Belfast's Jewish Community: BBC Documentary

MakeEmLaugh

Did anyone see True North: The Last Minyan on BBC a week or so ago? It was about Belfast's ever-dwindling Jewish community, and very interesting.

I wish RTÉ would commission an equivalent documentary about Dublin's underrepresented Jewish community.

Snickers Man

Under represented? What kind of talk is that???


Given its numbers the Irish, in particular Dublin, Jewish community must be one of the most prodigious anywhere. In the 20th century they produced two lord mayors of Dublin, one lord mayor of Cork, four TDs, several chairmen of the stock exchange, at least one rugby international and a president of Israel!!!

At one stage there were three Jewish TDs in the Dail at the same time. If the entire Irish Jewish community lived in one electoral constituency, which they don't, and if they all voted for the same party, which judging by the allegiances of those three TDs, (one each for FF, FG and Labour) we can assume they don't, even then the Jewish community would not have enough votes to have ONE TD elected. Let alone three.

They are not under represented. Quite the contrary.

In fact, since FF dropped its policy of abstention in the late 1920s and started taking its seats there has only been one Dail which did NOT have any Jewish TDs. That was in the early noughties when Noonan was leader of Fine Gael and they got wiped out at the polls. Alan Shatter lost his seat, leaving the Dail Judenrein for the only time since 1928.

Mind you when Minister Shatter next presents himself to the country for election, I think his removal from the Oireachtas may be more permanent.

Wibbs

Snickers Man wrote: »

one lord mayor of Cork

Two if we go back further. If memory serves there was also a Jewish lad elected to the post in the 16th century?

As you said considering the tiny size of the Irish Jewish community, their impact is massively out of proportion to their number. To gather it all into a book would make for a thick volume.

The Irish Jewish influence even extends to the world of fiction. When Joyce came to write Ulysses, his ode to Dublin, he chose as it's hero a Dublin Jew.

Snickers Man

I'm also leaving out a Mayor of Belfast, and from the 20th century too.

My bad

Wibbs

Hmmm a Unionist Jew. For balance we have Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, AKA the "Sinn Fein Rabbi". Fluent Irish speaker with it. Seriously clever man. Chief Rabbi of Ireland, then chief Rabbi of the nascent state of Israel. And one of his sons became the above mentioned President of Israel.

Snickers Man

Rabbi Herzog's son, Chaim, who became president of Israel, has some interesting insights in his memoirs about the standing of the Jewish community in the early years of the Free State.

He pointed out that the leaders of the Jewish community, in the South at any rate, tended to be generally sympathetic to the nationalist cause and thereby refused to be suborned as a frightened minority into doing the dirty work of the colonial power. This of course is a standard entry in the playbook of any country seeking to dominate another: get the local community, or at least a recognisable section of it, on your side and make them dependent on your presence. That way you have them at your service.

Herzog senior was friendly with De Valera and other leaders. The Briscoes were also involved in the procurement of arms for the Volunteers (on the tenuous grounds that their knowledge of Yiddish gave them access to German arms dealers!) and perhaps most significantly Michael Noyek was a leading lawyer for Sinn Fein and one of those most responsible for the establishment of the Sinn Fein courts which operated independently of the British regime's legal apparatus during the war of independence.

Which, if you think about the status of Jews in the Russian Empire, into which Noyek was born, was a very Jewish thing!

The consequence of the Jewish contribution to independence gave the community, according to Herzog, a standing and respect that counterbalanced any nasty antiSemitism that might be expected from a predominantly Catholic country. Especially during the 1930s when fascism was a popular ideology in Europe and some Irish people became influenced, however slightly, by its slogans and viewpoints.

Antisemitism never really caught on in Ireland, however, if only because there were too few Semites to give it even the semblance of credibility. Though it didn't stop the likes of Oliver J Flanagan having a go.


Incidentally, Michael Noyek, who was given a military funeral by the Irish State when he died in the 1960s, was a great uncle of Conservative shock jock Mark Steyn in the US. Goes to show there is little ideological purity between generations.

riffmongous

Has there been any tv programs/documentaries about the jewish community though? I'd like to see TG4 making one if there ever was.

Wibbs

RTE's Nationwide* recently enough had a programme dedicated to the Jewish community in Dublin. Hera ya go.







*for all it's accusations of being twee and old fashioned, Nationwide regularly tackles subjects like art, crafts and local culture you'll rarely see anywhere else on Irish TV.

Wibbs

Snickers Man wrote: »

Antisemitism never really caught on in Ireland, however, if only because there were too few Semites to give it even the semblance of credibility. Though it didn't stop the likes of Oliver J Flanagan having a go.

True. Even the Limerick pogrom was an outlier and many of those fleeing it ended up staying in Cork because the locals opened their doors to them. The fact a Jew was elected to the office of Mayor of a fairly major port like Youghal I would suspect was unusual in the wider European context of the 16th century. Politics would seem too public an area for a people who had much good reason to stay private. Later on when O'Connell was seeking emancipation for Catholics, Jews were included in that and he had many meetings with both Irish and British Jews to move that along.

I find it ironic that nowadays when Israeli Jews might look across Europe and think of the nations that would be their bigger detractors Ireland would be high on that list. Though I'd reckon that feeling here where present has many mothers, both in recent history and more ancient and little enough to do with Jewish people themselves.

Benny_Cake

riffmongous wrote: »

Has there been any tv programs/documentaries about the jewish community though? I'd like to see TG4 making one if there ever was.

In addition to the Nationwide episode linked to by Wibbs above, there was a documentary called "Shalom Ireland" which aired on RTE 10 years ago. Not sure if it'll ever be repeated.

Radio 1 had a documentary about Stuart Rosenblatt, a genealogist who probably knows more than anyone about the Irish Jewish community - worth a listen and you can download it here.

riffmongous

I was just having a look for some exit polls on the Israeli election today and I saw an article (which was locked unfortunately, anyone have a subscription?) about the current opposition leader Isaac Herzog, who is the grandson of Rabbi Herzog, I didnt realise it until now

Jellybaby1

You might find this interesting:

http://comeheretome.com/?s=jewish+community