A two-minute silence was observed in Israel on Thursday 8 April as sirens rang out throughout the country to mark Yom Hashoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during World War II between 1941 and 1945 Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some 6 million Jews across German occupied Europe, around two third of Europe’s Jewish population.
Yom Hashoah coincides with the 27 of Nisan (on the Hebrew calendar) to mark the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943 when Jewish resistance fighters defied the Nazi’s and fought for freedom and dignity.
Action Againts Discrimination (AAD), a charity at the forefront of combatting anti-Semitism in football once again reminded the relevant authorities of the need to rid football of anti-Semitism as Yom HaShoah remembers the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
AAD chairman Jonathan Metliss said, “Disappointingly, 76 years after the Holocaust and the liberation of the concentration camps in Europe, anti-Semitism in English and European football continues. We remain of the belief that inadequate efforts have been made to combat and eradicate this.”
A press release from the charity said that hissing noises (mimicking the gas chambers) at football matches, and aggressive responses to the chanting and use of the word ‘Yid’, sadly have not disappeared. Furthermore, it said, Israeli footballers, such as Celtic’s Nir Bitton have been abused on the internet and anti-Semitic abuse was recently posted on Aston Villa’s Twitter feed after the club had wished their Jewish supporters a Happy Passover.
