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Camden museum gets its kicks from Four Four Jew

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The Jewish Museum in Camden will be following its Amy Winehouse exhibition with another crowd-pulling display — an exploration of British Jews’ relationship with football.

Four Four Jew will be opened in October by England manager Roy Hodgson as part of the Football Association’s 150th anniversary celebrations. Footballing luminaries such as outgoing FA chairman David Bernstein and former Arsenal vice-chair David Dein are exhibition advisers.

Running from October 10 to February 23, Four Four Jew investigates how football helped immigrants to integrate into British society through a fanatical tribal culture and the complicated relationship between fans’ religion and club allegiance.

Exhibition curator Joanne Rosenthal said that “by supporting a football club, Jews have been able to lay roots down in their local communities. Football has also been absorbed into Jewish culture, with football themed weddings and barmitzvahs and club kippot.”

Featured memorabilia will include Arsenal programmes from the 1960s, when the club scheduled matches to avoid Jewish festivals, and former Spurs boss David Pleat’s gold medal from the 1961 Maccabiah. Antisemitism will also be addressed with footage of the German team giving a Nazi salute at the 1935 England vs Germany game, played at White Hart Lane, as well as more recent examples.

Ms Rosenthal added that “our exhibitions going forwards are geared towards bringing in as many people as possible. We want to use Jewish stories as a lens to explore broader themes and draw in the wider public.”

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