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Ireland: Antisemitism Without Jews
A man walks past graffiti reading ‘Victory to Palestine’ after Ireland has announced it will recognize a Palestinian state, in Dublin, Ireland, May 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
When Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s Foreign Minister, recently announced the closure of Israel’s embassy in Ireland because of Ireland’s antisemitic actions and anti-Israel posture, it led to flurry of articles in the press.
The immediate cause of the closure was the decision by the government of Ireland to join South Africa in presenting the case accusing Israel of perpetrating genocide in Gaza. Largely missing from the discussion is that there are almost no Jews in Ireland.
Jews were never very numerous in Ireland, but today they are on the endangered list. The Jewish community in Ireland is declining, numbering only 800 in a population of 5.3 million. The number increases to about 2500 with the addition of Jewish expatriates and temporary residents, mainly Israelis, working in the technology sector.
James Wilson explains that the disappearance of Jews from communities outside Dublin grows further each year. For example, the last synagogue service in Cork was held in 2016. Most of the Belfast Jewish community left during the “troubles,” after the shooting of a member of the community and the kidnapping of another.
Wilson relates how the Chief Rabbi of Ireland once told a joke about three European Jews discussing emigration. One said he would go to America for comfort and security, the second to Israel because it was the land of his ancestors, and the third said he would go to Ireland. Why? Because the Devil would not think of looking for a Jew in Ireland!
The Rabbi’s joke is reminiscent of one told in James Joyce’s Ulysses. At an early point in the novel, Garrett Deasy (a minor character and headmaster of the school where Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s alter ego in the novel, teaches) jokes to Dedalus that Ireland is the only country that has not persecuted the Jews. Why? Because they never let them in.
Leopold Bloom, the novel’s protagonist, is a Jew, sort of. Bloom’s mother was a Catholic, and his father was a Hungarian-Jewish convert to Protestantism. Although baptized at birth, everyone who Bloom interacts with considers him a Jew. Indeed, he admits to being Jewish (and Irish) when challenged by antisemites at Barney Kiernan’s pub.
First published in 1920, Ulysses is a fictional account of one day, June 16, 1904, in the life of Leopold Bloom, as he wanders through Dublin on a journey that loosely follows that of Homer in The Iliad. Examples of antisemitism, including the slanders of ritual murder and global conspiracies, as well references to Zionist projects in Palestine, figure prominently.
Joyce wrote Ulysses when he was living in self-imposed exile in Trieste, then part of Austria-Hungary. Leopold Bloom was a creation based on two Jewish friends of that period, not from Joyces’s earlier Irish background. They were the likely sources of information about Judaism and Zionism.
The Limerick Pogrom (also called the Limerick Boycott), emblematic of the reason for the small number of Jews in Ireland, is not mentioned in Ulysses, although it took place in 1904, the same year as Bloom’s fictional ramble. This pogrom, preceded by antisemitic outbursts in the late 1800s, included violence and intimidation, and led to the exodus of most of the approximately 170 Jews of Limerick; some to other centers in Ireland, many to other countries.
As to the situation for Jews in Ireland today, the outgoing Israeli ambassador, Dana Erlich, noted that she heard concerns about safety from Jewish citizens and Israelis.
In fact, the relatively few Jews in Ireland are not safe. A few weeks ago, a Jewish–American student wearing a Star of David was beaten severely, according toThe Irish Times. The assault took place at a Dublin bar (Flannery’s, 1.5 miles from Barney Keirnan’s pub).
Quite a few Jews left Ireland after October 7, 2023, because of safety concerns, according to Newstalk. One woman, an Israeli, said she does not mention that she is from Israel and avoids speaking Hebrew on her phone in public.
A recent article on antisemitism by Harvard scholar Noah Feldman notes that antisemitism has never been about real Jews as much as the antisemite’s imagination of them. In Ulysses, for example, the antisemite Deasy comments to Dedalus that “the jew merchants are already at their work of destruction” — to which Dedalus replies “ A merchant is one who buys cheap and sells dear … jew or gentile…”
What better example of imagination and reality?
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.
The post Ireland: Antisemitism Without Jews first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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North London Synagogue, Nursery Targeted in Eighth Local Antisemitic Incident in Just Over a Week
Demonstrators against antisemitism in London on Sept. 8, 2025. Photo: Campaign Against Antisemitism
A synagogue and its nursery school in the Golders Green area of north London were targeted in an antisemitic attack on Thursday morning — the eighth such incident locally in just over a week amid a shocking surge of anti-Jewish hate crimes in the area.
The synagogue and Jewish nursery were smeared with excrement in an antisemitic outrage echoing a series of recent incidents targeting the local Jewish community.
“The desecration of another local synagogue and a children’s nursery with excrement is a vile, deliberate, and premeditated act of antisemitism,” Shomrim North West London, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and also serves as a neighborhood watch group, said in a statement.
“This marks the eighth antisemitic incident locally in just over a week, to directly target the local Jewish community,” the statement read. “These repeated attacks have left our community anxious, hurt, and increasingly worried.”
Local law enforcement confirmed they are reviewing CCTV footage and collecting evidence to identify the suspect and bring them to justice.
This latest anti-Jewish hate crime came just days after tens of thousands of people marched through London in a demonstration against antisemitism, amid rising levels of antisemitic incidents across the United Kingdom since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In just over a week, seven Jewish premises in Barnet, the borough in which Golders Green is located, have been targeted in separate antisemitic incidents.
According to the Metropolitan Police, an investigation has been launched into the targeted attacks, all of which involved the use of bodily fluids.
During the incidents, a substance was smeared on four synagogues and a private residence, while a liquid was thrown at a school and over a car in two other attacks.
As the investigation continues, local police said they believe the same suspect is likely responsible for all seven offenses, which are being treated as religiously motivated criminal damage.
No arrests have been made so far, but law enforcement said it is actively engaging with the local Jewish community to provide reassurance and support.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, condemned the recent wave of attacks and called on authorities to take immediate action.
“The extreme defilement of several Jewish locations in and around Golders Green is utterly abhorrent and deeply distressing,” CST said in a statement.
“CST is working closely with police and communal partners to support victims and help identify and apprehend the perpetrator,” it continued.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) also denounced the attacks, calling for urgent measures to protect the Jewish community.
“These repeated incidents are leaving British Jews anxious and vulnerable in their own neighborhoods, not to mention disgusted,” CAA said in a statement.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, the United Kingdom has experienced a surge in antisemitic crimes and anti-Israel sentiment.
Last month, CST published a report showing there were 1,521 antisemitic incidents in the UK from January to June of this year. It marks the second-highest total of incidents ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following the first half of 2024 in which 2,019 antisemitic incidents were recorded.
In total last year, CST recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, the country’s second worst year for antisemitism despite being an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296.
In previous years, the numbers were significantly lower, with 1,662 incidents in 2022 and 2,261 hate crimes in 2021.
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Germany to Hold Off on Recognizing Palestinian State but Will Back UN Resolution for Two-State Solution
German national flag flutters on top of the Reichstag building, that seats the Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, March 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Germany will support a United Nations resolution for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but does not believe the time has come to recognize a Palestinian state, a government spokesman told Reuters on Thursday.
“Germany will support such a resolution which simply describes the status quo in international law,” the spokesman said, adding that Berlin “has always advocated a two-state solution and is asking for that all the time.”
“The chancellor just mentioned two days ago again that Germany does not see that the time has come for the recognition of the Palestinian state,” the spokesman added.
Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and Belgium have all said they will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly later this month, although London said it could hold back if Israel were to take steps to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and commit to a long-term peace process.
The United States strongly opposes any move by its European allies to recognize Palestinian independence.
Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US has told other countries that recognition of a Palestinian state will cause more problems.
Those who see recognition as a largely symbolic gesture point to the negligible presence on the ground and limited influence in the conflict of countries such as China, India, Russia, and many Arab states that have recognized Palestinian independence for decades.
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UN Security Council, With US Support, Condemns Strikes on Qatar
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani attends an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, Sept. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
The United Nations Security Council on Thursday condemned recent strikes on Qatar’s capital Doha, but did not mention Israel in the statement agreed to by all 15 members, including Israel‘s ally the United States.
Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with the attack on Tuesday, escalating its military action in what the United States described as a unilateral attack that does not advance US and Israeli interests.
The United States traditionally shields its ally Israel at the United Nations. US backing for the Security Council statement, which could only be approved by consensus, reflects President Donald Trump’s unhappiness with the attack ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Council members underscored the importance of de-escalation and expressed their solidarity with Qatar. They underlined their support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar,” read the statement, drafted by Britain and France.
The Doha operation was especially sensitive because Qatar has been hosting and mediating negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire in the Gaza war.
“Council members underscored that releasing the hostages, including those killed by Hamas, and ending the war and suffering in Gaza must remain our top priority,” the Security Council statement read.
The Security Council will meet later on Thursday to discuss the Israeli attack at a meeting due to be attended by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani.