With only 2,200 members, including Israelis who had to relocate for professional reasons, Ireland’s Jewish community has a tiny voice.

By Amelie Botbol, JNS

Walking the streets of central Dublin, one can easily spot PLO flags on residential buildings or tokens of support, such as “Free Palestine” T-shirts displayed in storefronts.

There has long been tension in the relationship between Israel and Ireland. This was exacerbated last May, when Dublin joined Spain and Norway in officially recognizing a “sovereign and independent” Palestinian state.

The Irish government announced at the time that “an ambassador of Ireland to the State of Palestine will be appointed along with a full Embassy of Ireland in Ramallah.”

It also threatened that the European Union could seek sanctions against Israel if it did not comply with an International Court of Justice ruling regarding the IDF’s ongoing operation in Rafah.

“For the first time at an E.U. meeting, in a real way, I’ve seen significant discussion on sanctions and ‘what if,’” said Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin.

The ICJ, the principal United Nations judicial arm, located in The Hague, had voted 13-2 to insist that the Jewish state “immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Dublin also supports a European Union probe into “human-rights violations” by Israel during the war against Hamas, and has joined the E.U.’s call to review trade agreements with the Jewish state.

Additionally, there is a growing chorus among Irish political and academic bodies to boycott Israel and local businesses owned by Israelis.

In April, Israel’s Foreign Ministry chastised Simon Harris, Ireland’s new prime minister (or, Taoiseach), who referred to the Gaza war in his inaugural address but failed—in the ministry’s words “forgot”—to mention the more than 100 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas.

Months earlier, in November, Jerusalem summoned the Irish ambassador after “outrageous” remarks by its previous premier, Leo Varadkar, who described a released Israeli hostage as “an innocent child who was lost and has now been found.”

He was referring to nine-year-old Emily Hand, an Israeli with Irish citizenship, who was freed as part of an agreement between Israel and Hamas for a pause in the fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives held in Gaza. Her father, Tom, is an Irish immigrant to Israel.

Maurice Cohen, chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, told JNS last week, “Ireland, in my time growing up, wasn’t pro-Palestinian. The country was very supportive of the Jews at the time of the founding of the state [of Israel.]”

He continued, “The narrative was that the Jews in Israel were surrounded by 300 million Arabs and consequently were the underdog. Ireland has had a history of always being up for the underdog. Quickly, it changed from aligning itself with the Jews and fighting the British, to supporting the Palestinians in their struggle against the ‘occupier.’ That was the messaging switch in the ’70s and that’s the messaging we see throughout the world.”

The Palestinian effort to initiate this switch was embraced both because Irish nationalists aligned themselves with groups in the Middle East and due to the lack of Israeli representation in Dublin.

“There were training sessions for years between the Palestinians and the Irish Republican Army (IRA),” said Cohen. Sinn Fein, a political party with past links to the IRA, remains popular today.

“The Israeli embassy in Ireland only opened approximately 30 years ago for various reasons, mostly because of the Irish government’s effort to appease Arab governments with whom we were doing a lot of trade,” said Cohen.

Following Ireland’s recognition of a Palestinian state, Jerusalem made the decision to recall Israeli Ambassador to Dublin Dana Erlich.

“The Foreign Ministry in Israel acted very childishly. It serves no purpose. The ambassador is better off on the ground having her voice heard than not being here,” said Cohen. “She can do her work, meet with officials, the media or other ambassadors,” he added.

Recalling the ambassador was “done to teach the Irish a lesson,” he continued, but “I can assure you there will be no lesson learned from it.”

With only 2,200 members according to the most recent census, including Israelis who had to relocate for professional reasons, Ireland’s Jewish community has a tiny voice. However, Cohen stressed, officials remain anxious about keeping them protected.

“We have a very close relationship with the police force. We have access to senior politicians. But our concerns are not always heard with regard, for instance, to antisemitism in education,” said Cohen.

“Still, going around wearing a kippah is relatively safe. We had no incidents of physical violence and every single politician I met at the top level said that they won’t stand for that,” he continued.

“They say that the Jewish community here is very valuable and as much a part of Ireland as any race or religion, but then in the same speech criticize the war in Gaza. They just connect the two,” he added.

Sivan Yousef grew up in Israel and moved to Ireland 20 years ago. Together with representatives of the Jewish community, she recently met with Irish Foreign Minister Martin. Yousef, who views Ireland’s recognition of a Palestinian state as a misguided attempt to promote peace, said she was pleasantly surprised during the meeting by how much he seemed to care.

“He sat down and listened to representatives from the Jewish community for two hours. I felt I was speaking to someone who just wanted peace,” she told JNS.

However, she continued, “When Ireland gives 13 million euros to the Palestinian side and when Palestinian flags are flown all over the place, this is not sending a message of peace. This is telling the world that you are being one-sided.”

She explained, “The Irish people didn’t get our story. I don’t think the media covered our side enough. We have lived in a situation where we always have to look over our shoulder. When we go to bring our children to the playground, we have to think twice.”

Still, Yousef said she received a great deal of support from the Irish people following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.

“After Oct. 7, I started getting messages asking me how everybody was doing back home and sending regards,” she said, adding, “When I go to Israel, I have to explain how wonderful Ireland is and how wonderful the people are. The position that the government decided to adopt does not necessarily represent the people who actually approached me and genuinely cared.”

Rifka Lent runs the Chabad house in Dublin with her husband and has lived in Ireland for 24 years.

“I do think Israelis see Ireland as much more antisemitic than it is,” she said. “I don’t know why that is. Maybe they feel Ireland shouldn’t be so anti-Israel and they feel betrayed in some ways,” she added.

“I’m not so happy with the way the Irish government is dealing with it, [but]I also understand that there are fewer Jews than there are Muslims. Politicians do things for the majority. This explains a lot of antisemitism in the world,” she added.

“Walking on the street, it’s unusual for someone to say something because you are identifiably Jewish,” she said. “It’s happened to my husband maybe a couple of times.”

She went on, “The school my son goes to has increased security, but the risk of something happening is pretty low, in my opinion. Israeli parents wanted the increased security.”

Finally, she said, “I don’t know if there is any place in the world that is comfortable for Jewish people to live in right now. Every place has its issues. It feels uncomfortable that the Irish government is so anti-Israel, but I personally don’t feel unsafe; I don’t think the form it takes will translate into violence against Jewish people. This is partly because there is not a big visible Jewish presence. You could walk around Dublin for hours before seeing somebody who looks Jewish. Incidents are more likely to happen in London, Paris or New York.”