republic of ireland

 

Incidents of overt antisemitism in Ireland 2003-4 are generally few and far between. The Jewish community recorded two antisemitic incidents in 2003 in the category of abusive behavior, a decline from 2002. Although many Jews complain of increased apprehension in the community relating primarily to events in the Middle East and Europe, there appears to be no perceptible change in attitudes among the Irish population.

 

the jewish community

According to the Central Statistics Office, the Jewish population of the Republic of Ireland (Eire) in 2002 numbered 1,790 out of a total population of almost 4 million. The first mention of Jews living in Ireland occurs in the Annals of Innifallen of 1079. However, most of Ireland’s Jews arrived in the 1880s, mainly from Lithuania. The Jewish element of the Irish population reached its peak in the 1940s when it numbered about 5,500. At that time the capital city Dublin had an area that became known as ‘Little Jerusalem’.

Jewish communities concentrated in the cities of Dublin, Cork and Limerick. The Jewish population, however, has been shrinking for many years. Demographic factors (an elderly population and a low birth rate) as well as emigration to larger communities in the UK, Israel and the US are the main causes. Today, southern Ireland’s Cork Jewish community is virtually non-existent, having once numbered about 300. Dublin, which once boasted seven synagogues, currently has three Orthodox and one progressive synagogue. The community also had a kosher butcher and Jewish shops in what was known as the ‘Jewish section’ of town. Its kosher needs are now served by a local supermarket. There is still a Jewish school, an old age home and a Jewish museum.

In the 1981 general election to the Dáil (Irish Parliament), three members of the Jewish community were elected. The three largest Irish cities, Dublin, Belfast and Cork, have had Jewish lord mayors in this century (see also below).

Chaim Herzog, Israel’s sixth president, originated from Ireland’s Jewish community. Chaim Herzog’s father, Isaac, was the first chief rabbi of the Irish Free State in 1925. The Herzog Centre for Jewish and Near Eastern Religion and Culture was established in Trinity College, Dublin, in honor of the family.

The Chief Rabbi of Ireland is considered an important national figure today. Together with the Christian primates of Ireland, Rabbi David Rosen, who was chief rabbi of Ireland from 1979 to 1985, founded the Irish Council of Christians and Jews, which fosters Judeo-Christian relations. The council continues to operate.

In the 1937 Irish Constitution, President Eamon de Valera described the “special position” of the Catholic Church as the church of the great majority of Irish people. He also listed the other denominations then functioning in Ireland as entitled to recognition, legitimacy and protection, among them “the Jewish Congregations.” However, that ‘special position’ was removed by an overwhelming majority in a 1972 referendum, and it was decided to name all Ireland's religious groups.

 

political parties and extra-parliamentary groups

Extreme Right-Wing Organizations

The Limerick-based white supremacist Democratic People's Party (DPP) claims to oppose a “black Ireland” and to stand up for “real Irish people.” Although apparently only a loose gathering of people with little support, the DPP applied to join the Dáil's Register of Political Parties, but was turned down on the grounds that it did not satisfy the requirements of the electoral acts. Since the party's website was removed by the service provider, a person claiming to be from the organization has been placing regular bulletins on the Ireland discussion page of the Stormfront white supremacist website. Meanwhile, a file has been placed with the director of public prosecutions following a garda (police) probe into the distribution of blatantly racist leaflets in the Dublin area.

Although apparently defunct since a series of attacks on a Jewish butcher's shop in Dublin in 1986, the National Socialist Irish Workers' Party (NSIWP) was suspected of involvement, along with other small fascist groups in 1997, in the distribution of racist and anti-refugee material in Dublin.

Another group that has ceased functioning in Ireland is the neo-Nazi National Alliance, also known as NSRUS, which adopted the motto “No to a Black Ireland.” According to the Sunday Times – Ireland of 27 July 2003, the group quit Ireland because it is not fascist enough. Al Byrne, the New York-based head of the organization, was quoted as saying: “The primary intention of NSRUS was to build a professional activist organization to deliver the message of racial integrity and independence to the residents of Ireland. Tens of thousands of stickers and leaflets were distributed to achieve this modest ambition; however the response was pitiful… The people seem blind to the alien invasion.”

A few groups such as the Irish Hammerskins and Women for Aryan Unity were known to exist in Ireland some years ago but there is no information about current activity.

The British National Party (see UK) is reportedly prepared to offer financial or other assistance to support anti-immigrant groups in Ireland. This fact has been confirmed in relation to the shadowy Dublin-based small, far right Irish People’s Party, as well as to the Immigration Control Platform, which claims to be neither racist nor discriminatory.

Ireland Awake has a white pride website with links to Holocaust revisionist sites, the immigration resistance movement and the Irish nationalist movement, as well as to nationalist white pride music and a listing of “Irish enemies and traitors.”

           

Pro Palestinian, Islamist and Other Groups

Among activist groups identifying with the Palestinian cause is the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), which, inter alia, organizes boycott actions and pickets against Israel and Israeli products, lobbies the Irish government and supports Palestinian refugees in Ireland. The IPSC was set up in late 2001 by a group of established Irish human rights and community activists, academics and journalists in partnership with Palestinians now living in Ireland. They have several branches throughout Ireland.

Activists from the radical Islamist al-Muhajiroun (see UK) opened a branch in Ireland in 2003.

 

antisemitic activity

Background

Incidents of overt antisemitism in Ireland are generally few and far between. However, historically, there have been cases of ‘institutional’ antisemitism and perceived antisemitism. Many Jewish professionals reportedly left the country in the 1950s and 1960s because Ireland’s latent ‘institutional’ antisemitism made it hard for Jewish doctors, for example, to obtain beds in Catholic or state-run hospitals, or to join professional associations and clubs.

One of the most serious incidents of recorded antisemitism in Ireland was in 1904, when a Limerick Redemptorist priest, Father John Creagh, incited the local population against “blood-sucking” Jewish money-lenders. (The Redemptorists are a trans-national Catholic religious congregation whose mission is to spread the Gospel to the poor and most abandoned.) His sermons brought about a two-year trade boycott of Jewish businesses that was accompanied by harassment and beatings and resulted in the almost total departure of the 150-strong Limerick Jewish community. The issue of the Limerick ‘pogrom’ has resurfaced several times since, but in 2003 the Redemptorists in Limerick sought repentance for hurting the Jewish community in the city.

Institutional antisemitism was again evident when attempts to settle Jewish refugees in neutral Ireland before, during and after World War II met with consistent government opposition. When Ireland held its first Holocaust Memorial Day on 26 January 2003 in Dublin City Hall, Justice Minister Michael McDowell apologized for a policy that was inspired by “a culture of muted antisemitism in Ireland,” which discouraged immigration by Europe’s shattered Jews. He said that “at an official level the Irish state was at best coldly polite and behind closed doors antipathetic, hostile and unfeeling toward the Jews.” According to some estimates, only 30 Jews were given asylum before the war, none during it, and only a handful afterwards. It has also never been fully explained why Eamon De Valera, president during World War II when Ireland remained neutral but implicitly backed the Allies, signed the condolence book at the German embassy after Hitler committed suicide.

Some Irish Jews acknowledge that the rise of Irish republicanism in the late 1960s, sparking 30 years of ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland where the IRA (Irish Republican Army) fought to end British rule, had the side-effect of fuelling anti-Jewish feeling, since those who identified with the IRA saw the Palestinians’ struggle for liberty as similar to their own. Today, in certain areas of Northern Ireland, the Protestant and Catholic communities display Israeli and Palestinian flags, respectively, to show with which cause they identify.

In the Republican movement at the turn of the 20th century, Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin (the political wing of the IRA), published antisemitic articles in the nationalist United Irishman. In 1943 Oliver J. Flanagan (Fine Gael), a Dáil (lower chamber) member, proposed to the house to “rout the Jews out of this country.”

Ireland’s Jews are also known in Irish society for their portrayal in James Joyce's book Ulysses, in which the chief character is Leopold Bloom, the Jewish Irishman. The question of Bloom’s loyalty, as an Irishman or as a Jew, is raised in the book.

Francis Stuart (1902–99), an Irish writer and member of Aosdana (an affiliation of creative artists in Ireland), who wrote in one of his books: “The Jew is the worm that got into the rose and sickened it,” received a Saoi (Gaelic for ‘wise one’) award in 1996 (the highest honor the state can give an artist). He was also known for his antisemitic radio broadcasts made during World War II There was some outcry at the award and calls for Stuart's removal from Aosdana.

Gerald Goldberg, who was lord mayor of Cork in 1977, received death threats which he blamed on unbalanced media reporting on the Israeli army's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the death of two Irish peacekeeping soldiers there. As a result he considered leaving Ireland. A synagogue in Cork was fire-bombed at the time. Israel’s relations with Ireland were strained for many years because of the issue of Irish peacekeepers being injured or killed while serving in Lebanon. Protests, appeals and antisemitic comments/abusive phone calls were often received during those years by Jewish community offices.

Since the outbreak of the second intifada and the war in Iraq, listeners have frequently called into radio talk shows with overtly antisemitic or borderline antisemitic remarks. For example, they have commented that the war in Iraq was the result of Jewish influence in the US administration – an opinion that has appeared in certain daily newspapers and in discussion with individuals in the Jewish community.

 

Current Antisemitic Activity

Although many Jews complain of increased apprehension in the community relating primarily to events in the Middle East and Europe, there appears to be no perceptible change in attitudes among the Irish population. Incidents of antisemitism are considered to be few and at a low level, with no evidence of systematic targeting of the Jewish community in Ireland. Indeed, most reports relate to graffiti of an antisemitic nature at Jewish sites and in city streets, to antisemitic undertones or sentiments expressed in the media (such as references to the ‘huge’ influence of the Jewish vote in America), and/or to inappropriate comments in daily life (such as references to ‘the rich Jews’). Additionally, placards showing the Star of David equated with the swastika and the slogan “Zionism=fascism,” references to the ‘Palestinian Holocaust’ and burning of the US and Israeli flags were noted at pro-Palestinian and anti-Iraq war demonstrations.

The Jewish community recorded only two antisemitic incidents in 2003, in the category of abusive behavior (in-your-face, telephone and targeted abusive/antisemitic letters), compared to 12 in 2002 and 2 in 2001. There was one instance of distribution of antisemitic literature, compared to none in the two previous years.

In recent years, there have been a few reported incidents of suspicious activity around Jewish community buildings. Such incidents are reported to and dealt with by An Garda Siochana, (national police).

 

responses to racism and antisemitism

Good relations exist between the local police and representatives of the Jewish community and meetings are held between the Garda Racial & Intercultural Office and Jewish communal leaders

Groups that struggle against fascism and racism in Ireland include the Anti-Fascist Action – Ireland, the Anti Nazi League, the Anti-Nazi Activist and the left-wing Residents against Racism.

The Wiesenthal Center has condemned Ireland for not including a specific reference to antisemitism in a new UN resolution on religious intolerance it submitted in October 2003 to the UN General Assembly Third Committee.