A game of three cities: Negotiating Jewish identity in Israel's football fields

This paper examines the relationship between sporting dramas, national and civic identity, and the local domains in which collective identities crystallize. The Israeli premier football league is contextualized historically in terms of the Israeli-Arab conflict. By focusing on football matches between an "Arab" team and its various Jewish rivals (i.e., matches played by this Arab team in different Jewish towns) we develop a framework for a comparative discussion of Jewish-Israeli civil identity. Based on a study of 14 football games, this paper highlights the diversity and nuances that the national-civic identity assumes among Jewish-Israelis in different towns, and relates the differences to the particular history and symbolic significance of each town.