ON IRISH ANTISEMITISM
IN WHICH I INVENT A NEW THEORY TO EXPLAIN JEW-HATRED AMONG THE UNCHURCHED: ANTISEMITISM OF THEOLOGICAL DISPLACEMENT™.
Ireland is seething with antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes, according to a new study, which describes views of the Catholic Irish majority as “disturbing” and “Medieval.” The authors of the study place the blame squarely on entrenched religious beliefs.
Shockingly, the education monitoring group IMPACT-se last year found that antisemitic and anti-Israel ideas are being transmitted to successive generations of Irish. Better known to most of us for assessing hate and racism in Palestinian textbooks, IMPACT-se released a study outlining problematic content in Irish schools and the resources they rely on. The report said materials used in the Irish education system included “profound distortions of the Holocaust, Israel, Judaism, and Jewish history.”
In one instance, “a religious studies textbook cited Islam as being ‘in favor of peace and against violence,’ while Judaism ‘believes violence and war are sometimes necessary to promote justice.’ The New Testament parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ is illustrated with an image of a boy wearing a Palestinian scarf protesting against Israel.”
A history textbook calls Auschwitz a “prisoner of war camp.”
A textbook on the story of Jesus asserts: “Some people did not like Jesus,” a statement accompanied by an image of “disapproving figures depicted in distinctly Jewish attire, including tallits and kippahs.”
Elsewhere, Jesus is described as having lived in “Palestine.”
“Even after we control for politics, for various religious beliefs, for demographic factors like race and income, we still find that Catholics in all countries are less supportive of Israel and are more likely to endorse antisemitic tropes than Protestants,” said one of the authors of the report.
Theological differences between Christian denominations are significant. Catholics in Ireland almost 80% less likely to support Israel than are Protestants, according to the survey. (While 69% of Irish are at least nominally Catholic, about 90% are of Catholic heritage. “No religion” is the fastest growing “denomination.”)
Anyone having any familiarity with Ireland’s recent history might be confused to read that tropes and hatred from the church-sanctioned odium of the Middle Ages could be alive and well in modern Ireland.
This is probably especially true among those who know that, in the last generation, Ireland has experienced one of civilization’s most sudden and decisive turns away from religion. How and why could religious narratives emerge now to revive in both rampant anti-Israel activism and undeniable race hatred and stereotypical tropes against Jews?
It’s not a coincidence. It makes perfect sense in a nonsensical kind of way. The human mind adapts to change in weird ways. (As I noted in a post earlier this week, I have under my belt a first-year psychology class 35 years ago so, in short, far more expertise on this subject than most “pro-Palestinian” activists on their chosen issue.)
I think it’s time for another of Pat’s Patented Theories.
What we see in Ireland is the Antisemitism of Theological Displacement™.
According to my just-invented theory, anti-Zionism is a secularized form of religious antisemitism, which adapts antisemitism to meet the “needs” of the perpetrator to scapegoat Jews even though they have abandoned the theological underpinnings that sustained antisemitism for their ancestors.
Anti-Zionism plays the role for atheists, agnostics and the other “unchurched” that antisemitism did for their Mass-attending grandparents. Israel (like Jews before it) is the empty vessel upon which non-Jews project their fears, hatreds, confusion, shame and other emotional and sociological baggage. (As I wrote recently.)
For example, allegations that Israel is perpetrating “genocide” is a form of atonement for North Americans’ genocide of Indigenous peoples. Accusations of “Israeli apartheid” is a projection of our own (obviously) deeply problematic race issues. Assertions that Israel is stealing Palestinian land is a transparent blame-shifting that takes our largely meaningless land acknowledgements (we’re not leaving, so what practical impact do these acknowledgements have?) and tries to translate them into tangible redemption by erasing Israel “from the river to the sea.” I could go on. (I should get my graphic designer friend to create a matrix of all these projections. Note to self.) In any case, each of the assertions against Israel is a projection of our own sins, just as the abandoned Irish confessionals are a place of projecting personal sins onto the body of Jesus.
It used to be the Jew on the cross. Now it’s the Jews in “Palestine.” Same same. Even though anyone not beholden to mythological narratives knows that Israel no more embodies these sins than the wine and wafer are the literal blood and body of Jesus.
But why is this emerging now, when the Irish are more secular than ever?
I just read the stunning book A New Ireland: How Europe’s Most Conservative Country Became Its Most Liberal, by Niall O’Dowd. It describes the adoption of marriage equality through a 2015 referendum, the legalization of abortion in a 2019 referendum, the retreating power of the Catholic Church amid horrific scandals and the economic and social impacts of EU integration.
Largely as a response to the now-universal awareness of the church’s betrayal of their parishioners’ trust, the Irish have abandoned institutionalized Catholicism in droves.
So why, when the country was lurching from rosary beads to pride flags, has it doubled down on Jew-hatred?
Those of us who have no connection to the country (my parents seem to have randomly chosen my name; I really should ask Mom what that was about) may be vaguely aware that Ireland has a bit of a problem with Jews. Most people who aren’t plugged into these issues are probably unaware that anti-Israel ideas and activism are at pathological levels on the Emerald Isle. Israel has shuttered its embassy in Ireland and the Irish government is jumping on board South Africa’s ridiculous ”apartheid” jamboree at the International Court of Justice.
Quick aside: Ireland, which was formally neutral in the Second World War, was a hotbed of Nazi sympathizers. The legendary Irish leader Éamon de Valera visited the German ambassador to express condolences upon Hitler’s death, so even after the world was aware of Nazi atrocities, many Irish were still on side. I have always put that historical tidbit down to “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the Irish having a legendary beef with England, put mildly. Maybe I didn’t look deep enough.
One of the core characteristics of antisemitism is its malleability. When religion was king, Jews were hated for being of a different “faith.” When Enlightenment ideas reduced theological strangleholds and the Age of Nationalism emerged, Jews were hated for being a different “race.”
As we see now, when the religious underpinnings for antisemitism are stripped away, people legitimize their bigotry against Jews through other outlets.
I have written about this before (I’ll share it again as an Easter treat later this month).
But here is the scariest part of this whole thing: Antisemitism is more resilient and tenacious than even religion. A society like Ireland’s can basically abandon Catholicism en masse.
But they just can’t quit the Jews.
A personal note …
I started this Substack because I thought my perspective as a progressive, gay, non-Jewish, Zionist Canadian offered something different to the dialogue about antisemitism, anti-Zionism, Palestinians and peace. It actually never crossed my mind that people might give me money for it. When people started generously subscribing and donating, I threw myself into this project more, partly because I am a writer by trade and I am still building my RSPs for some distant retirement. Based on online advice (!) I started making my Saturday posts for “Paid Subscribers Only.” But, I modestly acknowledge, each one is too delicious to paywall. So I am going to assume that, if you like my stuff and want more of it, you’ll give if you can. If not, please share. (Please share regardless!) No more paywalls. But there may be other incentives I could offer. Not sure what. Got any ideas? Do folks want to get together for online discussions or see me compile some of these posts as a book? Let me know. Meanwhile, enjoy! (If that is the right word for these sometimes dark musings.)
Once again, thank you, Pat! I have been so disturbed by the news about Ireland's antisemitic support of the Palestinians. The main reason is that it seems so shockingly ignorant given that the majority of Palestinians, especially those in Gaza are viciously homophobic and deny women any reproductive rights (as I've talked about before). So it seems the Irish, like Western college students believe that all Palestinian woman and LGBT people should have no human rights, although they ardently support these rights for themselves and others in their countries. It's a case of any horror is permissible as long as it furthers the goal of a genocide against Jews. The second reason is that I very much see Israel as the world's most successful de-colonialization project. And so I am amazed that the Irish support the recolonization of the Jews by the Muslims. But the reason that hits me hardest is that my mother, whose own mother had been deserted by her Cherokee lover (my mother's biological father, raised us to believe we were 50% Irish (not 25%). She was a passionate supporter of Ireland and loathed colonialism such as the Jews have suffered for so long before Israel and she resented the diaspora Irish Catholics like her grandparents had been forced into. Their shared provisional status as semi-white Americans was one of the things she had in common with my father (of Middle Eastern and African Jewish heritage). Those horrible textbooks would have made her ill! But your explanation works well for me. I would add that maybe it's also a way for the Irish who still hold to Catholicism to slam Judaism without seeming religiously biased, as religious hatred has been forbidden since Vatican Two. Because it's pretty hard to have anything but a wildly distorted version of Judaism without acknowledging the way prayers and sacred writings of Judaism all affirm that there is an actual place in the world called Israel and that it is the ancestral home of the Jews. So saying that one hates Zionists and they should all be killed is the same as saying all traditionally religious Jews should be killed. In any case, you made my transition back from a quiet, no news vacation a lt less stressful by addressing this problem so eloquently.
As an Irish friend said about his fellow citizens, Nazi sympathizers and Jew-haters alike, “They’re all drunken fooks, sod ‘em.”
“Surely not all,“ I’d say.
“No, sod ‘em all,” he’d reply.