnames. What the sea change at Harvard is, [within] gentlemanly culture — in which “gentlemanly” is a Protestant, Christian masculinity — Horween is not Protestant. What allows him a pathway into that elite group is that drive to win. And as a player, he’s good luck. He never loses. He becomes a signature player for victory who even wins the Rose Bowl.
But as a coach, he subverts that. What he and Bill Bingham do is their campaign isn’t necessarily for winning, it’s for having fun, it’s for enjoying the game.
In the 1910s and 20s, college football was the peak of American sports, but that’s certainly not the case anymore. What do you think would be the modern comparison for someone like Horween?
Is Becky Hammon with the Spurs, the first woman [to act as] head coach in basketball, something like that? Or the very important discussions about people of color as coaches in the NFL? Sports and education are, for some reason or another, where change is made in American life. Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 ends, at least officially, segregation. Title IV, what is basically American law for anti-discrimination based on sex, is based on women’s college sports. You have the breaking down of color barriers and Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Vietnam. You have the first [openly] gay athletes, you have questions of breaking the glass ceiling for women and Serena Williams.
It’s absolutely 100% true that sports doesn’t matter. Who wins the World Series is of no great consequence to most people’s lives. Although it’s interesting, if you drive up I-95 on a Sunday, you will see that the bumper stickers and the flags change. There is some sort of passion, obviously, about sport. But it’s absolutely true that for some reason or another in the 20th century and 21st century in American sport, really important social and cultural decisions, and political decisions, are made in American sport.
Zev Eleff, president of Gratz College and author of “Dyed in Crimson.” (Courtesy)
Another main topic in the book is that the goal for immigrants, especially Jews, was Americanization, assimilation — that to become part of the mainstream was the marker of success. But that seems to be the case for Jews in a very different sense than it is for Catholics and for Blacks.
The major contribution of this book to American Jewish history beyond telling this story is to complicate notions of Americanization. Jews and Catholics in particular view Americanization very, very differently. The Catholic experience is to create parallel systems. If you’re a good Catholic boy with immense football talent, play for Notre Dame, play for Boston College. Don’t play for the Protestant mainstream. Cream them on the football field. Create parallel systems.
The Jewish experience is not so. Outside of Orthodox day schools in the early 20th century, it was anathema, it was considered almost heretical, for American Jews to [go] to private schools. To the contrary, the so-called golden citadels of the public schools — that is the agent of Americanization. Jews don’t establish their own educational systems. They somehow Americanize and acculturate into the mainstream. We don’t compete with Harvard, we get into Harvard.
Thinking about the antisemitism of that time — the quotas, Father Coughlin, all of that — how do you think that compares to what we’re seeing today?
Historians disagree about the 1920s. Was it a time of great prominence of American Jews? There was affluence in the roaring ’20s. There were institutions that were created, there was creativity, from the Orthodox and Mordecai Kaplan certainly, across the board, the Jewish Theological Seminary. American Judaism was at a certain high point in the 1920s. At the same time, there were quotas, and there was rising antisemitism. I think today we also have to deal with the tension of, on the one hand, there are great opportunities for Jews in the United States; at the same time, there is antisemitism. And so from the 1920s to the 2020s, 100 years later, you see a model for how to grapple with those tensions.
What do you hope, more than anything else, someone takes away or learns from your book?
It’s a book that begins like a punch line: a working class Protestant, a Catholic and a Jew walk into a football field. But it ends with something I think a lot more pronounced, which is, it’s a story about change. As a historian, I study change, particularly in American Judaism, broadly in American religion and Jewish Studies. Change is the best asset that a historian has to study. I wasn’t interested in just finding another Sandy Koufax story, replicating that story. This is a story that isn’t just about a Jew who happened for his moment to become quite successful and quite famous, or a Catholic or a former mill hand turned first athletic director in college history. It’s really about how people on the periphery influence the mainstream.
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Is there a future for Yiddish in Antwerp?
פֿון לייזער בורקאָ
איך בין געקומען קיין אַנטווערפּן מיטן ציל צו פֿאָרשן דאָס ייִדיש, וואָס מע רעדט דאָרט, ווײַל אַנטווערפּענער ייִדן האָבן אַ שם, אַז זיי רעדן דאָס בעסטע און דאָס עכטסטע ייִדיש. אַזוי האָב איך געהערט אַ סך מאָל; געלייענט אין חסידישע פֿאָרומס, און געהערט לעצטנס אין אַן אינטערוויו מיט ר׳ מענדל הערש פּאַנעט, אַן אַנטווערפּענער חסיד, וואָס וווינט הײַנט אין ניו־יאָרק.
די ייִדישע באַפֿעלקערונג אין אַנטווערפּן איז זייער קליין אין פֿאַרגלײַך מיט די גרויסע ייִשובֿים אין ניו־יאָרק און ארץ־ישׂראל. עס וווינען דאָרט סך־הכּל 20,000 ייִדן, מערסטנס חרדים — סײַ חסידים סײַ מתנגדים. דאָס איז אַנטקעגן 300,000 חרדים אין אַמעריקע און איבער אַ מיליאָן אין ארץ־ישׂראל, און 40,000 אין לאָנדאָן אַפֿילו. דער פּראָצענט ייִדן וואָס רעדט ייִדיש איז זיכער העכער אין אַנטווערפּן, אָבער דער ציבור איז פֿאָרט נישט אַזוי גרויס.
עס וווינען אויך מאָדערנע אָרטאָדאָקסישע ייִדן אין אַנטווערפּן. איך האָב געהערט, אַז אַ סך פֿון זיי קענען אויך ייִדיש, אָבער רעדן אין דער היים, דער עיקר — פֿראַנצויזיש.
די אַנטווערפּענער ייִדישע באַפֿעלקערונג איז נישט איינהייטלעך, אַפֿילו אויב אַ סך חרדים זעען אויס ענלעך. אַ גרויסע צאָל פֿון די מענער זענען פֿון ערגעץ אַנדערש, אָבער האָבן זיך אַריבערגעצויגן, כּדי חתונה צו האָבן מיט אַן אַנטווערפּענער כּלה. דערפֿאַר הערט מען דאָרט אויך נישט ווייניק ענגליש און עבֿרית אויף דער גאַס. פֿון דעסט וועגן, איז דאָס אַנטווערפּענער ייִדיש נישט אַזוי געמישט מיט ענגליש און עבֿרית, ווי דאָס ייִדיש בײַ אַמעריקאַנער אָדער ישׂראלדיקע חרדים. זיי ניצן אָבער יאָ אַ מאָל פֿלעמישע ווערטער, ווי למשל דאָס וואָרט „מוילבאַק“ (מיסטקעסטל) פֿון פֿלעמישן vuilbak.
אויף וויפֿל איך האָב געהערט, האָט דאָס אַנטווערפּענער ייִדיש טאַקע אַן אַנדער טעם ווי דאָס אַמעריקאַנער ייִדיש. ערשטנס רעדט מען מער אויפֿן פּויליש־גאַליציאַנער שטייגער מיט אַן אוּוווּלאַרן ריש (אַזוי ווי אויף עבֿרית, אָדער אויף פֿראַנצויזיש און דײַטש). מע הערט אָפֿטער דעם ווייכן למד אין ווערטער ווי „גלײַך“ און „קלײַן“. מע זאָגט ווערטער ווי „אויס“ און „אויך“ מיט אַ קלאָרן o.
לייענענדיק די אַלע נײַעס וועגן די פּראָטעסטן קעגן מדינת־ישׂראל אין מערבֿ־אייראָפּע און וועגן די אַנטיסעמיטישע אינצידענטן דאָרט, האָב איך זיך געזאָרגט אַ ביסל וועגן די אַנטווערפּענער ייִדן. מיט יאָרן צוריק האָב איך געמאַכט אַ וויזיט און איך האָב געדענקט, אַז עס וווינען דאָרט אַ סך מוסולמענישע אימיגראַנטן. צי זענען די ייִדן דאָרט טאַקע זיכער?
די שטאָט אַנטווערפּן איז טאַקע זייער אַ געמישטער עולם. איך בין אײַנגעשטאַנען נישט ווײַט פֿון אַ גרויסן פּוילישן סופּערמאַרק און אַ געשעפֿט פֿון אַפֿריקאַנער סחורות. די ייִדן וווינען אין מיטן שטאָט אין דרום פֿון דער פּרעכטיקער צענטראַלער באַנסטאַנציע, וווּ עס געפֿינט זיך דער באַרימטער דימענטן-קוואַרטאַל. ייִדן אַרבעטן שוין הונדערטער יאָרן אין אַנטווערפּן ווי שלײַפֿערס און סוחרים פֿון דימענטן. הײַנט אַרבעטן דאָרט מערסטנס אינדיער, ווײַל די דימענטן־אינדוסטריע איז כּמעט אין גאַנצן אַריבער קיין אינדיע, וווּ די שלײַפֿערס אַרבעטן פֿאַר ביליקער.
צי זענען די ייִדן דאָרט אין אַ סכּנה? איך אַליין האָב זיך געפֿילט זיכער, אָבער איך האָב נישט קיין באָרד און פּאות. אַ חסיד מיטן גאַנצן לבֿוש האָט אפֿשר אַן אַנדער דערפֿאַרונג.
קיין פּאָליציי אָדער זיכערהייט־כּוחות האָב איך נישט געזען אין דער ייִדישער געגנט, כאָטש אַ שומרים־אָרגאַניזאַציע („שמירה“) איז יאָ פֿאַראַן. איך בין אַרײַנגעגאַנגען אינעם גרויסן סאַטמערער בית־מדרש און אַרומגעגאַנגען דאָרט — קיינער האָט מיך נישט אָפּגעשטעלט אָדער געפֿרעגט, וואָס איך טו. די אַנטווערפּענער ייִדן האָבן נישט מורא פֿאַר פֿרעמדע, דאַכט זיך.
לויט די נײַעס־באַריכטן זענען יאָ פֿאָרגעקומען אַ סך מער אַנטיסעמיטישע אינצידענטן זײַט דעם אָנהייב פֿון דער עזה־מלחמה — אָבער אַזוי איז דער מצבֿ אומעטום. די אַנטווערפּענער ייִדן פֿילן זיך דאָרט אין דער היים און וועלן אַזוי גיך נישט אַנטלויפֿן.
אין אַנטווערפּן פֿאָרן אַ סך ייִדן אויף ביציקלען, וואָס זיי רופֿן „וועלאָס“ (פֿון פֿראַנצויזיש), אפֿשר נאָך מער ווי די פֿלעמער (Flemings בלע”ז). מע זעט אַפֿילו טאַטעס וואָס פֿאָרן מיט אַן עופֿהלע אויף אַ צווייט בענקל, וואָס דאָס זעט מען נישט אין אַמעריקע. דאָס איז דערפֿאַר ווײַל די ייִדישע געגנט איז קאָמפּאַקט און מע דאַרף נישט פֿאָרן ווײַט. נאָכן טאָג אין חדר גייען די קינדערלעך אַהיים אָדער פֿאָרן אַהיים אויף קליינע סקוטערס. בכלל הערשט אַ געפֿיל פֿון זיכערקייט, מער ווי אין ניו־יאָרק, למשל. ס׳איז פֿאָרט אייראָפּע, וווּ די מענטשן שיסן זעלטענער, און וווּ ווייניקער משוגעים דרייען זיך אויף די גאַסן.
אַחוץ אַנטווערפּן האָב איך אויך געמאַכט אַ וויזיט אין דער בעלגישער הויפּטשטאָט, בריסל. איך האָב באַלד באַמערקט אַן אונטערשיד: אַ סך פּאַלעסטינער פֿענער, אין ערטער אויך אַנטי־ישׂראלדיקע און אַנטיסעמיטישע גראַפֿיטי. די מוסולמענישע באַפֿעלקערונג פֿון בריסל איז אַ סך גרעסער. אין געוויסע געגנטן — ווי מאָלענבעק, וווּ איך בין אײַנגעשטאַנען — זעט עס אַ מאָל אויס ווי אַן אַראַבישע שטאָט. איך האָב זיך געהיטן דאָרט פֿון טראָגן אַ העמד אָדער עפּעס מיט אַ ייִדישער אויפֿשריפֿט. אין בריסל וווינען אויך מער אָרעמע־לײַט ווי אין אַנטווערפּן. מיר איז געווען אַ חידוש צו זען דאָרט פּוילישע שיכּורים, וואָס דרייען זיך אויף די גאַסן — אַ סך מער ווי איך זע אין וואַרשע.
אין בריסל האָב איך געכאַפּט אַ לאַנגן שמועס מיט ר׳ אַנשל מיכאָלי, אַ היגער ייִדישיסט און אַ געבוירענער בריסעלער. ער זאָגט, אַז די בריסעלער ייִדישע באַפֿעלקערונג איז אַ מאָל געווען גרעסער ווי די אַנטווערפּענער, אָבער זי גייט באַרג־אַראָפּ שוין אַ סך יאָרן, סײַ דעמאָגראַפֿיש, סײַ גײַסטיק. אין די 1960ער יאָרן זענען די מערסטע טראַדיציאָנעלע ייִדן געוואָרן זייער ציוניסטיש־געשטימט און זײַט דעמאָלטס האָבן אַ סך יונגע לײַט עולה געווען. די פֿאַרבליבענע וועלטלעכע ייִדן באַטייליקן זיך ווייניק אינעם קהילה־לעבן. קיין געפֿיל פֿאַר ייִדיש אָדער ייִדישקייט האָבן זיי נישט, בדרך־כּלל.
לאָמיר האָפֿן, אַז אַנטווערפּן וועט אויסמײַדן דאָס אומגליק, וואָס האָט געטראָפֿן בריסל, און אַז די קהילה וועט בלײַבן זיכער און וועט וואַקסן. עס וואָלט געווען אַ גרויסער שאָד, ווען עס גייט אונטער איינער פֿון די לעצטע ייִדישע אינדזלען אין אייראָפּע, וווּ מע רעדט אַזאַ שיינעם ייִדיש.
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In NYC, Election Day arrives with all eyes on Jewish voters
It’s Election Day in New York City
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Many New Yorkers are thinking far beyond the five boroughs as they cast their votes in an election some see as a referendum on the Middle East.
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Jewish and Muslim New Yorkers — two populations of about the same size, both nearing 1 million — are being closely watched today, as views on Israel, Palestine, antisemitism and Islamophobia mobilize voters with intense enthusiasm.
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Polls show Cuomo, a proud defender of Israel, leading with Jewish voters. And Mamdani’s longtime pro-Palestinian activism tapped into a movement of New Yorkers galvanized by the Gaza war, pollsters say.
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“There’s a large swath of New Yorkers, particularly those that were showing up at these protests, who in 2025 were looking for something to latch on to, some sort of organized effort,” Democratic pollster Adam Carlson told The New York Times. “There’s a lot of natural overlap between those groups, and I think that just fueled momentum.”
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Some anti-Zionist Jews, like members of the increasingly influential group Jewish Voice for Peace, strengthened Mamdani’s rise as he won the primary and held onto a strong lead in general election for months. But many others say they are worried about Mamdani’s views on Israel setting the stage for a “political normalization” of anti-Zionism that can bleed into antisemitism.
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Polls are open until 9 p.m. today, and election officials say results could come within an hour of that time. Find your polling site here.
A Mamdani Israel policy?
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If Mamdani is elected mayor, how could he actually take action on his pro-Palestinian advocacy?
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We dug into Mamdani’s greatest push for a new Israel policy in the state Assembly, where he proposed the bill “Not On Our Dime” to target donations to Israeli settlements. The legislation, which never advanced, faced a backlash from lawmakers in both parties, including Jewish Democrats.
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Shortly after winning his Assembly seat in 2020, Mamdani also called for a boycott of Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island, a campus of Cornell University that partners with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, because of the Israeli university’s ties to the military. His comment on the “Talking Palestine” podcast with Sumaya Awad resurfaced during the primary and again this week after a spokeswoman told The New York Times that, if elected, he would assess the Cornell partnership.
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Mamdani has said he does not intend to invest city funds in Israel bonds as mayor, in keeping with current Comptroller Brad Lander’s decision in 2023. But we also found that two of New York City’s five public pension funds could be vulnerable to a mayor-backed divestment push.
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Mamdani would be able to stack the boards of these two pension funds to put divestment from Israel on the table, and his supporters are pushing for that move.
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He will also face pressure from the Democratic Socialists of America, which counts him as a member, to implement boycott, divestment and sanction moves against Israel.
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On Sunday, the party’s “NYC Palestine Policy Committee” held a meeting to “iron out policies that the anti-war working group membership would like to see implemented at the municipal level,” according to a schedule on the D.S.A. website.
Corbyn hosts Mamdani phone bank
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Former U.K. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was booted from his party amid an antisemitism scandal, hosted a phone bank for Mamdani on Sunday evening.
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The event was co-led with the New York City D.S.A. chapter and paid for by Mamdani’s campaign, according to a post shared on X by Corbyn.
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During the Zoom call, Corbyn said that Mamdani “will ensure that the world doesn’t pass by on the other side while the terrible genocide goes on in Gaza, which has been so terrible for the Palestinian people,” according to the Forward.
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We covered the accusations against Corbyn, including a 2020 government watchdog report that said his leadership was responsible for “unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination” against Jews.
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Cuomo pounced on the alliance. “Having Jeremy Corbyn – someone whose party was found to have committed unlawful acts of discrimination against Jewish people under his leadership – phone-banking for @ZohranKMamdani says everything you need to know,” he said on X.
Trump and Musk endorse Cuomo
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Cuomo got an official endorsement last night from President Trump, who has frequently opined on the race and insulted all of the candidates.
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“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”
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Trump also warned voters away from Republican nominee Sliwa, who is polling third. “A vote for Curtis Sliwa (who looks much better without the beret!) is a vote for Mamdani,” he said, referencing the red hat that Sliwa wears as the founder of the Guardian Angels.
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Cuomo is balancing his outreach to Republican voters with criticism of the president, who is deeply unpopular in New York City. “The president is right. A vote for Sliwa is a vote for Mamdani, and that’s why this election is now up to the Republicans,” he said in response to Trump’s post on 77 WABC.
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Mamdani, who has repeatedly linked Cuomo to Trump, pounced on the endorsement. “The MAGA movement’s embrace of Andrew Cuomo is reflective of Donald Trump’s understanding that this would be the best mayor for him,” he said in Astoria, according to Politico.
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Elon Musk also urged New Yorkers to vote for Cuomo, and to “bear in mind that a vote for Curtis is really a vote for Mumdumi or whatever his name is.”
Last call for Jewish voters
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Sliwa promised to protect Jews at the Society for Advancement of Judaism last night. “I’m standing outside of a synagogue on the Upper West Side tonight, as I’ve stood for many many years outside of synagogues, protecting Jews as they worship during their High Holidays all over this city,” he said on Instagram, referencing again his role in defending Jews during the 1991 Crown Heights riots.
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In a pointed gesture of solidarity with Jews, Cuomo posted his condolences for the family of Omer Neutra, an Israeli-American Long Island native whose body was returned by Hamas to Israel on Sunday.
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Dov Hikind, an Orthodox Jewish politician and former top surrogate of Sliwa’s who recently switched to Cuomo’s side, said in a Yiddish video that Jews would no longer be able to live in New York if Mamdani is elected.
Following the money
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Super PACS spent more than $29 million in the general election through Sunday. By today, that figure will likely surpass the $30.1 million spent ahead of the primary.
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Cuomo has the most money behind him. He received about $10 million in support, with another $13.6 million spent on negative ads against Mamdani, reported Politico.
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The post In NYC, Election Day arrives with all eyes on Jewish voters appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall cancels annual Hanukkah concert, citing singer’s IDF ties
(JTA) — Last year, Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall held its 10th anniversary of a Hanukkah concert series that was rebooted 70 years after it was halted by the Nazis, in what some Dutch Jews saw as a repudiation of antisemitism that had swelled during the war in Gaza.
This year, the concert has been called off — and the prestigious concert hall citing the chosen singer’s ties to the Israeli army.
The Chanukah Concert Foundation, which organizes the event, had booked Shai Abramson to sing. Abramson is a retired lieutenant colonel for the IDF who serves as the army’s chief cantor.
The Royal Concert Hall, or Concertgebouw, said in a statement on Sunday that it had pressed for months for a change to the program and canceled the concert, scheduled for Dec. 14, when one was not made.
“This decision was made because it was not possible to reach an agreement on an alternative to the performance by the IDF Chief Cantor,” the statement said.
It continued, “For The Concertgebouw, it is crucial that the IDF is actively involved in a controversial war and that Abramson is a visible representative of it.”
The Hanukkah concert was rebooted in 2015, 70 years after the Nazis ended the longstanding tradition in the city and murdered three-quarters of the Dutch Jewish population. The relaunch was billed as a chance to connect and celebrate the city’s Jewish residents, a community that has never come close to its pre-Holocaust size.
Now, the Chanukkah Concert Foundation says the Concertgebouw is contributing to the “isolation the Jewish community feels it is being pushed into in the current era,” even as the concert hall said it “always remain a place where the Jewish community is welcome.”
“The Jewish community has been facing exclusion in the cultural sector for over two years,” the Chanukah Concert Foundation said in a statement on Sunday. “It is ironic that the Concertgebouw — where Chanukah celebrations have been held since December 14, 1921, a tradition interrupted only by World War II — is now confronting the Jewish community with exclusion and isolation.”
The Chanukah Concert Foundation said it would pursue legal action against the Concertgebouw, whose characterization of Abramson as an IDF representative it rejected.
“He is an independent artist, invited by the State of Israel to sing at national memorial ceremonies,” the foundation wrote in a statement. “Labeling him as an IDF representative fosters unwarranted negative sentiment toward Israel, the Jewish community in the Netherlands and visitors to the concert, purposely turning this great musical experience into a political event.”
The cantor’s website says his performances around the world are done “with the intention of developing and strengthening ties with Jewish communities around the world, and intensifying connections with Israel and with the IDF.”
The Hanukkah concert’s cancellation is not the first time the war in Gaza has interfered with plans at the Concertgebouw. In November 2023, a planned benefit concert for the Israeli humanitarian nonprofit Zaka was canceled after the Concertgebouw demanded that half of the proceeds go to a Dutch Palestinian aid group that had been accused of anti-Israel bias. The following year, the concert canceled performances by a Jerusalem-based quartet citing “safety” concerns over planned pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Amsterdam has been a hotspot of such demonstrations. Last year, the city was roiled by pro-Palestinian protests, and a soccer game between the local team and Maccabi Tel Aviv sparked antisemitic mob violence against Israeli supporters.
In March, the University of Amsterdam suspended a student exchange with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, accusing the school of failing to distance itself from the war in Gaza.
As for the Hanukkah concert, the concert foundation says it will “assume that the concerts on December 14th will go ahead, including Cantor Abramson,” amid its planned litigation.
The Concertgebouw, meanwhile, has removed the concert from its website, where among the other upcoming performances listed are multiple by the Jerusalem Quartet, the group whose concert was canceled last year over security concerns.
“Making this decision was extremely difficult,” Concertgebouw Director Simon Reinink in a statement about the Hanukkah concert cancellation. “Only in very exceptional cases do we make an exception to our important principle of artistic freedom. To our great regret, such an exception is now occurring. The intended performance by the chief cantor of the IDF is at odds with our mission: connecting people through music.”
The post Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall cancels annual Hanukkah concert, citing singer’s IDF ties appeared first on The Forward.