Amid anti-Israel hostility, Irish Jews say antisemitism is now rooted in public schools
As already critical atmosphere intensifies since the Oct. 7 massacre, new report reveals unwelcoming classrooms and skewed lessons on Jews that the government is slow to address
Dublin resident Justine Zapin’s two sons, ages 8 and 10, arrived at their public elementary school earlier this month to find Irish lawmaker Chris Andrews outside handing out “Free Palestine” bracelets to pupils.
The bracelets caused discomfort for the brothers and some of their Israeli classmates. When they asked a third classmate if he would be willing to remove his, he became upset and reported them to the teacher. The 8-year-old later said he “felt like he got in trouble” with his teacher for expressing his unease, while his older sibling faced peers questioning his objection with remarks like, “But Israel started the war,” and “Israel’s killing babies.”
After the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023, a classroom discussion implied that “the Jews deserved this,” Zapin said, with objections receiving minimal response from school officials.
Some 1,200 men, women, and children were slaughtered in the full-scale invasion of southern Israel, and 251 were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.
More recently, the school — part of the Educate Together network, which, according to its website promotes equality-based and inclusive education — dismissed a pupil’s Nazi salute as “boys being boys.”
“There is clearly a culture in the school that is permissive, if not welcoming, to these sort of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish narratives,” Zapin said.
Zapin’s sons’ experiences dovetail with the release of a report this month by education monitoring group IMPACT-se, which exposed profound distortions of the Holocaust, Israel, Judaism, and Jewish history in Irish textbooks.
In one example highlighted in the report, a religious studies textbook cited Islam as being “in favor of peace and against violence,” while Judaism “believes violence and war are sometimes necessary to promote justice.” The New Testament parable of the “Good Samaritan” is illustrated with an image of a boy wearing a Palestinian scarf protesting against Israel.
A history textbook refers to Auschwitz — the Nazi concentration camp in Poland where over 1 million Jews were murdered — as a “prisoner of war camp.”
In a children’s textbook retelling the story of Jesus, a comic strip contains the line, “Some people did not like Jesus,” with disapproving figures depicted in distinctly Jewish attire, including tallits and kippahs. In another instance, Jesus is described as having lived in “Palestine.”
“Misrepresentations of historical facts can perpetuate narratives that challenge Israel’s legitimacy and foster political agendas against the state of Israel,” the report said.
IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff said in a statement issued with the report’s release that the Irish curriculum “views Jews and Judaism as a lesser part of Ireland’s social fabric,” and that growing hostility towards Jews and Israelis in Ireland should therefore “come as no surprise.”
People of the textbooks
On November 7, the Irish parliament passed a non-binding motion conceding that “genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes by Israel in Gaza,” with Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin saying that Ireland further intends to join South Africa’s case against Israel for genocide at the International Court of Justice before the end of the year.
Ireland is one of eight EU countries where IMPACT-se is analyzing textbooks, Sheff told The Times of Israel.
“Clearly there is a problem in Europe,” he said. “Textbooks play a unique role in society, they create the societies of the future and are capable of acting as barriers to radicalization, which young people might be receiving from other elements, from parents, from media, and from social media.”
Responding to the report, Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder said that while some of the inaccuracies relating to Judaism and Jewish history could be chalked up to “sloppy research and a lack of familiarity,” those concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were likely intentional.
“It’s hard to understate the extent to which Israel features in Irish public discourse,” Wieder said. “For over a year, politicians and the mainstream media have demonized Israel on a near daily basis.”
“The IDF is routinely portrayed as intentionally targeting children and civilians. No mention is ever made of the lengths it goes to protect innocent lives. Rarely is there any talk of the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, or the threat they pose to Israel and to their own people,” he said.
Weider cited Dublin City Councilor Punam Rane, who, in an October 7 meeting coinciding with the first anniversary of the Hamas onslaught, claimed that “the entire US economy is ruled by the Jews, by Israel.”
Irish Jews report feeling much more isolated, Wieder noted, with many voicing a “fear of speaking out.” The rise in “inflammatory rhetoric has created a context in which antisemitism can thrive,” he said, but cautioned against “overstating the extent of antisemitism.”
Some Jews “feel very frightened and frequently think about what could happen to them or their families, while others feel safe and don’t see any major cause for concern,” he added.
The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, the main body of representation for the Irish Jewish community, told the London-based Jewish Chronicle that young Jews felt “under siege” in the classroom, forcing a number of them to change schools due to antisemitism. JRCI chair Maurice Cohen said his efforts to discuss concerns with Irish Education Minister Norma Foley were repeatedly denied. Her department told the newspaper, “There is no evidence of antisemitism being taught in Irish schools.”
Zapin, who moved to Dublin from the US several years ago to pursue a PhD, is now considering which country to move to next, despite having been “very, very happy” in Ireland until October 7. Meanwhile, she is working on transferring her children to Dublin’s Jewish school.
“It comes down to how we want our children to learn, what we want them to learn and how we can keep them and us safe,” she said.
