A Brief History of Irish/Jewish Relations (With Reference to Current Events)

Larping for Palestine with the students of 

Trinity College Dublin

 

I.

 

I have previously written on the relationship of Irish Republicanism to National Socialism [1].

 

However, in light of the authorities at Trinity College Dublin agreeing to the demands of a hundred or so useful idiots amongst the student body to cut commercial ties with Israel because of the war in Gaza [2] - which, for want a better term, we might describe as a Judenboykott - I thought it might be interesting to take a further (brief) look at the history of Irish/Jewish relations. 

 

 

II. 

 

There have never been many Jews choosing to settle in Ireland. 

 

Nevertheless, the history of Jews on the Emerald Isle can be traced back over a thousand years; the Annals of Inisfallen [3] makes the earliest known reference to them, recording that when, in 1079, five Jews came from overseas bearing gifts they were quickly sent back - so much for the welcoming nature of the Irish (more of a modern than a medieval trait it seems). 

 

Despite this, by the early 13th-century there was a tiny Jewish community in Ireland, based in or near Dublin, though how settled they were (and what rights they had) at this time is uncertain. It's really only in the 16th-century that Jews became accepted into Irish society - though the first synagogue wasn't built until 1660, near Dublin Castle.   

 

During the late 19th-century there was an increase in Jewish immigration to Ireland, but in 1901 they still numbered less than 4,000 (up from around 450 twenty years earler). Again, most of these people resided in the capital where they established schools, shops, and synagogues and became prominent in business, education, and politics.  

 

Officially neutral during the Second World War, the political establishment of Ireland tended to be indifferent to the fate of European Jews, even if overt antisemitism was not widespread in Ireland. The Nazis - always planning ahead - had listed the 4,000 Jews of Ireland for future extermination. 

 

Perhaps not surprisingly, given this indifference - and the fact it had been made very difficult for Jews to gain refugee status in Ireland during and after the War [4] - the native Jewish population saw a significant decrease in numbers in 1948 after the establishment of Israel; many choosing to move there out of ideological and/or religious convictions. 

 

In subsequent decades, more Jews would also emigrate to Israel, the UK, and the US due to the decline of Jewish life in Ireland and for better economic prospects. According to the census of 2022, there are now around 2,200 Jews living in the Irish Republic (over half of whom are in Dublin). 

III.

 

Having said that overt antisemitism isn't (and never has been) a major problem in Ireland, that doesn't mean the Irish are entirely innocent with reference to this ...

 

Indeed, many of  Ireland's key political figures - including the founders of two major parties - were noted for their antisemitic speech and behavior [5] and even now there are delightful political figures including Réada Cronin, Chris Andrews, and Mick Wallace to contend with [6].  

 

And then there's 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 carried what the historian Dermot Keogh termed "radical anti-Jewish articles" [7] - and by which he refers to really shocking stuff, that I really don't wish to reprint (or even discuss) here. 

 

 

IV.

 

In sum: it's not surprising that students at TCD seem to be not merely supportive of Palestine, but actively hostile to Israel; for it's a politico-religious prejudice that pre-dates the current war in Gaza [8], which started, let us remind ourselves, on 7 October 2023, when Hamas and several other terrorist groups launched a coordinated attack on southern Israel, killing over 1,100 people and taking some 250 hostages. 

 

I don't think the students are morally retarded, so much as misguided and naive concerning the dangers of what Foucault terms micro-fascism; of just how easy it is to slip from being pro-Palestinian to pro-Hamas and from being anti-Zionist or anti-Israeli to antisemitic. 

 

Foucault asks: "How does one keep from being fascist, even (especially) when one believes oneself to be a revolutionary militant?" [9]    

 

It's a crucial question and one which all activists indulging in the ugly politics of ethno-religious identity and victimhood should ask themselves: "How do we rid our speech and our acts, our hearts and our pleasures, of fascism?" [10] It's not easy. But I would suggest one might begin by refraining from the following three things:

 

(i) mindlessly chanting slogans and waving flags ... 

 

(ii) cosplaying in keffiyehs ... 

 

(iii) making raised fist gestures for the cameras.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post entitled 'The Shamrock and the Swastika' (16 Feb 2020): click here.   

 

[2] In a statement, the university declared that Trinity College Dublin will "complete a divestment from investments in Israeli companies that have activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and [...] endeavour to divest from investments in other Israeli companies". See the report by Rory Carroll in The Guardian (8 May 2024): click here. 

 

[3] The Annals of Inisfallen are a chronicle of the medieval history of Ireland originally compiled c. 1092, but regularly updated by the monks of Inisfallen Abbey after this. It is housed in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. 

 

[4] In 1948, a Department of Justice official explained that it was the policy to restrict the admission of Jewish aliens, for the reason that any substantial increase in numbers might give rise to antisemitism. 

 

[5] Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Féin, subscribed to all the usual Jewish conspiracy theories, whilst 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.

 

[6] Réada Cronin, a Sinn Féin TD from Kildare North, posted several antisemitic tweets, which included claims that Jews were responsible for European wars and that Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency) was influencing British elections. After she apologised, Sinn Féin took no further action. 

      Chris Andrews, another Sinn Féin TD, liked posts on social media referring to Israelis as "murderous Zionist bastards". 

      Mick Wallace, an MEP, shared links to publications on social media suggesting that Jews control the media and were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. 

 

[7] Dermot Keogh, Jews in twentieth-century Ireland: refugees, anti-semitism and the Holocaust (Cork University Press, 1998), p. 92.

 

[8] See Manfred Gerstenfeld's review of Rory Miller's Ireland and the Palestine Question, 1948-2004, published as 'Ireland: A Country Hostile to Israel', in the Jewish Political Studies Review, Vol. 19, No. 1/2 (Spring 2007), pp. 188-191. The review can be found on JSTOR: click here. I would suggest relations between Ireland and Israel have not got any better during the last twenty years.

 

[9] Michel Foucault, Preface to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. xiil. 

 

[10] Ibid. 

 

 

For a related post to this one, please click here.

 

 

On the Question of Scottish Independence

David Bowie's unexpected and rather pitiful plea that Scotland stay with us - made at the Brit Awards and voiced via Kate Moss - brought a predictably abusive online reaction from nationalists north of the border, informing him, in short, to fuck off back to Mars and keep his nose out of their affairs.

One might of course simply smile at this and say fair enough. But, as a matter of fact, Bowie is entitled to his view and entitled to express his view, as a Brit and as an Englishman (albeit an Englishman in New York and no longer a UK resident). 

Similarly, I feel entitled to both hold and express a view on the issue of Scottish independence, which is to go to a referendum in September, as a Brit and as an Englishman who also happens (not uncommonly) to have had a Scottish grandmother, even if I'm not entitled to a vote in said referendum.

But what is my view? 

Well, until recently, I would have been fully supportive of any movement that sought independence and wished to proliferate cultural difference, thereby countering the political will to oneness. I shared Lawrence's dream of a future democracy of touch that would dissolve all ideal attempts at universalism and put an end to centralized government. 

Like Lawrence, I thought that a vivid recoil into separateness would see the joyful rebirth of many small states in an infinite variety of forms and that this had to be positive and progressive; that war, for example, was born not of difference, but of the denial of otherness and an obsession with making all people think and act and speak the same beneath a single flag.          

But now I'm having to rethink and revise this view in light of recent world events. Suddenly, the idea of encouraging solidarity and defending political union no longer seems so monstrous or mistaken in the face of grotesque and sinister micro-fascist attempts to rekindle old hatreds and divisions based on racial identity, religious sectarianism, and tribal nationalism.   

  

And suddenly the vitriolic remarks aimed at Bowie no longer seem so innocent or amusing ...

Nor, for the record, do I much care for the fact that my Spanish ex-wife, who has lived and worked in Barcelona for almost twenty years, still has to accept being called a guiri on a daily basis by her Catalan friends - as if she were not only a foreigner, but also a Francoist.    

Anti-Oedipus

Blood is thicker than water, so they say. Which is true enough, but why should viscosity and a certain heavy stickiness be privileged over fluidity and sparkle? Why should family bonds be thought of as so much more vital and important than friendships formed?

There is always something suspect about those who fetishize the blood and pride themselves on their genetic inheritance. I would never put siblings before strangers simply on the grounds that I share parental DNA with the former and it seems to me that non-familial connections are the source of real joy in this life.

And so when she said her sister was dearer to her than anyone else, I had to conclude that she was all too human in her incestual primitivism and probably a fascist at heart.