Shalom Ireland

With my red hair and fair complexion, St. Patrick’s Day was the day for me to visit Irish bars in my half-Jewish, half-Catholic neighborhood in Brooklyn. The beer flowed, and flowed, and flowed. I would hear great tales, everyone figuratively kissing the Blarney Stone (when not the ceramic throne), hear great music and singing. Occasionally, when my Jewish background came up, I would hear with great pride about the Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, Robert Biscoe, who fought against the British with the IRA and helped smuggle guns and refugees to help Israeli independence. Many Irish similarly helped Israel in its most perilous birth, the British not being their favorites.

Here’s a brief background about Jews in Ireland:

On St. Patrick's Day in 1956, Robert Briscoe, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, son of Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants, led the annual parade along New York's Fifth Avenue. Two Jews were watching the parade. Said one Jew to the other: "Did you know that Robert Briscoe is Jewish?" " Amazing! Only in America" said his companion.

Although there were never more than 5700 Jews in Ireland, a number of Jews have been elected to high office since the arrival of the first Jews in Ireland in 1079. William Annyas was elected mayor of Youghal, County Cork in 1555. In 1899 Sir Otto Yaffe was Lord Mayor of Belfast. Then in 1956 and 1961 Robert Briscoe, in recognition of his heroic service in the cause of Irish independence, was twice elected Lord Mayor of Dublin. In 1977 Gerald Goldberg became the Lord Mayor of Cork. Ben Briscoe, the son of Robert, became Dublin's Lord Mayor in 1988 after serving in the Irish parliament for more than 35 years.

The former president of Israel, Chaim Herzog, was born in Belfast in 1918. He was president from 1983 to 1993. His father Isaac was the first chief rabbi of the Irish Free State.

Today the number of Jews in Ireland has dwindled to 1700. Of these, 150 live in Northern Ireland and 1550 in the 26 counties of the Irish Republic. There are two synagogues in Dublin. One is Orthodox and the other is Liberal- Progressive (a European phrase).

The title of this post, "Shalom Ireland,” is that of a film about Jews in Ireland.

CBS News Archives
Wearing the official chain of office, Robert Briscoe, the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, visits New York City as seen in "Shalom Ireland," a documentary about Ireland’s remarkable, yet little known, Jewish community.

The sense of celebration is reflected by the film's soundtrack, which features traditional Irish music, klezmer music, and what the documentary's website calls Ceilizemer, a fusion of the two. (Ceili, pronounced "kay-lee," is Irish for a hooley, and zemer, Hebrew for song.) The musicians hail from two Northern California bands, Driving with Fergus, a traditional Irish band from Oakland, and the Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band, a traditional Jewish band from Sacramento.

There’s a small Jewish museum in Dublin. A visitor has this reminiscence.

The overall atmosphere is quiet, relaxed, and friendly. The building itself is old, small, and comforting; it's easy to imagine the gatherings that once took place there. The curators (whose Dublin accents mix interestingly with Jewish intonations) act more like storytellers than gallery supervisors. When I was there, one of them went out of his way to give me a proper introduction to the story of the Irish Jews, reading aloud in Gaelic the passage from the Annals of Innisfallen which record the first arrival of Jews in Ireland (it's common for Irish Jews to be trilingual: English, Gaelic, Hebrew!)

And, here thanks to Maggies Farm, is the ideal dish enjoyed by Irish and Jews alike.

I happen to be one of those people who love that Irish boiled dinner, with lots of potatoes in there. You just cook the heck out of it, for hours, until it all falls apart. Lots of whole peppercorns in the pot.
The carrots are optional, in my view - and the cabbage is the best part.
A pot of mustard on the side, and a pot of beer on the other side. Great peasant eats.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

More prominent Irish Jews.