We need to be far more alert to anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is on the rise. It is hard to believe that within living memory of the Holocaust this should be happening, but it is. The latest and most extreme example in a Western country in the last few years took place on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, shortly before Christmas, when 15 Jewish people were murdered by gunmen and 29 others were injured.

The incident forces us to look at the reality of anti-Semitism, what it is, how it arises, and whether it is growing in this country.

But first let’s discuss what is happening in Australia a little more closely. In much of the coverage of the massacre there was a great reluctance, a refusal even, to discuss the identity of the attackers. This is almost certainly because they belong to Australia’s growing Muslim population, and in much of the West these days, there seems to be a greater desire to stop the spread of Islamophobia (which undoubtedly exists, and is getting worse), than there is to fight anti-Semitism.

But the well-intentioned wish to counter Islamophobia should not cause us to underestimate Muslim extremism and the existence of strong anti-Semitism among some Muslims. If we do underestimate it, then we not properly countering anti-Semitism and attacks like the one in Sydney become more likely.

We should not forget that only a few weeks ago there was a violent attack by a Muslim on a synagogue in England.

Austrailia

In Australia, there are now over 800,000 Muslims, with about 350,000 of those living in Sydney, making up about 6.5% of the city’s population. They often live in the western suburbs of Sydney where they form a strong voting bloc.

It obviously needs to be pointed out that the vast majority of Muslims living in Australia are peaceful and do not support extremists. Nonetheless the extremists are there, and anti-Semitism among some in the Muslim community is real.

We saw this as early as two days after the Hamas massacres in Israel in October 2023, when about a 1,000 mainly Australian Muslims gathered outside Sydney Opera House to protest against the fact that the Israeli flag had been projected onto the building. Some of the demonstrators were celebrating what Hamas had done, and some chanted ‘f*ck the Jews”.

Australia currently has a Labour party government, and so does Sydney. Labour courts the Muslim vote, and in Sydney this vote outnumbers the Jewish vote by around seven to one.

Labour also courts the hard-left, which is extremely anti-Israeli. This has led to criticism from Australia’s Jewish community that the Labour Government does not do enough to counter anti-Semitism, for fear of losing votes on the left and among Muslims.

This is not to conflate being anti-Israeli with being anti-Semitic, by the way. These are two separate things (although they can overlap). However, when people chant “f*ck the Jews”, and gunmen kill or wound dozens of people because they are Jewish, no-one can deny this is anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism is not simply direct hatred of the Jews or a willingness to discriminate against them. It can also involve stereotyping”

The reason so many Jewish people were gathered on Bondi Beach (a placed beloved of many Irish backpackers) is because the Jewish feast of Hannukah had begun and they were there to celebrate it in the Australian sunshine.

Does anti-Semitism exist in Ireland? Yes, is the short answer. You can see it on social media for example, where all the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes are regularly trotted out.

I think the vast majority of Irish people are not anti-Semitic, even though most have become anti-Israeli and understandably feel revulsion towards Israel’s very bloody campaign in Gaza.

But anti-Semitism is not simply direct hatred of the Jews or a willingness to discriminate against them. It can also involve stereotyping. For example, by considering the Jews to be ‘money-hungry’ or conspiratorial.

I was in Budapest recently on a city break with my wife and we visited the Dohany Street synagogue which is the second biggest in the world. (I had never even heard of it).

Adjoining it was a Jewish museum telling the story of the Jewish people in Hungary. The big majority of them were killed during the Holocaust. One reason they were targeted is because many were very successful. Even though they made up only 5% of Hungary’s pre-war population, they made up about half of people in the professions.

Target

That made them a big target. Conspiracies about them abounded. But the reason they were so successful is because they valued education so highly. The proper response of the resentful was not to discriminate against them, never mind kill them, but to become as well educated.

Anyone who starts to resent the Jewish presence in certain walks of life, and begins to spin conspiracy theories about them, is flirting extremely dangerously with anti-Semitism and has probably become an anti-Semite without even being necessarily aware of the fact.

There are several examples of Irish politicians (I can think of one in Fianna Fail, one in Sinn Fein and one in Fine Gael) who have warned against the influence of Jewish money or the Jewish lobby thereby playing into anti-Semitic tropes.

We rarely hear people getting similarly worried about the influence of ‘Arab money’ on politics, or thinking there is something ‘conspiratorial’ about the influence of the Irish-American lobby in Washington DC.

Ireland’s Jewish community is tiny, numbering only 2,500 people or so. At its peak a few decades ago, it was about twice this size.

Its main synagogue in Dublin is now often under constant guard. If the Jewish community hold an event, invited guests are not told where it will be until hours before it takes place for security reasons.

Yoni Weider, Ireland’s Chief Rabbi, and the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, both report that hostility towards the Jewish community is on the rise.

A violent attack on the Jewish community here cannot be ruled out”

Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not the same, but blanket condemnations of ‘Zionism’ can be far too crude and all-embracing. Strictly speaking, Zionism is simply Jewish nationalism, that is, the wish for a Jewish homeland. Extreme anti-Zionism can easily create the conditions for anti-Semitism and politicians need to counter this.

Herzog

When Irish Jews see the campaign to rename Herzog Park in Dublin, because it is named after Chaim Herzog, who was born in Ireland, became president of Israel and was involved in the foundation of Israel, the Jewish State, they begin to feel very unwelcome here.

A violent attack on the Jewish community here cannot be ruled out. A chaplain outside Galway army barracks was stabbed and nearly killed last year by a teenager who had been radicalised online by Islamic State. If a priest can be attacked by someone with this motivation, a member of our Jewish community most certainly can be also.

We need to be more aware of the existence of anti-Semitism and learn to recognise it when we see it. It is out there and it is getting worse. We cannot be one bit complacent.