Antisemitism among Irish Christians at ‘Medieval’ levels, say researchers
New survey finds religious narratives play a ‘massive role’ in strong anti-Jewish and anti-Israel trends, with Catholics far less supportive of Israel than Protestants
Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.
Antisemitic attitudes among Christians in Ireland are “disturbing” and “Medieval,” due in large part to entrenched religious beliefs held by the Catholic community, according to a new survey.
Conducted by Professors Motti Inbari of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and Kirill Bumin of Boston University and Metropolitan College, the study’s findings revealed even stronger anti-Jewish sentiments in the Republic of Ireland than they found in their survey of the United Kingdom, published in January, the authors said.
The December 2024 study of 1,014 Christian adults in Ireland found that a third believe Jewish people “still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust. Some 49 percent agreed with the statement “Jews are more loyal to Israel than this country” and 36% said they believe Jews “have too much power in the business world.” About 31% agreed with statements that Jews “don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind,” and that they are hated “because of the way they behave.”
Ireland’s support for Israel is just a third of that in the United States, where the pair have conducted extensive research of Christian communities. Only 11.3% of Irish Christians support Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians, compared to 42.3% of Americans polled last year, the report found. Conversely, 45.6% of Irish respondents support the Palestinian side of the conflict, versus just 11.2% of Americans.
The findings come amid heightened tensions between Ireland and Israel, following Israel’s decision to close its embassy in Ireland in December and Dublin’s joining South Africa at the International Court of Justice in its genocide case against Israel.
Ireland’s Jewish community is small, numbering only about 2,700, a fraction of a percentage point among the country’s population of 5.3 million. About half of the community resides in the capital city of Dublin.
“What struck me is that we have the same percentages of people in both countries who say that they are generally familiar with the conflict, getting the same information from the same media, yet their understanding is fundamentally different,” Bumin told The Times of Israel. “Our study shows that much of this is due to differences in pre-existing theological beliefs, political and social attitudes, and levels of exposure to Jews that drastically vary between the US and Ireland.”
Surprisingly, while greater knowledge about the conflict tends to correlate with higher levels of support for Israel in the US, the opposite was found in Ireland, Bumin said.
A November 2024 report by the education monitoring group IMPACT-se found that textbooks used in Irish schools included profound distortions of the Holocaust, Israel, Judaism, and Jewish history.
“It’s disturbing to see a Western democracy so steeped in prejudice and bias,” Inbari said in a statement. “It’s like we’re living in Medieval times.”
Religious influences are key
Religious narratives play a “massive role” in explaining support for Israel among both Irish, British and American Christians, Bumin said.
In particular, belief in the Abrahamic covenant – God’s biblical promise to the Jewish people – emerged as one of the top predictors of pro-Israel sentiment.
“For people who say they support Israel in all three countries we surveyed, the idea that Israel is important for the fulfillment of biblical prophecies is of major significance,” Bumin said.
Theological differences between Christian denominations play an important role, with Catholics in Ireland almost 80% less likely to support Israel than Protestants, the survey found.
“Even after we control for politics, for various religious beliefs, for demographic factors like race and income, we still find that Catholics in all countries are less supportive of Israel and are more likely to endorse antisemitic tropes than Protestants,” Bumin noted.
The research also identified a significant generational divide, with younger Irish respondents being substantially less supportive of Israel than older generations. Under-30 respondents in Ireland are 87% less likely to support Israel than those 65 or older, according to the report.
A unique phenomenon in Ireland is that many antisemitic attitudes in Ireland appear to originate within churches themselves, Bumin noted. Beliefs such as supersessionism (the idea that God’s covenant with the Jewish people has ended) and blaming Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus are “far more widespread in the Irish community than they are in America,” he said.
Pastors and religious leaders could help fight antisemitism by playing down those aspects of belief while emphasizing the connection between the Abrahamic covenant, Bumin suggested.
In addition to religious beliefs, the data also shows an extremely strong correlation between anti-Zionist sentiments and antisemitic beliefs in Ireland.
“In the US, there is a very vibrant conversation about whether anti-Zionism is antisemitism, whereas here, there isn’t a question that it is one of the most significant predictors of antisemitic attitudes,” Bumin said.
The Irish hold extremely antisemitic views in comparison to other Western countries, Bumin said.
“It’s important to understand the points of reference,” he said. “If you compare Ireland to Iran, Ireland looks great. But when you compare it to other advanced democracies in the Western world, Ireland has a significant problem, and a failure to acknowledge that problem and to understand the interconnectedness of different narratives shaping it allows it to persist.”
The report’s data was analysed across all ages, ethnicities, genders, marital status, income levels, Christian denominations and education backgrounds with a margin of error is 3%. The research was funded by Chosen People Ministries, a Christian organization that tries to evangelize Jews, although it was conducted completely independently, Bumin said.
“We’re very transparent about where the money comes from, and I’m willing to defend the sanctity of our data any day of the week,” he said.
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