A Leyton Orient Jewish Supporters Group has been launched with strong backing from the club.
The group is named MeshuganOs.
It has been formed by longstanding Leyton Orient fans and season ticket holders Jonathan Glass and Eddie Gershon, together with Daniel Gold and Steven Phillips.
MeshuganOs is a way to celebrate the longstanding relationship between the Jewish community and Leyton Orient and for people to make new friends at the club.
Leyton Orient kit man Ada Martin ( a former JFS pupil) and former players Mark Lazarus and Bobby Fisher have agreed to be patrons of the group.
Ada said: “ I am proud to be named as a patron of MeshuganOs.
“Like my fellow Jewish supporters, I love Leyton Orient and am proud of its connections with the Jewish community.
“I look forward to the success of the group.”
Eddie Gershon added: “ If you ask football fans which club is most associated with its Jewish supporters, the answer will likely be Spurs.
“While it is true that Spurs has always been the favoured club for a large number of Jewish fans, we believe that Leyton Orient runs it pretty close, and as a percentage of its overall support, the O’s might well be one of the, if not the best-supported club amongst the Jewish community in England.
“The club’s association with the Jewish community goes back decades.
“When Orient were Clapton Orient and played at Millfields, large swathes of the Jewish community resided in Hackney, Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington as well as the East End.
“These locations were a couple of miles (in the case of Hackney, Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington) away from the ground, with the East End (places like Whitechapel) less than four miles away.
“As a result the O’s were the local club for tens of thousands of Jewish people and many of them chose to support the team.
“That support passed on through the families and it is fair to say that the movement of the Jewish community in the 1950s onwards to areas including Gants Hill, Redbridge, Barkingside and Newbury Park only buoyed that support.”
Jonathan Glass commented: “The O’s have also had a number of Jewish players including Mark Lazarus, Dave Metchick, Bobby Fisher, Barry Silkman and Scott Kashket, who between them played almost 650 games for the O’s.
“And two of the club’s most high profile chairmen, Harry Zussman and Brian Winston were also Jewish.
“One thing I am very proud of (and I am sure it is the same for my fellow Jewish supporters) is that in all of the years of coming to Brisbane Road, I have never experienced any antisemitism.”
Leyton Orient chief executive Mark Devlin added : “ We are proud to have launched our official Jewish Supporters’ Group.
“We have great Jewish heritage at Leyton Orient, both as a football club and within our local area and that is something that we are keen to celebrate and are very proud of.
“Our Jewish supporters are very important to us and I would encourage all Leyton Orient fans to get in contact with the group as I know they have some exciting plans for the future.
“I am looking forward to the success of the MeshuganOs”
For more information on the group, please send an email tomeshuganOs@gmail.com.
There is also a Facebook page under the name of the group.
