Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
TO THIS DAY, I vividly remember an incident which took place in secondary school. We were studying Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice as one of our texts for Junior Cert English.
As we packed our books away, our class provocateur shouted over to me, addressing me as ‘Shylock’. He laughed, thinking he had discovered a hilarious new nickname for his Jewish classmate. I rolled my eyes and didn’t respond. My teacher, however, came down on him like a ton of bricks. Her reaction was so swift and so stern that it took me aback.
Neither my classmate nor I understood the weight of what he had called me. He was just ‘having a laugh’ and I was just the butt of that day’s joke, as far as we were concerned. Our teacher knew otherwise, and he was instructed to apologise and never to use the term again. I can forgive a teenager such ignorance, but recently, when used by US President Donald Trump, it hit differently.
Addressing a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Trump celebrated the passage of his budget bill through Congress. “No going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases, a fine banker – and in some cases, Shylocks and bad people.”
When his remark caused outrage, Trump claimed he had no idea the term was seen as anti-Semitic. While I did not expect him to be well-versed in Shakespeare, such ignorance is unforgivable given Trump’s censorship and criminalisation of pro-Palestinian speech and activism in the name of protecting American Jews and combating anti-Semitism. Trump and his ilk are intent on protecting many things; however, the welfare of ordinary Jews is far less of a priority than their interests in Israel and its lobby.
Increasingly, criticism of Israel and its actions has been labelled anti-Semitic, in an attempt to silence and discredit dissent. Accusations of anti-Semitism have been levelled at Tánaiste Simon Harris, President Michael D. Higgins, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese, the International Court of Justice, and countless other individuals and institutions in response to their criticisms of Israel over the past 21 months.
Ireland’s consistent solidarity with Palestine has seen us labelled as the ‘most anti-Semitic country in Europe’ by a number of staunch defenders of Israel. Ireland may certainly be one of the most vocally critical countries in Europe when it comes to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, but it is far from the most anti-Semitic.
Earlier this year, the Irish government endorsed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism. While the IHRA document, adopted in 2016, includes a number of entirely appropriate examples of anti-Semitism, including Holocaust denial, use of symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism, and myths and conspiracies about Jews controlling the media and government, it also conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
A number of the contemporary examples which follow its definition of anti-Semitism directly relate to Israel and are extremely problematic. One such example claims that ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ is anti-Semitic.
Adopted nearly a decade ago, the authors of this definition and its accompanying examples could not have imagined Israel’s current plan to force Palestinians to live in a ‘humanitarian city’ on the ruins of Rafah, unable to leave except to go to other countries.
Described by Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert as a ‘concentration camp’, the comparison to Nazi concentration camps is unavoidable. This does not, of course, make Olmert an anti-Semite.
Another such example claims that ‘denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination’ is anti-Semitic. The conflation of the ‘Jewish people’ with the State of Israel assumes that all Jews are Zionists.
It implicates us all in an ethno-state, with or without our consent. Troublingly, while the world is expected to respect Israel’s right to self-determination, no similar right is afforded to Palestine.
The IHRA document has allowed legitimate accusations of genocide, ethnic cleansing and systemic racism within Israel and Palestine to be labelled anti-Semitic. As a non-Zionist Jew, I am horrified by any strategy that silences people of conscience in the name of keeping Jews safe.
Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the definition, has publicly stated that it has been misused “as a blunt instrument to label anyone an anti-Semite.” Israel’s largest human rights group B’Tselem, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and many other organisations have also advised against the adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which pro-Israel lobby groups have long pressured governments and institutions to adopt.
I am not here to tell you that anti-Semitism doesn’t exist, or to deny Ireland’s shameful history towards the Jews as they attempted to flee mainland Europe during the Holocaust. The current growing far-right, anti-immigration movement has emboldened racism towards all minorities. Online, the comments that follow articles on Israel showcase every grotesque, hateful iteration of anti-Semitism, conspiracy theory and racism from ‘It’s in their DNA to steal and try to take over’ and ‘The Jews all need to leave Israel and go back where they came from’ to the lowest of the low ‘The Germans should have finished the job off’.
Such comments reveal a host of horrific views, while also holding all Jews accountable for Israel’s crimes. Though I feel physically ill reading these comments, it remains imperative to speak out against Israel’s actions. None of us can afford to remain silent in the face of genocide. Defending the rights of Palestinians does not mean turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism, just as empathising with Jews does not mean tolerating Islamophobia or defending Israel.
My mind wanders back to adolescence, a party this time. One guy pours a small measure. Another yells “Jaysus, you’re such a scabby Jew”. It hit me like a punch in the stomach, the casual, laddish way he said it. I told him I was Jewish. He had never met a Jewish person before, didn’t even know there were Jews in Ireland. ‘It’s just an expression’ he shrugged. Only it isn’t.
In a time of increasingly inflammatory rhetoric, censorship and sloganism, words matter. It is our collective duty to use language responsibly and to stand firm in our convictions as we hold to account the strategies and systems that silence dissent and foster complicity.
Ria Czerniak-LeBov is a visual artist, writer and musician living in Dublin.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say