The team designed the outfit for the informal 3-on-3 tournament in Hamilton over Waitangi Day weekend \u2013 a club event where teams are known for novelty names and irreverent humour.<\/p>\n
The tournament was organised by Hamilton Inline Hockey Club, with Inline Hockey NZ\u2019s (IHNZ) involvement limited to providing referees, handling complaints and livestreaming the games.<\/p>\n
Teams ranged in age from 8-year-olds to players over 50.<\/p>\n
Another team at the same tournament went by the name MILF, according to the tournament\u2019s Facebook live stream.<\/p>\n
However, ahead of the tournament, a complaint was made about the \u201cMtn Jew\u201d uniform. The nature of the complaint has not been made public.<\/p>\n
A team uniform at a casual 3-on-3 inline hockey tournament in Hamilton caused controversy, with the “Mtn Jew” outfit leading to an emergency Inline Hockey NZ board meeting. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
The IHNZ board then called an emergency meeting on Friday morning and decided the jersey did not meet the threshold for removal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter taking into account the comments from the team involved and the fact there was no derogatory language or images on the jerseys that met the threshold or intent of harming others, it was decided to allow the jersey,\u201d IHNZ board chairman Chris Morgan said.<\/p>\n
IHNZ put out a statement saying it had no policies in place to govern what should or shouldn\u2019t be put on uniforms.<\/p>\n
Avi Dan Fink, the team\u2019s manager and a parent of players in the team, said the uniform was about unity.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team wanted to show pride in their Jewish heritage to support Israeli people in a positive light in the current situation,\u201d Fink said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole purpose of this team is to show unity and pride in the Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fink said while not everyone in the team was Jewish, players from different backgrounds were \u201chappy to embrace the heritage of their teammates\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said \u201cMountain Jews\u201d was a reference to a real group of Jewish people, and the jerseys had been designed and printed well before the Bondi attack in Sydney last year.<\/p>\n
However Facebook users suggested the uniform could be \u201coffensive\u201d, with one user who said they were an inline hockey committee member in Australia citing IHNZ\u2019s own Preventing Bullying and Harassment Policy, published on its website.<\/p>\n
That policy states: \u201cracist comments, jokes, stereotypes or insults, or abuse because someone is from another culture or religion are never acceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n
The user worried about perceived racism so soon after the Bondi Beach mass shooting in December last year, which targeted a Hanukkah event.<\/p>\n
A reader who wrote to the Herald also raised concerns about \u201ccoins\u201d on the jersey alongside the player number 911.<\/p>\n
The trope linking Jews and money is a long-standing antisemitic stereotype, according to organisations such as the Anti-Defamation League.<\/p>\n
There are also well-documented antisemitic conspiracy theories falsely linking Jewish people to the September 11 terror attacks.<\/p>\n
But team manager Fink slammed the idea of linking the number to the terror attacks, saying the 911 referred to a player\u2019s birthday and the US emergency phone number.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis accusation is not only false, it is disturbing that this is the kind of thoughts that people have about a hockey team in New Zealand,\u201d Fink said.<\/p>\n
IHNZ\u2019s Morgan said IHNZ did not restrict members from showing their cultural or religious backgrounds.<\/p>\n
He pointed to the organisation\u2019s W\u0101hine Kaha and Matariki events celebrating M\u0101ori culture and women in sport as evidence of its inclusive approach.<\/p>\n
However, he said the complaint had highlighted a gap in the organisation\u2019s uniform policy and a review would begin immediately to see how it aligned with other national and international sporting bodies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIHNZ remains neutral for all cultures, sexualities, religions and beliefs and encourages our players to express themselves in a positive way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The board said it had decided \u201cnot to interfere with the tournament at this late stage\u201d but would seek feedback from clubs and members once it had time to consider the matter.<\/p>\n
The controversy comes at a time of heightened sensitivity around antisemitism, with Jewish communities in New Zealand and Australia on alert following the Bondi attack and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The team designed the outfit for the informal 3-on-3 tournament in Hamilton over Waitangi Day weekend \u2013 a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,2372,9632,6928,117608,12797,6284,15974,15144,4241,8993,43779,36425,20439,153688,32431,2374,5088,3556,111,43,139,69,12064,312,2022,213,5436,7187,24806,49370],"class_list":["post-271834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-board","tag-celebrates","tag-celebrating","tag-coins","tag-complaint","tag-david","tag-emergency","tag-featuring","tag-gold","tag-heritage","tag-hockey","tag-inline","tag-jersey","tag-jew","tag-jewish","tag-meeting","tag-mtn","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prompted","tag-says","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-stars","tag-team","tag-uniform","tag-wearing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}