When Ireland's Prime Minister conducted for Hitler's death – the striker

The history of Irish Jews begins with travel via the sea von Kovno (modern Kaunas, Lithuania) to Cork City, where the first modern Jewish community of Ireland settled. While this congregation once grew, its legacy now reflects in unexpected places in the recent debate of the Cork city council about the notorious condolences The then Prime Minister Ireland was the only democracy in the world that spends condolences.

De Valera's visit on May 2, 1945 with Eduard Hempel, the German envoy in Ireland, after Hitler's suicide at the end of the Battle of Berlin as part of Ireland's strict neutrality policy during the Second World War. But it was always seen as a stain on both de Valas inheritance and as a historical approach of Ireland to anti -Semitism.

Almost 80 years later, in January of this year, the Cork City Council voted to write the current Taoisach or Prime Minister Micheál Martin to ask him to “revoke” the condolences of de Valera. In view of the outstanding role of de Valera in contemporary Irish politics – he saw as a “founding fathers” of the modern Ireland and was a key figure in the fight for independence – the advice of the council is not just a question of historical records. For those of us with Jewish heritage in Ireland, it is deeply touched on the identity and the permanent shadows of anti -Semitism.

Like most people from a Jewish background all over the world, I grew up with increased awareness of anti -Semitism. When I was five years old, my mother told me, I asked if “here the people who had killed Hitler were buried” when we grew up with a pet cemetery in Glendalough in County Wicklow, about an hour from mine.

Even more embarrassing, for my mother: We were accompanied by a German student on the walk and then stayed with us.

But my identity as Irish Jew brought specific complexity. Ireland's story with his Jewish community is a framework and is characterized on the surface, but marked by the consequences of the prejudices.

In 1846, the Irish historical hero Daniel O'Connell, who was the political leader of the Catholic majority of Ireland at the beginning of the 19th century, said of Jews that “Ireland has claims on their old breed that I am the only country that I no longer know from an act of persecution of the Jews.”

But then the Limerick Pogrom came in 1904, in which the Catholic Priest father John Creagh led a boycott of the Jewish community, which ended with almost the entire Jewish population.

De Vala's condolences for Hitler and his attitude in World War II, in which Ireland refused to accept Jewish refugees, could indicate that he housed some anti -Semitic tendencies. But one of his closest friends and allies was Bob Briscoe, Ireland's first Jewish parliamentarian, and Briscoe described his friend as “the moral size of the prophet Elijah”.

These are Ireland and Jews for them: it is always a mixed relationship. Ireland has long been seen as an antagonistic for Israel -an attitude that has deciphered Israel after the Irish rap group that used the kneecap for the Irish rap group during a recent set at the Coachella Music Festival -but even this connection is more complicated than a first glance.

While Ireland certainly has a strong solidarity with the Palestinians in December 2024, the Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced the closure of the Israel's embassy in Dublin and accused Taoiseach Simon Harris of anti-Semitism about his reaction to war in Gaza. by members of various political parties. The Ireland Israel Friendship League was founded in 1967 and continues to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Ireland and Israel.

Being an Irish Jew means living a paradox. One of the most famous writers of Ireland, David Marcus, spoke of his “persistent trauma” to “in Ireland” balance of his “limited heritage to balance Jew in Ireland”.

I'm no different. And when I learned about the application to Cork in January, which Cork had submitted CORK City Council to express a formal repetition of de Valera condolences-a suggestion that was sent to a Tánaiste and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin, a member of the party founded by de Valera, celebrated my first instinct. It should be wondering why someone voted against it.

Kieran McCarthy, an independent city council, said that he could not support the application and said: “This only tries to rewrite the story.” A member of a council of Fianna Fáil, Fergal Dennehy, described the application as “nonsensical” and put its purpose as “problem that does not exist”.

Was your opposition rooted in anti -Semitism? Or did it only occur out of ignorance of what the condolences of de Valeras condolences still mean to the Irish Jews today?

Even the contained council members fell into my conspiracy of injured feelings. I even thought about sending e -mails to you to clarify your positions in relation to your feelings against Jewish people.

But really, my need was not about her. It was about how the debate in Cork reflects global conversations about combating historical injustice.

How do we confront these legacies without deleting the numbers you committed, or without, as McCarthy said, to rewrite the story?

In the United States, some schools removed the names of the founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington because they were slave owners. In the arts, some books by Dr. Seuss removed from the publication due to racist pictures.

Opponents of these steps suggest that we cannot assess the historical numbers according to the acceptable standards of today and that we remove important parts of the history by removing markings of your heir from the public square.

Would de Valera's condolence mean withdrawing that his mistake would forget as if it had never happened? At least in official records, this would be very well the case. But would it be better if the event remains an unchanged part of the story, however shameful it is?

I don't know if I can answer these questions. They are as complex as the mixed identity to be Irish and Jewish. What I know is that as an Irish Jew, I am proud of both parts of my identity, even if they are too conflict. Regardless of whether the efforts to withdraw de Valeras shammer step back 80 years ago, 8 80 years ago, it is a memory that the past is a striving for paradoxical and complications. But through these debates we define who we are and go forward.