ABSTRACT
Racism, xenophobia, and antisemitism have always accompanied Argentine football. Yet it would be wrong to focus on the antisemitic slogans chanted by the fans of several teams, playing against the supposedly Jewish club of Atlanta, Without belittling the importance of antisemitic incidents in Argentine stadiums, this paper sheds light on soccer as a space of dialogue for Jewish-Argentines. The Club Atlético Atlanta of Buenos Aires has constituted an important space for interaction between Jews and non-Jews, affiliated Jews and non-affiliated Jews, Zionists and non-Zionists, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. In this way, like many other football clubs, Atlanta has provided its members with an intergenerational, subcultural marker of identity as Jewish-Argentines. By the late 1960s, Jews were an integral part of the world of football in Buenos Aires, as players, spectators, fans, administrators, and sponsors. Atlanta has played a central role in family rituals and the daily lives of Jewish-Argentines in general and those living in the neighborhood of Villa Crespo in particular. Atlanta fans, however, have not just been the target of racist chants. They have also chanted xenophobic slogans against their rivals, describing them as Bolivian and Paraguayan immigrants involved in crime and prostitution.
