History of the Jews in Ireland
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The history of the Jews in Ireland extends for more than a millennium. The
Middle Ages through 16th century
The earliest reference to the Jews in
No further reference is found until the 1169
By 1232, there was probably a Jewish community in Ireland, as a grant of 28 July 1232 by
Jews certainly lived in Ireland long before Oliver Cromwell in 1657 revoked the English Edict of Expulsion. A permanent settlement of Jews was certainly established in the late 15th century. Following their expulsion from Portugal in 1497, some of these Sephardic Jews settled on Ireland's south coast. One of them, William Annyas, was elected mayor of Youghal, County Cork, in 1555. Francis Annyas (Ãnes), was a three-time Mayor of Youghal in 1569, 1576 and 1581.[7]
17th to 19th century
Ireland's first synagogue was founded in 1660 near Dublin Castle. The community acquired a plot of land in 1718[8] that became Ireland's first Jewish cemetery, called Ballybough Cemetery. The cemetery is located in the Fairview district of Dublin, where there was a small Jewish colony.[9]
Emancipation
In December 1714, Irish philosopher John Toland issued a pamphlet entitled Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland.[10][11] In 1746, a bill was introduced in the Irish House of Commons "for naturalising persons professing the Jewish religion in Ireland". This was the first reference to Jews in the House of Commons up to this time. Another was introduced in the following year, agreed to without amendment, and presented to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland William Stanhope, 1st Earl of Harrington to be transmitted to London, though it never received the royal assent. These Irish bills, however, had one crucial result; namely, the formation of the Committee of Diligence, which was organized by British Jews at this time to watch the progress of the measure. This ultimately led to the organization of the Board of Deputies,[12] an important body which has continued in existence to the present time. Jews were expressly excepted from the benefit of the Irish Naturalisation Act of 1783. The exceptions in the Naturalisation Act of 1783 were abolished in 1846. The Irish Marriage Act of 1844 expressly made provision for marriages according to Jewish rites.[citation needed]
Daniel O'Connell is best known for the campaign for Catholic emancipation, but he also supported similar efforts for Jews. In 1846, at his insistence, the law "De Judaismo", prescribing a special dress for Jews, was repealed. O'Connell said: "Ireland has claims on your ancient race, it is the only country that I know of unsullied by any one act of persecution of the Jews". During the Great Famine (1845–1852), in which approximately 1 million Irish people died, many Jews helped to organize and gave generously towards famine relief.[13][14] A Dublin newspaper, commenting in 1850, pointed out that
...contributed during the Irish famine of 1847 ... a sum far beyond the joint contributions of the Devonshires, and Herefords, Lansdownes, Fitzwilliams and Herberts, who annually drew so many times that amount from their Irish estates.[15]
In 1874,
There was an increase in Jewish immigration to Ireland during the late 19th century. In 1871, the Jewish population of Ireland was 258; by 1881, it had risen to 453. Most of the immigration up to this time had come from England or Germany. A group who settled in Waterford were Welsh, whose families originally came from Central Europe.[18]
20th century
In the wake of Russian
The Jewish population of Ireland reached around 5,500 in the 1940s, but according to the 2016 census had declined to about 2,500 in 2016, mainly due to assimilation and emigration, though less than 800 are Irish citizens. The Irish Jewish population saw a large drop in numbers in 1948 after the establishment of Israel; with a large number of Irish Jews moving there out of ideological and religious convictions. In subsequent decades, more Jews would also emigrate to Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States due to the decline of Jewish life in Ireland and for better economic prospects. In addition, rates of intermarriage and assimilation, including conversion to Catholicism in order to marry, were also high.
The Republic of Ireland currently has two synagogues in Dublin, one Orthodox, one reform. There is a further synagogue in Belfast in Northern Ireland. The synagogue in Cork closed in 2016.
Limerick Boycott
The economic boycott waged against the small Jewish community in
The boycott was condemned by many in Ireland, among which was the influential Standish O'Grady in his paper All Ireland Review, depicting Jews and Irish as "brothers in a common struggle", though using language differentiating between the two. The Land Leaguer Michael Davitt (author of The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecutions in Russia), in the Freeman's Journal, attacked those who had participated in the riots and visited homes of Jewish victims in Limerick.[19] His friend, Corkman William O'Brien MP, leader of the United Irish League and editor of the Irish People, had a Jewish wife, Sophie Raffalovic.
Father Creagh was moved by his superiors initially to Belfast and then to an island in the Pacific Ocean. In 1914 he was promoted by the Pope to be Vicar Apostolic of
Since 1983, several commentators have questioned the traditional narrative of the event, and especially whether the event's description as a pogrom is appropriate.[22][23] Historian Dermot Keogh sympathised with the use of the term by the Jews who experienced the event, and respected its use by subsequent writers, but preferred the term "boycott".[24][25] Creagh's anti-Semitic campaign, while virulent, did not result in deaths in Limerick's Jewish community. The 1911 census records that, not only were 13 of the remaining 26 families still resident in Limerick six years later but that 9 new Jewish families had joined them.[26] The Jewish population numbered 122 persons in 1911 as opposed to 171 in 1901. This had declined to just 30 by 1926.
War of Independence
Two Irish Jews supported the
Irish Free State Senate
In an effort to provide minority communities with political representation in parliament (as was the case with minority Christian denominations)
Irish Government
The Irish Constitution of 1937 specifically gave constitutional protection to Jews. This was considered to be a necessary component to the constitution by Éamon de Valera because of the treatment of Jews elsewhere in Europe at the time.[31]
The reference to the Jewish Congregations in the Irish Constitution was removed in 1973 with the Fifth Amendment. The same amendment removed the 'special position' of the Catholic Church, as well as references to the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church, and the Religious Society of Friends.
Kindertransport to Northern Ireland
A committee organized the Kindertransport. About ten thousand unaccompanied children aged between three and seventeen from Germany and Czechoslovakia were permitted entry into the United Kingdom without visas in 1939. Some of these children were sent to Northern Ireland. Many of them were looked after by foster parents but others went to the Millisle Refugee Farm (Magill's Farm, on the Woburn Road) which took refugees from May 1938 until its closure in 1948.[32]
World War II and aftermath
The Irish envoy to Berlin, Charles Bewley, appointed in 1933, became an admirer of Hitler and National Socialism. His reports contained incorrect information on the treatment of Jews in Germany, and he was against allowing Jews to move to Ireland. After being reprimanded by Dublin, he was dismissed in 1939.[33]
The Irish state was officially neutral during
There was some domestic anti-Jewish sentiment during World War II, most notably expressed in a notorious speech to the Dáil in 1943, when newly elected independent TD Oliver J. Flanagan advocated "routing the Jews out of the country".[36] On the other hand, Henning Thomsen, the German chargé d'affaires, officially complained of press commentaries. In February 1939, he protested against the Bishop of Galway who had issued a pastoral letter, along similar lines, accusing Germany of "violence, lying, murder and the condemning of other races and peoples".[37]
There was some official indifference from the political establishment to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust during and after the war. This indifference would later be described by Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell as being "antipathetic, hostile and unfeeling".[38] Dr. Mervyn O'Driscoll of University College Cork reported on the unofficial and official barriers that prevented Jews from finding refuge in Ireland although the barriers have been down ever since:
Although overt anti-Semitism was not typical, the southern Irish were indifferent to the Nazi persecution of the Jews and those fleeing the Third Reich....A successful applicant in 1938 was typically wealthy, middle-aged, or elderly, single from Austria, Roman Catholic and desiring to retire in peace to Ireland and not engage in employment. Only a few Viennese bankers and industrialists met the strict criterion of being Catholic, although possibly of Jewish descent, capable of supporting themselves comfortably without involvement in the economic life of the country.[39]
Two Irish Jews, Ettie Steinberg and her infant son, are known to have been murdered in the Holocaust, which otherwise did not substantially directly affect the Jews actually living in Ireland. (At least 6 Jews from Ireland are known to have been murdered in the Shoah.[40]) The Wannsee Conference listed the 4,000 Jews of Ireland to be among those marked for killing in the Holocaust.
Post-war, Jewish groups had great difficulty in getting refugee status for Jewish children, whereas the
It has always been the policy of the Minister for Justice to restrict the admission of Jewish aliens, for the reason that any substantial increase in our Jewish population might give rise to an anti-Semitic problem.[42]
However, De Valera overruled the Department of Justice and the 150 refugee Jewish children were brought to Ireland in 1948. Earlier, in 1946, 100 Jewish children from Poland were brought to Clonyn Castle in County Westmeath[43] by Solomon Schonfeld.[44] The children were later reunited with their families or started new lives in Israel, the United Kingdom, and United States.[45] In 2000 many of the Clonyn Castle children returned for a reunion. In 1952 he again had to overrule the Department of Justice to admit five Orthodox families who were fleeing the Communists. In 1966, the Dublin Jewish community arranged the planting and dedication of the Éamon de Valera Forest in Israel, near Nazareth, in recognition of his consistent support for Ireland's Jews.[46]
21st century
In 2006,
There is one Orthodox congregation in Dublin and one progressive. Machzikei Hadass shut down in 2022, the last Haredi denomination. There is one Orthodox congregation in Belfast.[48]
In March 2023, a kosher restaurant called Deli 613 opened in Dublin. It is the first fully kosher eatery operating in Ireland since the late 1960s.[49][50]
Irish Jews in sport
Bethel Solomons played rugby union for Wesley College and for Ireland earning 10 caps from 1907 to 1910.[51][52]
The Lithuanian born
Louis Collins Jacobson played cricket for Ireland opening the innings on 12 occasions, and also at club level in Dublin as the opening bat for Clontarf C.C. and earlier, for Carlisle Cricket Club in Kimmage which was made up of members of the Dublin Jewish community.[53]
Dublin Maccabi was a soccer team in Kimmage/Terenure/Rathgar. They played in the Dublin Amateur Leagues; only players who were Jewish played for them. Maccabi played their games in the KCR grounds which opened in the 1950s. They disbanded in 1995 due to dwindling numbers and disputes over fees, and many of their players joined the Parkvale F.C.
For a time Dublin Jewish Chess Club played in the Leinster leagues, in 1936 winning the Ennis Shield being promoted to play in Division 1 Armstrong Cup. An earlier Jewish team had played in the 1908 Armstrong Cup. Riga born Philip Baker(1880-1932) was Irish Chess Champion in 1924, 1927, 1928, and 1929.
There was also a Dublin Jewish Boxing Club, on the south side of the city. It was based for its whole existence of many years, in the basement of the Adelaide Road Synagogue, which was the largest synagogue in the country. Many fine boxers were produced, amongst whom were Sydney Curland, Freddie Rosenfield, Gerry Kostick, Frank and Henry Isaacson, and Zerrick Woolfson. As a boxer, Gerry Kostick represented Ireland at the 1949 Maccabiah Games and the 1953 Maccabiah Games and, representing Trinity College Dublin, won two Universities Athletic Union titles. Kostick also played rugby and football for Carlisle for over ten years, while Woolfson also played cricket for Carlisle C.C. for several years, and, in 1949 for Dublin University, when he bowled a hat-trick in his first match. As reported in the newspapers, he dismissed J.V.Luce, Mick Dargan, and Gerry Quinn with 3 successive balls. They were all very competent, current international players. He also played first division table-tennis for Anglesea T.T.C. as the number 3 player, joining Willie Heron and Ernie Sterne, both international players, on the 1st team.
Enon Gavin played Gaelic football for Roscommon in the 1990s, winning an All Star Award in 1991.[54]
Antisemitism
In politics
Many of Ireland's foundational political figures, including the founders of two of Ireland's three major parties, were noted for their antisemitic speech and behavior.
While taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, a founder of Fianna Fáil and one of Ireland's most significant statesmen, personally called on the representative of the Nazi German government to express his condolences for Hitler's death.[58] George Noble Plunkett, father of Joseph Plunkett and an influential parliamentarian and member of various government cabinets, warned de Valera of the nefarious qualities and influence of Jews, which included claims about Jews' inferior morality, that Jews were responsible for World War I and were trying to destroy the papacy, controlled the press in various countries, published pornography, and were "very troublesome immigrants."[59]
More recently, Réada Cronin, a Sinn Féin TD from Kildare North, was criticized for a number of antisemitic tweets dating back nearly a decade, which included claims that Jews were responsible for European wars, that Adolf Hitler was a "pawn" of the Rothschilds, and that the Mossad was influencing British elections;[60][61] Cronin apologized and received no further disciplinary from Sinn Féin.[62] According to The Jewish Chronicle, Chris Andrews, another Sinn Féin TD, appeared to suggest that Hitler may "not have been too far wrong," and liked social posts referring to Israelis as "murderous Zionist bastards;"[63] Mick Wallace, an MEP who affiliates with The Left in the European Parliament, shared publications on social media that suggested Jews control the media, blamed Israel for the 9/11 attacks and characterized Jewishness as a "tribal sociopathy".[63]
In the Church
Throughout the 20th century, several leading figures in the Catholic Church have promoted antisemitic beliefs and attitudes, and a number of leading Catholic newspapers and journals, including the
On Passion Sunday 1932, John Charles McQuaid, the Primate of Ireland, Archbishop of Dublin, and a major political influence on Irish politics throughout much of the 20th century, delivered an antisemitic sermon to Blackrock College; in it, he denounced Jews on the grounds that "From the first persecutions till the present moment, you will find Jews engaged in practically every movement against Our Divine Lord and His Church. A Jew as a Jew is utterly opposed to Jesus Christ and all the Church means....by Satan we mean not only Lucifer and the fallen Angels, but also those men, Jews and others, who...have chosen Satan for their head."[66] He then went on to assert that the international press and Hollywood were controlled by the "Jew-enemy of our Saviour," that the Great Depression was "the deliberate work of a few Jew financiers," and that this and other schemes were all part of a larger plot to bring the world under the control of the "Jew-controlled League of Nations."[66][67] In May 1949, McQuaid wrote to Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits to threaten the Jewish community in Ireland if the new state of Israel did not address Christian places of worship there to McQuaid's satisfaction; in his report on the matter to the Papal Nuncio, McQuaid asserted the morality of using as a weapon "that which most worries a Jew: the fear of reprisals."[67]
Other noted antisemites in the Catholic Church of Ireland include John Creagh, whose sermons incited the Limerick Boycott, also known as the Limerick Pogrom. In his first sermon, delivered on 11 January 1904, Creagh discussed how the Jews had crucified Jesus Christ and cried out "His blood be upon us and all our children"; invoked the blood libel; said that "after sucking the blood of other nations," the Jews "came to fasten themselves upon us like leeches, and to draw our blood...the question is whether or not we will allow them to fasten themselves still more upon us, until we and our children are the helpless victims of their rapacity;" and concluded "I do not hesitate to say that there is no greater enemies of the Catholic Church than the Jews."[68]
Northern Ireland
The Jews of Northern Ireland have lived primarily in
Belfast rabbinic lineage
The first minister of the congregation was
The Belfast Hebrew Congregation
In the 17th century, Jews reportedly lived in
Due to the influx of Russian and Polish Jews near the turn of the century, the Jewish community set up a board of guardians in 1893, a Hebrew ladies' foreign benevolent society in 1896, and a Hebrew national school in 1898 to educate their children.[74] For a short time, there was a second Jewish synagogue, the Regent Street Congregation.[75]
During
In 1901 the Jewish population was reported to be 763 people.[70] In 1929, records show that 519 Jews had emigrated from Northern Ireland to the United States.[77] In 1967, the population was estimated at 1,350; by 2004 this number had fallen to 130. It is now estimated to be around 70 to 80. The current membership of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation is believed to be as low as 80.[70]
Well known Belfast Jews include: Ronald Appleton, crown prosecutor during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, who was elected President of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation and served in that post until he retired in 2008; Belfast actors Harold Goldblatt and Harry Towb; pioneer of modern dance in Northern Ireland Helen Lewis; and jazz commentator Solly Lipschitz.
Demographics
According to the 2016 Irish census, Ireland had 2,557 Jews by religion in 2016, of whom 1,439 (56%) lived in its capital, Dublin.[78] This number declined to 2,193 at the time of the 2022 Irish Census.[79]
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Mythical history of the Jews in Ireland
See also
- List of Irish Jews
- Little Jerusalem, Portobello for an account of Little Jerusalem.
- Chief Rabbis of Ireland
- Ireland-Israel relations
- Jews escaping from Nazi Europe to Britain
- Lebor Gabála Érenn
References
Sources
- Benson, Asher (2007). Jewish Dublin. Portraits of Life by the Liffey. Dublin: A&A Farnar. ISBN 978-1906353001.
- Keogh, Dermot (1998). Jews in Twentieth-century Ireland. Cork: Cork University Press. ISBN 978-1-85918-150-8.
Citations
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- ^ Keogh (1998), p. 26
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- ^ In Search of Ireland's Heroes Carmel McCaffrey
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The Irish Authority have extended every facility
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{{cite book}}
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