By Manny Robinson
League One football club Leyton Orient became the first to ever partner with a Jewish supporters’ organisation, as it linked up with the MeshuganOs for the team’s home match against Bristol Rovers in early December.
The MeshuganOs was set up by Leyton Orient die-hards Eddie Gershon, Jonathan Glass, Daniel Gold and Steven Phillips – a play on the Yiddish slang Meshugana and Leyton Orient’s nickname, the O’s.
As part of the partnership, the club distributed 100 free tickets to local Jewish schools, communal groups and charities.
Four leading communal figures attended the game – Lord John Mann (the Government’s independent adviser on antisemitism), Michael Wegier (CEO of the Board of Deputies of British Jews), Jonathan Prevezer (chair of Maccabi GB) and Michael Ziff (co-chair of the London Jewish Forum). Leyton Orient has always had a strong Jewish following.
MeshuganOs joint founder Eddie told the Essex Jewish News: “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, it would be fair to say that Leyton Orient runs it pretty close.
“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.”
Orient’s association with the Jewish community goes back decades.
As Eddie explains: “When they 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 fewer 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.”
Jewish footballers Mark Lazarus, Bobby Fisher, Scott Kashket, Barry Silkman and Dave Metchick played a combined 600+ games for Orient and two of the club’s most high-profile chairmen, Harry Zussman and Brian Winston, were also Jewish.
Eddie concludes: “We are proud to be Orient fans and proud of our club for partnering the game with us and showing such a commitment to its Jewish supporters.”
