ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE SHEARITH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE, NEW YORK, SUNDAY 23RD MAY 2010
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE SHEARITH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE, NEW YORK, SUNDAY 23RD MAY 2010
A chairde, tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh ag Teampall Shearith Israel agus muid ag cuimhniú ar chabhair agus ar thrócaire an phobail Ghiúdaigh ag tráth cinniúnach na nGael san naoú aois déag, tráth an Ghorta Mhóir.
Rabbi, members of congregation, representatives of the Jewish Community Relations Council, City Speaker Quinn and dear friends,
On the face of it we meet as strangers, without connections or kinship and yet today we call to memory a time when with the help of your ancestors, mine were given help and hope. It is an honour to be in this synagogue to reflect on the events which brought those who were suffering in Ireland’s Great Famine into the lives and hearts of New York’s Jews.
It was the middle of the nineteenth century. Ireland, then a colony of the British Empire, was grotesquely poor at least in the experience of the vast majority of its citizens. The British Government’s own Devon Commission had acknowledged just before the Famine struck that the suffering of the Irish was greater than anything experienced anywhere else in Europe. Between 1845 and 1852 Ireland experienced mass starvation, mass evictions and mass emigration. A million people died on that small island from hunger and disease. We can only imagine the desolation of the people and the question in many hearts – was there anyone out there who cared?
From here in 1847 there came a powerful answer as your then spiritual leader Hazan Lyons pointed to the “indestructible” and “all-powerful” link between the Jewish people and those suffering in Ireland. In simple and profound words he said:
“That link, my brethren, is HUMANITY! Its appeal to the heart surmounts every obstacle.”
Hazan Lyons’ wise and humane words were translated into a fund-raising endeavour that not only helped alleviate the misery of the Irish people at that time, but reinforced the bonds of human solidarity in the face of human suffering. These are bonds of kinship and they allow us to meet today not as strangers or fleeting acquaintances but as something more, as people who can count on one another in tough times.
As the land of St. Patrick, Ireland’s primary association in the public mind has been with the Christian faith, and while we are today a considerably more multi-cultural and multi-faith country than every before, the children of Judaism feature strongly in the long narrative of our history, another story sometimes overlooked. Ireland has benefited from the presence of its Jewish citizens for over a thousand years. But even recorded history may be inadequate to characterise the antiquity of the ties between us, imagined or real, as these are quite literally the subject of great and of course disputed legend.
The Book of Invasion, one of the oldest sources of the creation myth of the Irish people, lays claim to a grand-daughter of Noah, Cesair, as the first person to set foot on the island of Ireland. Another relatively unknown ancient tale relates how an Irishman, Gaedel Glas, in Egypt at the time of Jewish liberation from Pharaoh, was cured of a snake bite by Moses himself, who declared: "I command ... that no serpents dwell in the land of his progeny." This latter legend conflicts with a very well known and popular belief that it was St. Patrick himself who banished snakes from Ireland. So take your pick!
I think if one is to extrapolate some greater meaning from these entertaining tales, however implausible their linkages may be, it is the great respect and reverence ancient Irish culture had for the Jewish people, our elder brothers and sisters in civilisation and faith.
History does record that in 1555 William Annyas, son of a Portuguese merchant expelled from his home country, was the first Jewish mayor of an Irish town. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the three largest cities on the island of Ireland Dublin, Cork and Belfast all elected Jewish Mayors and Lords Mayor. In our independence struggle, in the political affairs of our nation and in our legal and judicial system as well as in the arts, spiritual, community and business affairs, Ireland’s Jewish citizens have always played a distinctive and progressive role and punched way above their weight.
We are proud of the fact that Ireland’s former Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog became Chief Rabbi of Israel and his son, born in Belfast and educated in Dublin, Chaim Herzog later became President of Israel. I am delighted that some members of our expatriate Jewish community who emigrated to the United States are with us today. Céad míle fáilte romhaibh, a chairde Gael.
The experience of scattering across the world is common to the Jewish and Irish peoples. Our respective and sometimes overlapping diasporas are spread out across the globe, each wave of emigration telling a story of hardships faced and each generation consolidating into a formidable global family with a loyalty to its roots and heritage that is legendary. On Ireland’s national Holocaust Memorial Day Irish citizens of all persuasions bow their heads along with Jewish people everywhere in reverent silence as we recall that shameful time of genocide. On our island we have learned from experience about the disastrous human consequences that stem from being intolerant of the otherness of others.
We prefer the vision for humanity offered by Hazan Lyons a century and a half ago – still needed so desperately in today’s world – a love of humanity so strong and incorruptible that it can indeed “surmount every obstacle.”
May the souls of all our people who died through inhumanity, rest easier through our efforts to vindicate their suffering by creating a world comfortable with difference.
Ar Dheis Dé go raibh sibh - may their souls rest in peace.