Chai Brady
Following a huge increase in anti-Semitic attacks in France and Britain’s Labour Party embroilment in anti-Semitism, Ireland’s Jewish community are “horrified” but relieved this is not the case here, but warn criticism of Israel can shadow or morph into racism.
A February government report in France revealed a 74% rise in anti-Semitic incidents, increasing from 311 in 2017 to 541 in 2018. The report sparked tens of thousands of people to march in protest last week in the country. This comes as the ninth member of the Labour Party in Britain quit this week over the party’s failure to handle anti-Semitism.
Chairperson of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, Maurice Cohen, told The Irish Catholic: “We are horrified at the upsurge in the anti-Semitism reports coming out of France and the UK and the circumstances that are going on there and in other parts of Europe”.
Mr Cohen said the massive increase in France has to be evaluated, being “a huge cause for worry”, but in Ireland the “right of the right wing thankfully” doesn’t exist.
Speaking of the Israel-Palestine conflict, he admitted there is a huge debate on criticism or “demonology” of Israel and anti-Semitism.
“Criticism isn’t anti-Semitism but demonology is, and we do find that’s happening more and more and even here in Ireland and that is cause for concern because we know that’s sometimes the way anti-Semitism starts in other European countries, but so far thankfully we’ve seen absolutely no rise in anti-Semitism,” Mr Cohen added.