Ireland, is this true?

[SR71Blackbird]

Wasn’t sure where to ask this but there’s a piece in the JC about antisemitism in the Irish curriculum. It seems legit but incredulous:

https://www.thejc.com/news/world/jews-are-jesus-killers-and-israel-is-uniquely-aggressive-what-irish-pupils-are-taught-dhqmypgo

Can anyone here verify?

@knitnerd90 what do you mean by "Anglo communities"? Aren't they Jewish as well?

It's just the Israeli term for immigrants from English speaking countries. They frequently cluster.

I should add, yes we're all Jews, but there are cultural differences between different groups. Israel can be very polarized socially. In the case of English speaking Jews, there's no discrimination; people simply cluster because they share a language and to some extent a culture. It doesn't necessarily have political meaning; there are different kinds of English speaking Jews in Israel.

Following up your post (thank you) I see The Jewish Virtual Library does have information about the Jews from Arab countries who migrated to Israel on another page. It relates the history of all the Jews who migrated to Israel from Arab countries starting in 1948 after they were expelled or had to leave.

They write:

Of the 820,000 Jewish refugees [from Arab countries] between 1948 and 1972, more than 200,000 found refuge in Europe and North America while 586,000 were resettled in Israel
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-refugees-from-arab-countries

So presumably some of the later (post 1972) American migrants to Israel may also have originally been from Arab countries or descended from them.

The Arab countries they list, from which the Jews who had lived there were expelled, are
Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen. I had thought Iran too but don’t see that.

Not that this means Americans are a minority group in Israeli as far as I can make out, rather than the second largest group after FSU. Though I can see what you are saying that not all American Israelis live in Israel.

You may be in a far better position to know about the demographics of the present illegal Israeli settlers, but a lot of funding for the settlers is American.

So sorry, I had lost the quote. This is what I was answering.

This article has a graph showing immigration to Israel
https://www.dw.com/en/immigration-to-israel-one-mans-joy-is-another-mans-suffering/a-43769839

The influx of Jewish immigrants from the Arab nations in Asia and Africa into Israel lasted until 1963. There was a mixture of being pushed out by Arab nations increasing antisemtism due to the Arab-Israel war as well as economic inducements such as land, government backed interest free loans for building homes, instant citizenship, and the attraction of going to our ancient homeland to emigrate to Israel.

While some were certainly refugees, others were simply migrants. It depends on the country of origin, and year of migration.

It is worthwhile to mention that the USSR didn’t let anyone emigrate at all until it collapsed in 1991 and that USSR (Russian and Eastern European) is included in the Europe line on the chart.

All very interesting on this thread.

And REASOBNABLE - unusual when discussing Israel.

‘Uprooted’ by Lyn Julius is a fascinating book about the 3000 year history of Jews in the Middle East and North Africa who fled over a 50 year period and experienced huge persecution. That aspect of Jewish history is completely ignored by people who choose to paint the Israeli population as ‘white colonialists’. Over 50% of population of Israel is of black and Middle Eastern descent.

We are all descended from Adam and Eve, whether you take it literally as religious person or metaphorically in the sense of evolutionary biology. We are all originally Africans. We can’t just go pack our bags and build a house in the sun near a beach there though.

Archeological evidence from DNA shows that the population of Ireland is mostly descended from the same people who lived here 10,000 years ago.There are 31 million people of Irish descent in the US. Ireland is their spiritual home- the music, literature , folklore is part of our shared heritage. But there are limits to who can resettle here and a fourth generation Irish American can’t just rock up to and take over a farm from a Protestant whose descendants came with the Ulster Plantations or intimidate a Nigerian Irish family from their home. The rules for citizenship are similar to the US- birthright with some qualifications and citizen parent qualifying grandparent.

The population of Israel was only about 3 million in 1970. Most people want to see Jewish people living safely and enjoying equality of opportunity, self determination and parity of esteem for their Jewish identity. But expansionism hasn’t particularly created a safe homeland for them and it definitely hasn’t been at all safer for the Palestinians who were living there before the other party came (or “came back” after a 2000 year enforced break if you choose to look at it like that.)

Look at this graph- the influx from North Africa had slowed to a trickle by 1970.
The countries represented in orange, light blue and dark blue are safe European countries and the US, not war zones or countries run by Jihadists. These countries were, and probably are still, safer than Israel.

Sorry the link is a bit glitchy. Just go to Wikipedia “Aaliyah” and look at the bar chart.
Both posters are right but from different points of view. Most migration to Israel from Arab states happened before 1970. Many migrants in recent times are from relatively safe places

Of course. But I would never say otherwise. The chart that had been referred to went all the way back before that. (More Iranians did come after 1979 for obvious reasons, though many also went to the USA.)

since the 1970s, though, the countries of the FSU have been by far the largest source of immigrants.

www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/1215/1486609-israel-embassy/

Israel close embassy in Ireland. Who would have thought they would care do much about criticism from a little country on the outskirts of Europe?

Why are they so keen to discredit Ireland's criticism as antisemitism? Is the the Irish/american's that they are worried about. I read somewhere that Irish/americans are more likely to be pro Israel?

Anti Irish sentiment.

Really? Seems a bit simplistic.

Anyway there are no plans to close the Irish embassy in Israel which I approve off.

Michael Martin says: "Ireland and Israel will continue to maintain diplomatic relations. Inherent in that is the right to agree and disagree on fundamental points"

And for once, I throughly agree with him.

Why if it's so simplistic has Israel has not applied similar measures to other countries who also joined the ICJ petition?

It's a very toys out of the pram approach by Israel. I liked the statement by the Tánaiste, very measured and diplomatic.

I've no idea @JaneJeffer . Hence me wondering if it is the Irish/Americans that they are worried about.

Ireland have no real power on a world stage. The comments by our main political parties have been very diplomatic. I can't see why they would be so bothered.

It's because Ireland have no real power on the world stage that they have done it. It's a populist move. A lot Israelis are delighted, they think that we are bothered and this is them giving us the two fingers. It won't actually have any real world effects so there was no reason for Israel not to give people this little 'win' and make them feel important.

Meanwhile the Irish people I was out with today were just laughing about it and the concensus was that it is just Israel staying classy, realistically none of us have any use for the Israeli embassy anyway, the only people they are hurting are their own citizens who might need to use it 🤷🏻‍♀️

Surely if they are worried about Irish/ Americans they wouldn't close the embassy?
The main community that are very upset by this are the Jewish community in Ireland bit of a slap on the face to them.

Mr Cohen said that the closure of the embassy in Ireland is "particularly distressing for the Jewish community in Ireland".
"For these individuals, the closure of the embassy represents not only a symbolic blow but also a practical disadvantage.
"Consular services provided by the embassy are vital for those maintaining connections with family, culture, and heritage in Israel. Losing this resource will leave many feeling unsupported and aggrieved.
"Closing the embassy risks alienating a significant segment of Irish society and sends a message that dialogue is being replaced by disengagement," he said.

It's a populist move
Yes bang on. They have not closed the embassy in South Africa. They view Ireland as insignificant globally with a small Jewish population so it is the equivalent of flexing their muscles. Israel don't do diplomacy.

Very hard on Jewish people in Ireland, unfair on them, especially as they’re a very small community. Seems like the Israeli government doesn’t care?

Indeed. This is only two fingers to the Israeli citizens in Ireland. It doesn’t affect anyone else really. If my embassy closed because of a political reason it’d only affect me and not the British citizens.

they recalled ages ago the ambassador in Spain because they don’t agree about us having recognised Palestine and part of the government criticising the Israeli government.

The lease was running out in their building- the owners were in liquidation. There are only about a thousand Israelis in the country so it was an expensive diplomatic outpost. They would have been hung out to dry with negotiating a new lease and moving would generate controversy because of the security precautions. The deficit in Israel is running at 8.5% of GDP so they had an austerity budget recently-10.5 million USD in cuts and tax increases as they’re finding it harder to borrow due to downgrading by ratings agencies. Not a good time to be looking for a new place in the expensive city of Dublin basically.
Plus there’s an NGO dedicated to promoting Israeli government interests.

Yes just listened to an interview with ambassador where this question on cost was asked. Apparently that's not the reason, but she did acknowledge there will be savings, the reason is due to our extreme views and actions and how we just voice Hamas propaganda which means we are more extreme than Spain, South Africa and Norway (when questioned why these embassies weren't closing). She didn't have much evidence as to why we are more extreme when questioned but they are never big fans of evidencing their allegations

Why is Israel closing it’s embassy in Ireland?

Ireland, realising that the war in Gaza does not constitute a genocide, has applied to the ICJ to change the definition (much like the recent Amnesty report changed the definition to declare the war a genocide).

This is why.

This is the classic definition of antisemitism.

If you have an international definition of what constitutes genocide and seek to change that definition for the Jewish state, that is antisemitism.