Irish Jews experienced 143 incidents of antisemitism in a six-month stretch, according to a new survey published by the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland on Sunday.
Maurice Cohen, chair of the council, stated that there is “deep concern about the findings in this report.” The council urges “rapid development of a dedicated national plan to counter growing antisemitism,” Cohen said.
“These findings raise serious concerns for public policy, institutional governance and social cohesion,” he added.
Some three-quarters of the 143 incidents took place in offices, at schools or in healthcare settings.
“The report does not claim that antisemitism has become a daily reality for all Jewish people in Ireland,” Yoni Wieder, the chief rabbi of Ireland, told JNS. “It hasn’t.”
“What it does show is that antisemitism surfaces often enough, and in ordinary enough settings, that it cannot be dismissed as rare or confined to the margins of society,” he said. “For many, Jewish belonging in Ireland feels more fragile than it should.”
The report states that it “offers a community-generated baseline of lived experience that previously had no systematic public record in Ireland.”
Of the incidents in the survey, 36% involved verbal abuse or slurs. Of the latter, 40% were threats or intimidation.
Some 30% of the incidents started as “ordinary interactions” that became “hostile and antisemitic” after someone spoke Hebrew in public, wore a Jewish symbol or others revealed an “identity cue.”
“These dynamics cannot be adequately addressed through generalised anti-racism frameworks alone,” Cohen stated. “Antisemitism presents distinct characteristics requiring targeted policy responses.”
Yehuda Kaploun, a rabbi and U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, told JNS that he is “alarmed by the major increase of antisemitism in Ireland, as evidenced by this report.”
“Standing resolutely against antisemitism everywhere and countering this hatred through tangible action and concrete goals is the path the U.S. is choosing,” he said.
