Alon Meyer, the president of Makkabi Germany, later told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that he had spoken to other witnesses and that “threats undoubtedly took place, including chasing people with knives.”

Opposing club Schwarz-Weiss Neukölln vowed to sack the perpetrators once they were identified, saying “incidents like this do not belong on football pitches – and certainly not on ours”.

Staatsschutz, the police unit responsible for investigating politically motivated crime, has opened an investigation into the incident.

Makkabi Berlin’s senior team has been given police protection since Hamas-led attacks on Israel last year, but officers have attended all of the club’s home matches around the world. the capital of Germany over the weekend in response to last week’s reported attack.

The team was founded in the 1970s by Holocaust survivors as the first Jewish sports club in the capital after the end of World War II.

The founders saw themselves in the tradition of Bar-Kochba Berlin, which was one of the largest Jewish sports clubs in the world in the 1920s.

Jewish life threatened in Germany

The incident comes at a time when German authorities have said Jewish life in the country is under threat to a degree never seen before in the country. post-Nazi history.

In early November, a Makkabi Berlin fan wearing the club’s scarf had to be taken to hospital after a man in a cafe asked him if he was Jewish and then punched him in the face.

Even before the outbreak of war in the Middle East last year, there were reports that the club’s players were subjected to antisemitic abuse on the field.

In 2022, several players from another Berlin club were suspended after they saluted Hitler during a match and threatened to “burn their dirty flag”, a reference to the fact that the club’s symbol is a Star of Blue David on a white background.

After the massacre in Israel on October 7, residents of Neukölln handed out sweets on one of the district’s main shopping routes, and it has since become the scene of weekly pro-Palestinian protests.

Last year, a local official advised Jews not to show outward signs of their religion in the district, saying that “large sections” of Neukölln’s Arab population “harbour sympathies for terrorists”.

After Thursday’s incident, Berlin City Councilor Iris Spranger said that: “We are doing everything we can to ensure that Jewish life in Berlin is and remains safe.”

“These acts show that anti-Semitic violence and discrimination have not disappeared even in our city,” Ms Springer added, referring to the November 9 anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogrom in which Nazi mobs attacked and burned synagogues and Jewish businesses.

The alleged attack in Berlin last week happened on the same night that gangs from Amsterdam attacked Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters after a European football match against Ajax.

The attackers, described by Amsterdam’s mayor as “anti-Semitic hit-and-run teams”, left five people hospitalized.

Since then, Israeli authorities told citizens to avoid cultural and sporting events in Europe.