Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Beitar soccer club drops match with Barcelona for refusing to play in Jerusalem

“I can’t betray Jerusalem,” said Beitar Jerusalem soccer-club owner Moshe Hogeg.

Crowds of fans at a Beitar Jerusalem game. Source: Beitar/Twitter.
Crowds of fans at a Beitar Jerusalem game. Source: Beitar/Twitter.

Beitar Jerusalem soccer-club owner Moshe Hogeg said on Thursday that he canceled a friendly match with Barcelona after it refused to play in Jerusalem.

“After receiving the contract for signing and being exposed to the unequivocal demand that the game not take place in the capital, Jerusalem, and some other demands that I did not like, I slept with a heavy heart, thought a lot and decided that before all, I am a proud Jewish and Israeli,” Hogeg wrote on Facebook.

“I purchased Beitar Jerusalem out of love for the holy capital; I fought a war with racism and will continue to fight it,” he said. “I promote coexistence and am in favor of peace.”

“I can’t betray Jerusalem,” he added.

“Organizations and individuals tied to terrorism have no place operating under the protection of Canadian law,” the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs wrote.
The lawsuit follows a House Ways and Means investigation into alleged Hamas ties with Islamic Relief Worldwide and says U.S. officials warned the charity its tax-exempt status could be at risk.
Matthew Althorpe’s “hatred and violent extremism targeted all those who did not align with his grotesque ideology,” several Jewish advocacy organizations wrote after the ruling.
Sunset Bronson Studios, a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, is home to Netflix production offices and a local news station.
“These acts of violence stand in stark contradiction to the values upon which Israel was founded and to the enduring ethical tradition of the Jewish people,” the Israeli president wrote.
The New York City mayor, who is a harsh and frequent critic of Israel, also wove his plans on affordability and to fight U.S. immigration policy into his telling of the holiday story.