MIRI REGEV THANKS BRAZIL SOCCER TEAM FOR WEARING STAR OF DAVID ON KRISTALLNACHT ANNIVERSARY
TAMAR BEERI
Miri Regev stated that she hopes “that many will adopt your most moving campaign against Holocaust denial, hatred, prejudice, racism and antisemitism.”
Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev wrote to Brazilian soccer team Sports Club Corinthians Paulista to thank them for wearing yellow Stars of David in memory of the Jews killed in the Kristallnacht pogrom in Nazi Germany.
“On behalf of the State of Israel and myself, I would like to praise you for your inspiring decision that your team will wear this week a yellow Star of David on their shirts like those of our Jewish brothers and sisters were forced to carry by the Nazis,” Regev wrote in her letter to Corinthians president Andrés Navarro Sánchez.
“You have chosen to initiate this act of good will and solidarity on a very special date, commemorating the horrible pogrom against the Jewish people, known as Kristallnacht, the ‘Night of Broken Glass,’ taking place in Nazi Germany exactly 81 years ago,” she continued.
Regev concluding by stating that she hopes “that many will adopt your most moving campaign against Holocaust denial, hatred, prejudice, racism and antisemitism.”
Corinthians is a soccer team located in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which plays in Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A, the highest level of Brazilian soccer, with a particularly large Jewish following.
A Ynet report earlier this year explained that the “hardcore” Corinthians fans call themselves “Bando do Meshiganes,” a Portuguese-Yiddish combination meaning “band of crazies.”
“We have two religions,” the Jewish Brazilians told Ynet. “Judaism and Corinthians!”