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In Northern Ireland, a Jewish Community Exists — But Struggles to Stay Afloat
Northern Ireland is where Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s father, Chaim Herzog, came from. Despite a deep-rooted Jewish history, however, the community struggles to get a minyan on Shabbat. Community member Neville Finch told me that they have struggled to keep a community alive for the last few decades.
Most visitors going to Belfast want to see Giant’s Causeway, the Titanic museum, or a series of Game of Thrones sites. The Titanic had a kosher kitchen on board, and Gustav Willhem Wolfe, one of the partners in the company that built the ship, had Jewish ancestry.
I was told there are 66 registered Jews at the Orthodox congregation — although one census counts 400 Jews, both down from the thousands that lived there in the mid 20th century. When I visited during a Shabbat service, the community was not able to get a minyan.
Another challenge that the Northern Ireland Jewish community cites is that after Brexit, they have had a hard time receiving kosher food due to red tape and difficulty importing it. Northern Ireland is part of the UK, and separate from the Republic of Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Jewish community moved into their current synagogue building in 1964 as they downsized, and the current rabbi is David Kale. The previous synagogue location — at Annesley Street, off Carlisle Circus — is now in ruin, with graffiti sprawled all over.
Even in the Republic of Ireland to the south, Jewish life has dwindled in recent years, mostly due to emigration to Israel or the UK. Even though there were reportedly Jews in Ireland for at least 1,000 years, the first verified migrations were from Sephardim from Spain and Portugal in the 1500s, and a huge Ashkenazi wave in the 1800s from Germany and later the former Russian Empire. In Dublin, the community has more Lithuanian origins, but in the north, it is more diverse.
Across the north, traces of a Jewish presence can be found. The synagogue in the city of Derry, which had the second largest community, collapsed in 2013 after much disuse. The community had left decades ago. A plaque about the congregation can be found in the Belfast synagogue.
Other visible traces of Jewish presence are the Jaffe Fountain, a tribute to the former Jewish mayor, Otto Jaffe (1899-1900). And not far from Belfast, there is a tribute to the Jewish Holocaust refugee children who came via the Kindertransport program to the Millisle refugee farm.
In Tyrone, I was told that there are two Jews buried in the Catholic cemetery; one, a stillborn female, has a Star of David engraved. Someone had laid flowers on the grave, rather than stones. In the Jewish tradition, people generally leave stones, showing that the dead have not been forgotten.
The town of Lurgan once had a synagogue more than 100 years ago. The building is now a laundry service. The current owners told me that they found a Jewish prayer book while doing renovations a few years ago.
There are other Jewish groups and Israeli students, some of whom may only show up for the holidays. In addition, last October, the community had the first wedding of two Belfast natives in almost 40 years, when Ben Magrill and Rachel Leopold returned from Manchester to conduct their wedding there.
Finch described the Orthodox community as being “small and tightly knit, and doing its best to keep Jewish life alive.” He added, “Northern Ireland will always have a Jewish presence.”
Avi Kumar is a Holocaust historian/journalist from Sri Lanka. He has lived in many countries and speaks 11 languages. He has written about a variety of topics in publications worldwide.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ After Israeli Minister’s Criticism
Pope Francis waves after delivering his traditional Christmas Day Urbi et Orbi speech to the city and the world from the main balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, December 25, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.
Francis opened his annual Christmas address to the Catholic cardinals who lead the Vatican’s various departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza.
“Yesterday, children were bombed,” said the pope. “This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart.”
The pope, as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts, but he has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
In book excerpts published last month, the pontiff said some international experts said that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”
Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli sharply criticized those comments in an unusual open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday. Chikli said the pope’s remarks amounted to a “trivialization” of the term genocide.
Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry.
The patriarch’s office told Reuters it was not able to comment on the pope’s remarks about the patriarch being denied entry.
Israeli officials were not immediately reachable for comment on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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IDF Pledges to Implement Lessons from Failure to Intercept Houthi Missile
Iranian-backed Yemeni terrorist leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – The Israeli military said on Saturday that while the investigation into the failure to intercept the missile that hit Tel Aviv early in the morning was still ongoing, some lessons were already being implemented. The ballistic missile, fired by Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, landed at a playground in a residential area, leading to 16 people sustaining injuries from glass shards.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said that “some of the conclusions have already been implemented, in regards of both interception and early warning.”
The spokesperson added that “no further details regarding aerial defense activities and the alert system can be disclosed due to operational security considerations.”
The Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as “acts of solidarity” with Palestinians in Gaza.
The post IDF Pledges to Implement Lessons from Failure to Intercept Houthi Missile first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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