Ireland’s anti-Israel stance has Jews on edge: ‘We feel unheard and unseen’

‘Nuanced antisemitism’ has upended pre-Oct. 7 sense of security, says community leader: ‘Demonization of Israel gets to our core’; many said thinking for first time of leaving

By AFP and ToI Staff 13 February 2025, 7:38 pm Edit
Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters march in Dublin, Ireland, January 13, 2024. (Screen capture: X/Fergal O'Brien, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters march in Dublin, Ireland, January 13, 2024. (Screen capture: X/Fergal O'Brien, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

DUBLIN, Ireland — Ireland’s tiny Jewish community fears that growing hostility to Israel since the start of the Gaza war is leading to an increase in antisemitism. Some Irish Jews wonder how long their community will last.

Ireland, a member of the European Union, has harshly criticized the war, which was sparked when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages. Amid the war, attacks on Jews have spiked worldwide.

In Dublin, posters sympathizing with the hostages were quickly defaced. Meanwhile, polls showed the Irish siding decisively with the Palestinians and against Israel.

A survey in June by Irish news site The Journal found that 76 percent of Irish people believed the EU should impose economic trade sanctions on Israel over the conflict.

Protesters at rallies in Dublin told AFP they feel empathy with Palestinians due to Ireland’s centuries-long resistance to British rule.

“Ireland has also suffered… repression,” one marcher, 27-year-old Eoin Ross, told AFP shortly after the Gaza war began.

Online abuse

Although incidents of violence remain very low, “we’ve seen a lot of upsetting graffiti, things like ‘kill Jews’ or ‘Zionists out of Ireland,’ and horrific antisemitism online,” Ireland’s chief rabbi Yoni Wieder told AFP.

Speaking at his Dublin synagogue, he said that “at the rallies, you’ll also see people parading with Hamas and Hezbollah flags, but nothing is said about that.”

Among Ireland’s small community of about 3,000 Jews are families who laid down roots here as far back as the late 1800s.

Before the Hamas attack, “the amount of antisemitism was very, very low,” said Maurice Cohen, who leads the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland (JRCI).

“The community felt really, really safe.”

Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder speaks at a memorial ceremony marking the one year since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, October 7, 2024. (Collins Photos)

But the fraught Irish-Israeli relationship in recent months has strained nerves.

In May, Dublin joined several other European countries in recognizing a “sovereign and independent” Palestinian state, infuriating Jerusalem.

Ireland then joined South Africa’s International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza — charges angrily denied by Israel.

In December, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar ordered the closure of the Israeli embassy in Dublin, blaming Ireland’s “extreme anti-Israel policies.”

Ireland’s then-Prime Minister Simon Harris replied that his country is “pro-human rights and pro-international law.”

The countries’ rift deepened last month when Irish President Michal Higgins, in a Holocaust Memorial Day speech, railed against the “horrific loss of life in Gaza.”

Some Irish Jews had already expressed unease about Higgins’s planned participation. After the 83-year-old’s comments, Sa’ar lashed out, calling  him “despicable” and accused him of choosing to “echo Hamas propaganda.”

When Higgins mentioned Gaza, several audience members turned their backs in protest. One of them, Lior Tibet, a tutor at University College Dublin, was dragged from the venue.

“Being physically removed from a Holocaust memorial event was shocking for me as a Jewish person,” she told AFP.

“In other countries, you listen to a minority, but Ireland doesn’t listen to us at all, we feel unheard and unseen,” she added.

‘Antisemitic tropes’

According to the Irish Network Against Racism, Ireland has seen only one explicitly antisemitic incident since the war in Gaza began: A pub bouncer who made discriminatory remarks against a Jewish customer.

But INAR head Shane O’Curry told AFP that “under-reporting” by the Jewish community is likely.

In a statement to AFP, the Irish government said it “condemns racism and antisemitism in all its forms.”

But it acknowledged “concerns about rising instances of antisemitism here, with online antisemitism being a particular problem.”

Ireland’s then-Prime Minister Simon Harris (C), flanked by Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs Michel Martin (R) and Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan (L), announces his country’s intent to recognize Palestinian statehood at the Government buildings in Dublin, Ireland, May 22, 2024. (Paul Faith / AFP)

In an art gallery he runs in Dublin, Oliver Sears, 58, said political rhetoric had to be dialed down, urgently.

“It doesn’t take much. Somehow, one attack historically leads to another,” he said.

Sears, son of a Polish-born Holocaust survivor, had moved from London to Ireland in 1986 and later set up an advocacy group, “Holocaust Awareness Ireland.”

Though not Israeli, he told AFP that the closure of Israel’s embassy had been a psychological blow.

Sears had “always had a sense that if they have an embassy here, it can’t be that bad,” he said. But now, many Jews in Ireland are “for the first time ever, thinking about where to go, just in case.”

Cohen, the Jewish Representative Council head, refuted claims by some in Israel that Ireland is a world leader in antisemitism.

“There is a nuanced antisemitism rather, one that is not understood by Irish people,” he said. “Demonization of Israel gets to our core.”

Most Popular
read more: