Amsterdam’s Jewish History Lives on in Language and Soccer

Last week, the Mosaic columnist Philologos delved into the impact of Yiddish on contemporary Dutch slang via a thieves’ argot called Bargoens. Matt Lebovic presents some further examples, including a popular nickname for Amsterdam itself:

Many of the words [that have made their way into Dutch] have Hebrew origins, making it possible for Hebrew-speakers to fish out lef (courage, or heart), ponum (face), or brooche (blessing) in a conversation. . . .  The word Mokum, [from the Hebrew word meaning] “place,” is to Amsterdam what “Big Apple” is to New York. . . . In 1955, the Dutch singer Johnny Jordaan scored a hit with the bouncy “I Prefer Amsterdam”. . . . “I prefer to be in Mokum without money, than to be in Paris with one million,” crooned Jordaan. . . . “Mokum is my paradise.” . . .

Among its public appearances in recent years, the song “I Prefer Amsterdam” was played at the 2013 Ajax championship. As the Netherlands’ most legendary soccer team, Ajax—called “the pride of Mokum”—had several Jewish players and owners before World War II. The squad continues to be associated with Jews and Israel, but not always in a warm context.

To the south of Amsterdam, fans of rival team Feyenoord Rotterdam have been known to hiss loudly, “like gas chambers,” when competing against the . . . “Jewish” Ajax. Chants of “Jews to the gas” are sometimes heard in the Rotterdam stadium, including when the “Super Jew” fans of Mokum’s Ajax unfurl their Israeli flags and sing “Havah Nagilah.”

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: Amsterdam, Anti-Semitism, Dutch Jewry, History & Ideas, Soccer, Yiddish

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF