Ireland's Jewish community

cameramonkey wrote: »

What did he say?

In the early half of the twentieth century, there were roughly 3,700 Jews living in Ireland. This represented about 0.12% of the total population. Though their numbers were minuscule, members of the the Jewish community were disproportionately active in the fight for Irish independence. Melisande Zlotover in his 1966 memoir ‘Zlotover story: A Dublin story with a difference’ assessed the overall situation by writing that Dublin’s Jews “were most sympathetic [to the fight for Independence] and many helped in the cause”.

These included:

Michael Noyk (1884–1966) was born in Lithuanian town of Telšiai and moved to Dublin with his parents at the age of one. An Irish Republican activist and lawyer, he most famously defended republican prisoners during the War of Independence and afterwards. In the 1917 Clare East by-election he was a prominent worker for Eamon de Valera and in the 1918 general election was election agent for Countess Markievicz and Seán T. O’Kelly. He was later involved in renting houses and offices for all the ministries established under the first Dáil. During the War of Independence he regularly met Michael Collins in Devlin’s pub on Parnell Square and helped to run the republican courts. In 1921 he was to the fore in defending many leading members of the IRA, including Gen. Seán Mac Eoin and Capt. Patrick Moran, the latter of which was executed for complicity in the shooting of British intelligence officers.

While Arthur Griffith’s early anti-Semitic comments (c.1904) are frequently recalled, it should be noted that he was an extremely close friend of Noyk’s from 1910 onwards and he remained Griffith’s solicitor until his death in 1922. So close did Griffith’s relationship with Noyk become that his own daughter would act as a flower girl at Noyk’s wedding as Manus O’Riordan reminded us in an excellent 2008 article.

In later years, Noyk became a founder-member of the Association of Old Dublin Brigade (IRA) and a member of the Kilmainham Jail Restoration Committee. Keenly interested in sport, he played soccer in his youth for a team based around Adelaide Road and was for many years the solicitor to Shamrock Rovers. He died on 23 October 1966 at Lewisham Hospital in London. A huge crowd, including the then taoiseach, Seán Lemass, attended his funeral and the surviving members of the Dublin Brigade rendered full IRA military honours at his graveside. He is buried in Dolphin’s Barn cemetery.
Noyk is honoured with portrait. The Irish Times, 06 Apr 1960.

Gerald Yael Goldberg (1912–2003), Cork-born solicitor, politician and writer, retained vivid childhood memories of the War of Independence and Civil War period, including the burning of central Cork by crown forces (during which his family had to leave their home temporarily). He attended the lyings‐in‐state of Tomàs MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney both of whom he always revered. In later life he commissioned portraits of MacCurtain and MacSwiney for the City Hall while he was Lord Mayor. Goldberg also acquired a long-lasting respect for fellow Corkman Michael Collins after hearing him speak at a public meeting.

The Goldbergs moved to Cork after the anti‐Semitic Limerick riots, and subsequent boycott, of 1904, in which Gerald’s father Louis was assaulted. In secondary school, he and his brother got into trouble after they applied to be excused from Armistice Day (as a German pupil was excused) because the British had murdered MacCurtain and MacSwiney. In the 1930s Goldberg established a committee in Cork to help Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution; in later life he spoke bitterly of the refusal of the state to admit such refugees, and recalled how a German Jew who deserted a ship at Cobh was sent back to the concentration camps despite the Cork community’s willingness to assist him. A successful solicitor, he was elected president of the Cork Hebrew Congregation in 1943, and remained the public face of Cork Jewry until his death.

Goldberg was elected to Cork corporation as an independent alderman for the north‐west ward in 1967 but joined Fianna Fáil in 1970, stating that it was impossible for an isolated councillor to achieve anything on the corporation. In 1977, he was elected lord mayor of Cork, the first Jew to hold this office. During his term he researched the history of the civic regalia, including the mayoral chain (he published a pamphlet on its connection with Terence MacSwiney) and the mace (leading him to make a public appeal for the British Museum to return to Cork several former Cork maces it had acquired over the years). In 1982 he openly considered leaving Ireland after he received death threats and after a fire‐bomb attack on the Cork synagogue, which were linked to hostile relations between Irish peacekeeping forces in South Lebanon and Israeli and Israeli‐backed forces. He retired from Cork corporation in 1985. He died, at the age of 91, in Cork, on 31 December 2003, and received a civic funeral on 4 January 2004 to the Cork Jewish graveyard at Curraghkippane. Cork corporation members wore skullcaps in his honour.

Francis Rebecca ‘Fanny’ Goldberg (1893-?) and Molly Goldberg (1896-), sisters of Gerald, were active with Cuman na mBan. Dermot Keogh in his book ‘Jews In Twentieth Century Ireland’ (1998) mentions this fact but unfortunately no further information seems to be available about their activities.

Leon Spiro, who moved to Dublin from Lithuania at the age of two was manager of the Pearl Printing Company in Drury Street. The IRA newspaper An t-Olgach was printer by Spiro during the early 1920s and he employed Oscar Traynor (Commanding Officer of the Dublin I.R.A.) as a compositor. Natalie Wynn in her essay ‘Jews, Antisemitism and Irish Politics : A Tale of Two Narrative’ (2012) suggests that the paper was indeed printed by Leon Spiro but only after he had been “forcibly detained” in his office. This information was gleaned from a unpublished memoir written by Leon’s daughter Jessie Spiro Bloom.

Cohen brothers
George White, member of ‘C’ Company 3rd Battalion Dublin Brigade IRA from 1917 and later Quartermaster Active Service Unit from 1921, recalled in his Witness Statement (no. 956) that a Jewish man by the name of Max Cohen lived in a house that was being used an arms dump at 3 Swifts Row beside Ormond Quay in Dublin city centre. Max “knew all about the dump but said nothing about it” to the authorities. His brother Abraham, who ran an antique shop at 20 Ormond Quay, told White and another IRA member that they could use his shop anytime “as a means of escape”.