ABSTRACT
Poland is the most homogenous country in Europe in terms of ethnicity, nationality, and religion with around 95% of the population belonging to the white, ethnically Polish majority. In the 2011 census, the population of Jews living in Poland was estimated to be around two thousand. Nonetheless, antisemitic slurs are a permanent behavioral element of football fans in Poland who use the term “Jew” as an insult. The chapter interprets this phenomenon within the longue durée perspective of the centuries-long cohabitation of the Polish and Jewish population on Poland’s soil. It utilizes historical and anthropological scholarship as well as research findings from the projects conducted by the authors concerning football fandom in Poland. Particular attention is paid to the cases of two large cities: Cracow and Łódź, and to their football scene. Both emerged in significantly different historical circumstances but used to be multiethnic with a large proportion of the Jewish population who perished in the Holocaust. Decades later, the inhabitants still cope with the uneasy legacies of past interethnic relations and collective identities, and football-related antisemitism still prevails. Several non-mutually exclusive interpretations for its persistence and the differences between Cracow and Łódź in this context are offered.
