by Emer Mooney
As an Irish citizen I
have personally never experienced any negativity towards my own race or
cultural identity. I would like to feel that Irish society has changed a great
deal in the last 100 years in terms of tolerance to cultural difference.
Now when I reflect as
an adult, I really appreciate the choice my parents made to place me in a
non-denominational primary school. As child I never knew what religions my
friends were: those who made their communion with me or those who stayed in
school whilst we practised our prayers in the local Catholic Church. To me it
was never something I questioned when looking for a friend to play chasing at
break time and it was their absence that I noticed when they weren’t there to
see my pretty dress on my communion day, but that didn’t matter to me, as I
could show them photographs and tell them all about it.
When I made my First
Holy Communion my Grandmother attended the ceremony and was without my
Grandfather at the time. I was so overwhelmed with the whole day that I didn’t
question his absence. It was only when my Mam told me when I was a bit older
that my Granddad was Jewish and my Granny was Catholic and told me about how
they met that I realised my Grandfather was different by religious definition
to my Grandmother. This however as a child represented to me that it didn’t
matter what religion you are, you fall in love with whoever you fall in love
with.
When I made the huge
jump from primary to secondary school there were major changes and my priority
was making friends. People who I spoke to from different primary schools seemed
so similar to me, they were my age, they liked my new shoes and they shared the
same music taste as me. In secondary school we took religion and history.
In Religion class I first learnt about other
religions and found out more about mine. All I had known previous is that I
sometimes went to church at Christmas time but my family were not religious. In
religion class we had discussions and I discovered just how many religions there
are worldwide and in my own class, it fascinated me.
In History class we
studied the Holocaust and it was my first experience of learning of how
humanity can selectively choose a race and feel hatred towards them. It was a
completely alien feeling to me, no two people are the same so why encourage
similarity and exclude difference? Further in to study, I explored the
obstacles the Jews faced with being prohibited from being practising doctors,
journalists and other such professions amongst other prohibitions that we are
entitled to by human rights and charged right out of their homes.
As 1933 continued, even
grandchildren of Jews were sent to the ghoulish prison camps, this fact really resonated
with me. That could have been me if I had lived during the 1930’s, what would I
do without my family or worse still if I had to bring up my younger sister in a
prison camp without my Mam or Dad? Back then I thought: “At least I’m in
Ireland and a horrific injustice would never happen in this country.” Little
did I know that previously in Ireland laid Anti-Semitic views and violent
behaviour towards Jews.
For my Grandfather I
can imagine Ireland was an extremely different place. My Granddad was born in
Dublin after his family emigrated from Russia. Born in 1919 the Jewish
community took his family in. By this time Dublin’s Jewish population was
rising over 4,800, South Circular Road became a popular place to live for
Jewish immigrants and had 6 surrounding synagogues for prayer. The 1911 census
shows how out of 1,185 householders,329 were Jewish, like my Grandfather over
80-90 percent of the Jewish population surveyed in the 1911 census had come
from the Russian Empire. South Circular road soon became known as: ‘Little
Jerusalem’
They were not allowed
to feel at home for long as in the 1940’s Irish anti-semitic views became
broadcasted with Fine Gael TD Olivier Flanagan expressing that it was time that
we ‘rout the Jews out of the community.’ This is a fine example of how another
country’s definition of a community: the Germans on the Jews affected the
majority of Europe.
The Dreyfus affair sent
waves of fear and resilience of Jews across Europe; this included the Irish
Jewish community. Most of this anti-Semitic thought was published and spread
via propagandists in the Irish media. In 1933 DeValera rose to power in Ireland
and Hitler in Germany, through the interwar years the Irish Jewish community
blossomed and prospered with the number of Jewish immigrants rising along with
the clothing market boom with the help of the Jewish tailors.
My Granddad was one of
the lucky ones who had escaped being detained in a prison camp but he still
faced discrimination in the country he had made his home in and raised his
family. When he died at the age of 93, I think back at everything my Mam has
told me about my Granddad and his family and what he must have gone through
during those 93 years of his life: related to the memory foam mattress bedding
business of Kayfoam Woolfson which by the year of 1987 was regarded as the
biggest mattress company in Ireland.
I hope that he felt at
home in Dublin because without his parents, my great grandparents, making the
decision to emigrate to Dublin in the 1920’s, I wouldn’t be here today. Family
are family despite any differences; be that opinion or race. When I have my own
children someday I will tell them about their great grandfather and how despite
being different to some; him and the Irish Jewish community overcame
discrimination and choose and succeed to thrive in Ireland.
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