Opinion
Is Ireland the most antisemitic country in the West?
The shameful manhandling of a Jewish woman at a Holocaust Memorial Day event is just Dublin’s latest disgrace
January 27, 2025 16:09
3 min read
The shameful manhandling of a Jewish woman at a Holocaust Memorial Day event is just Dublin’s latest disgrace
January 27, 2025 16:09Is Ireland the most antisemitic country in the Western world? In an apparent bid to clinch that shameful title, its president, Michael Higgins – who was recently branded an “antisemitic liar” by Israel’s foreign minister – was invited to deliver the keynote address at the National Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration.
Understandably, Ireland’s chief rabbi and the chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland both objected in the strongest terms. They were ignored; at the event on the weekend, Higgins entirely predictably brought the most solemn event of the Jewish calendar into woeful disrepute by bringing up the Gaza war.
This was the cue for a handful of Jewish and Israeli attendees to turn their backs in protest. One of them, Lior Tibet, a PhD student who teaches the Holocaust as part of courses on Nazi Germany and modern European History, was dragged out by security officers, resisting desperately in a state of shock.
It could not have been more appalling. An event commemorating the Shoah – the Shoah – was interrupted by the forcible ejection of a Jewish historian because she objected to a speech by a man who was accused of “spewing lies” after alleging that Israel would like “to have a settlement in Egypt”. Most bafflingly of all, it did not seem to occur to the security men that manhandling a Jew at a Holocaust event would ring certain ironical bells.
Ireland’s antisemitic tendencies entered the news most prominently in December when Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, ordered the closure of the Israeli embassy in Ireland. The reason, he said, was Dublin’s “antisemitic actions and rhetoric” after it joined South Africa’s “genocide” case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Sa’ar also accused teoiseach Simon Harris of being an antisemite after the Irish premier said the embassy closure was to distract from the killing of children in Gaza.
This was the first time in ten years that the Israeli ambassador was not invited to speak at the Holocaust Memorial event. Although the embassy was closed last year, Dana Erlich officially remains the ambassador despite being recalled in May. She both could have and should have been there.
Whether the fraught relationship between the Irish government and Israel reflects a groundswell of antisemitism in the country or has stimulated it is a matter of debate. But in December, Rabbi Wieder said that many of the 3,000 Jews in the country no longer felt safe to wear signs of their identity openly, such as Stars of David or kippot.
There have also been instances of swastika and “kill Jews” graffiti, as well as a violent attack on a Jewish student in a nightclub. In November, the JC reported that the Celtic Marine Bar in Bundoran, a picturesque town on Ireland’s Atlantic coast, had put up a sign saying, “all Zionists are barred”.
An outlier? Hardly. The publican, Aaron Nealis, bragged to this newspaper that the ban was bringing in “loads of business” and that the locals “love it”. If any supporter of Israel tried to buy a pint of Guinness in his establishment, he added, he would “put them out”. Last year, an Ireland Thinks poll showed that 67 of the Irish public sympathised with the Palestinians and only 7 per cent sided with Israel.
Jews are not universally hated on the island of Ireland. North of the border, the Unionists in particular are known for their pro-Israel stance. Indeed, in a forthcoming interview, Jim Shannon, an MP for the Democratic Unionist Party, tells the JC that he “understood only too well” why Israel decided to close its embassy in the Republic, saying that he had written to the taoisach to express concern over his anti-Israel stance.
Shannon – who has visited the kibbutzim that were attacked on October 7 – even suggests that Israel open a consulate in Belfast to ensure that continued contact is possible for those Irish who are not antisemitic. “People could travel there and engage directly with the Israeli government, at least for visas and other things included in embassy duties,” he says.
When it comes to the benighted Irish Republic, however, perhaps the only recent ray of light came during the heavily politicised Eurovision song contest last year, which saw Israel’s entrant, Eden Golan, subjected to intense antisemitic abuse. Although Ireland’s jury vote assigned the Jewish state nul points, the vote from the Irish public gave it ten.
Commentators tied themselves in knots trying to explain it away, reaching for everything from “diffuse options” – meaning that the anti-Israel protest vote was dispersed across the other countries while the pro-Israel vote, though smaller in number, had only one country to support – to voter apathy, which may have allowed Israel supporters to cast multiple votes and skew the results.
They might very well have a point. If that is the best Ireland can do in demonstrating it is not antisemitic, this most disgraceful competition may have a winner.