 Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosal here. I'm bringing you today's video from the lovely and crazy city of Jerusalem. I've just come back here after a few weeks in the United States of America. My wife's American, who went to visit her parents, aka my in-laws, and I was doing a little bit of video stuff for work today, an interview, and while I had the gear set up, I decided, you know what, I'm going to do that video I did before about being an Irish Jew. And the Jewish experience in Ireland, just to do it again. And the reason I'm doing that is because I know that it's a it's a source of curiosity for folks. Both those in Ireland people are sometimes not aware. There are such things as Irish Jews. And secondly, definitely people in Israel are seem intrigued by the by the same concept that there are Irish Jews. So whether you're on this side or that side, or even in the US, people are even more confused because they're like, what's going on here? Are you Irish or Jewish? Because they know both groups, right? You have an Irish accent. You look Jewish. You live in Israel. What are you? How can you be both? So I did a video before what's my reflections are growing up Jewish in Ireland and ended up taking it down. Not down, but it's on private because I ended up getting this kind of barrage of comments about the Israeli-Palestinian stuff. And I just, I just kind of, I don't know. I couldn't, I mean, you can leave that stuff go, but I just kind of got to me a bit. So I took it down. But any event that was a year ago, and I think my videography and audio has come on a bit since then. This is my lovely new podcasting microphone, the Audio Technica AT 2020. And as it's come on, and I think it's an important video because people do seem interested in this. So I said, I will offer my reflections. Now there's other, if you really are curious about the experience of Irish Jews, there are books on the subject. There are blogs on the subject. There's also good YouTube videos on the subject. So by all means, check it out. But I wanted to try to fill what I perceived as a gap, which is my kind of lived personal experience of being, let's say, at the at the confluence of these two worlds. I'm just going to move my my webcam down a tiny bit. And the identity because it is definitely a strange identity. And I would say it's a difficult identity to reconcile, which is I think almost a good thing and a bad thing. It's a it's a bad thing because it leads to internal turmoil. It's a good thing because I think on like American Jews who, you know, have an easy time saying, I'm an American Jew, I'm American and I'm Jewish, because I feel that Irish and Jewish doesn't fit together so well, it almost makes it easier for me to sort of move past nation based forms of identity. Now that sounds a bit mad. That's going to where I am now. You know, I've been living in Israel for seven years. Do I feel Israeli? I don't buy into the idea that you walk off Aliya flight, which is a Aliya. I'm going to just do a little bit of terminology as I get through this video. Aliya equals moving to Israel for Jews. It literally means ascension. So there's this kind of idea that, you know, the people make Aliya, they get these little flags off the plane and you become officially Israeli. I don't think anyone becomes officially nationality in a day. It's more like very gradual process. And I would say having been out of Ireland now for seven years, I don't really feel particularly so invested in day to day Ireland, what's going on there. It's definitely a big part of my sort of cultural background where I come from. Israel, it's a very different culture from Irish culture and it's very different to just snap into a culture like that that really there's some facets of it that I don't think are the best, let's say. So the kind of answer is I feel like I'm between two worlds really and more actually easily define myself based on my interests and the fact that I'm Jewish because that is certainly a huge part of my belief system or identity that I do saying, oh, I'm formerly from Ireland. And this is kind of the thing I get a bit touchy about this because I get asked, I've got asked so many times over the past seven years, oh, you're from Ireland. And I developed the sad, the regrettable habit of becoming a compulsive liar because people would say, oh, you're from, you know, you meet these people at these kind of mixer meals that you attend when you're new to Israel and people say, oh, where are you from? So I began saying, I've lived in a few different countries, which wasn't exactly untrue. Just to kind of skirt around the question. The reason I don't really like talking about it so much is because, you know, I feel like I left Ireland to start a new life in a country that was more conducive to my Jewish identity. And I'm looking to the now and the future. And I don't really like going back in time. And likewise, when I'm talking to other immigrants, I don't really, I try to steer the conversation away from what they left to where they are now and like where they're going towards. So that's that. I want to talk in this video basically about, you know, just Jewish Ireland, let's say, what is it, how many Jews are there, but more what was my experience. So let me just get some official, the officialdom out of the way here. Here's Wikipedia's article on the history of the Jews in Ireland. According to the 2006 census data, I believe this is coming from a census 2000, sorry, 20,557 Irish, you know, people in Ireland who affiliate themselves with Judaism. I'll get to anti-Semitism later in the video. But they do make a note of it here. Probably they're going to talk about the Limerick pogrom. I do recommend this is a really, really nice video. I'm going to make myself small so you can actually see the title. I'm going to go up to kind of like midscreen. This is Cork Jewish Community Nationwide Segment. It was an RTE journalist called Jenny O'Sullivan made a beautiful video about Jewish Cork. I do make an appearance somewhere in this video. And this is my late grandfather, Fred Rossell, him as a boy. Really beautiful video. I've written Jenny thank you notes for putting this together because I was actually originally planning to become a journalist myself and I know how thankless the grind of reporting can be. And it's just such a fantastic historical narrative that she's preserved here in the space of excellently produced eight minutes video. So really, really thank you to Jenny and everyone else at Nationwide and RTE who were involved in producing that video. So I recommend if you want to just like watch that interview, people should go check that out. Now growing up Jewish Ireland, I was born in Dublin. Then I lived abroad. My family lived abroad for a number of years. And then we came back to Cork. And so my grandfather Fred Rossell Olaf Hashalom, that means peace upon him. It's in Hebrew. It's kind of like RAP because he passed a number of years ago. And he basically ran the community for decades. And by he wasn't an ordained rabbi, but he was kind of the manager, if you will, of the community on official rabbi, you could say it was a very, very small community in Cork. What happened really was that when Israel was founded in 1948, Jews from communities all over the world left in order to move to Israel. That happened in Cork. Also happened in Dublin and different places. And it kind of just dwindled over the years. And I think the reason it did that is because it's very hard to maintain, to practice Judaism to an orthodox standard within a community that's small. You just don't have stuff like kosher meat. And you're not going to get kosher meat in a community of 20 people. You need to live a fulfilled Jewish life, community really, community amenities, mikvah, ritual baths, stuff like that. And I guess people who really kind of practiced it traditionally moved away over the course of time. Nevertheless, growing up I do have very fond memories of the synagogue in Cork before it was closed. It was deconsecrated just a little bit before my grandfather passed away. I'll add some pictures to this video so you can see what it was like. It was a beautiful building in size. And yeah, so it's no longer there. Now in terms of synagogues that do exist in Ireland and communities that do exist, as you saw from that Wikipedia page, it's a really really small community mostly in Dublin. There is a traditional synagogue there in Yiddish. It's called a shul, but I'm trying to use words that are going to be more intelligible hopefully to folks. And then in Cork there was a orthodox community. There's a progressive community in Dublin and there's also one in Belfast. I've actually sadly never been to Belfast, to Belfast the city or to a synagogue for that matter. So when I move back to Cork my bar mitzvah was the first bar mitzvah in the synagogue in Cork for like decades. It was like my uncle did it like a long time before before my own. And the attendance was pretty sparse, but we always had enough to kind of keep the odd service going because a lot of Israelis were working in the tech scene in Cork you know the international companies and they'd sometimes be interested in joining religious services. But it was very transient and the actual core of the community was really really just a handful or two best of people. So growing up now the next people asked so it's a kind of as I mentioned a bit of a predictable line of questioning oh is there such thing as an Irish Jew? Answer yes. B, what about the Irish who really don't like Israel? And C, was there anti-Semitism in Ireland you experienced? Regarding Israel definitely is true that Ireland is by and large a very very anti-Israel country, virulently anti-Israel arguably the most anti-Israel country in Europe. Now there is anti-Israel and anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish and they're not the same thing. Nevertheless there is a good deal of the anti-Israel movement in Ireland that in my opinion not a good deal I say some of it a minority that when people are in the course of criticizing Israel lay bare pretty classic anti-Semitic stereotypes there is anti-Semitism in Ireland. It's disingenuous you know my I've heard said let's say that there is no anti-Semitism in Ireland Ireland was the only country in Europe without a track record of that and I don't think it's true I definitely encountered a little bit of anti-Semitism. I know that when Israel, Palestinian stuff sort of happened that we would receive my grandfather being the community representative would receive anonymous hate letters threats threatening phone calls as well and stuff like that so you know there are people who are anti-Semitic in Ireland but that goes for anywhere you'll find people in Israel who don't like Irish people you'll find people in Jamaica who don't like Thai people racism is unfortunately a pervasive force but in my experience in Ireland you know I really recall it as a very good experience I went to a school in a in a school called Prez PBC and Cork and the teachers it's actually founded by a group of religious brothers and they were most accommodating and understanding of my different religious identity in other words I didn't have to attend church services or stuff like that and they never made a big deal about it which is actually was kind of what I was looking for. So why did I wind up here in this in Jerusalem of all places or in Israel so it's not of all places if you understand Judaism it's actually Israel is in our conception the place where Judaism started well that's actually a fact but it's the revival of the Jewish homeland that movement's called Zionism and when I first moved visited Israel at 2016 having spent all my life as the kind of odd one out a different religion the only Jew in my I was literally the only Jewish person in my high school secondary school sorry I married an American so I've become very accustomed to switching into American English but in my secondary school I was the only Jewish person didn't have any Jewish friends growing up it was all everyone else was was not Jewish and that's a core the course is completely fine but equally it's somewhat it's somewhat alienating and isolating when you don't have any peer who shares your religion so when I first moved to Israel I was like this is amazing it's like there is a Jewish country looks pretty cool the weather is good the women are bad looking and it kind of after that trip it just kind of struck me as logical why when the Jewish homeland now as a Jewish immigrant to Israel I'm careful to emphasize that I don't represent the Israeli government there are facets of Israeli policy especially via via the Palestinians I just agree with I think Israel is maintaining its status going though in the West Bank or Judea and Samaria as people here tend to refer to it is not okay I think a two-state solution is in everybody's shared interest it would just make this such a more normal part of the world but unfortunately efforts to achieve that have not born success and I don't want to get into the conflict if people do want to leave comments about Israel I'm just gonna about the political stuff I'm just gonna skirt around them like when I posted this video a year ago if there are you know through stuff that tries to anti-Semitism I will delete them but other really other than that I try not to get involved in in comments or moderating comments so after I moved to Israel on a thing called birthright which is a basically this kind of tour that brings Jewish people to Israel to see it and to experience it at their Jewish homeland I from that point onwards knew there was no place besides that that I wanted to live and in geographical terms I'm drawing on my leaving certain knowledge here we talk about push factors and pull factors in migration I would say me moving to Israel was much more you know 200 pull and very little in the way of push pull in the sense that I wanted to be in a place where I wasn't the odd one out where a place where I felt I belonged that there was no conflict between my religious identity my racial identity and the identity of the country on a more practical level it was also easier to keep kosher and keep shabbat and you just can't do that in a place like Ireland where there's almost no Jews now if you're not practicing Jewish if you don't care about the religious stuff it's a different situation um so that was it and then you know it took me until I was 25 to actually move to Israel for a variety of reasons that probably aren't worth getting into here but I eventually did make us and I've been living in Israel since I'm now 33 years old and I'm still in Jerusalem are there Irish people here um wait I skipped one anti-Semitism in Ireland so I did actually get into that there was a little bit of it because there's you know but it's not in the grand scheme of things such a pervasive force but it you know it got very uncomfortable if you the level of anti-Israelism in Ireland is so virulent and so extreme that I can't deny that seeing that as someone who supports Israel broadly or Zionism broadly it just got very uncomfortable um you know I memories of going to secondary school English class as a particular teacher hated Israel and would sort of randomly go on these rants about how the Jews stole the Palestinians land and then teach Othello which was very awkward because if for anyone who knows Othello the play by Shakespeare it's a kind of disgusting medieval portrait of this Jewish villainous moneylander all the worst sort of Jewish stereotypes is a miserable character Shilok and it was just the most uncomfortable thing I had to go there day after day listening to you know being the only Jew in the class listening to Shilok and then hearing these rants about the Palestinians and Israel so you can kind of get an idea maybe for why I didn't want to stay in in Ireland um so there was a little bit of that but more feeling that Israel was a place that I belonged you know just good things and bad things about both cultures Israeli culture there's things that drive me nuts about it the cost of living here is insane not that I hear that it's going on around the world now but so sort of have a little bit of pros and cons in both both places really and that really is kind of my experience of growing up Jewish in in Ireland you know I get people Israelis are sometimes come across they wrote some blogs about Ireland and Israel and being an Irish Jew and that and that stuff you know people sometimes say oh do you recommend going to Ireland and you know to be very frank I tell people well if you don't mind being surrounded by extreme anti-Israelism and uh just know the community's tiny and you're not going to have facilities if that stuff's fine for you then why not go for it there's a lot of good in Ireland but um for me it wasn't let's say a fit the country I was born in the country whose passport I had by birth wasn't the country I want to stay living in I can definitely see myself living outside of Israel in the future for for a while mostly for professional reasons because as a English speaker I speak Hebrew pretty well now but as working working in communications through English the job market here probably better in London and New York for me but I get meaning from being here feeling like I'm contributing to a much bigger mission than me Zionism building the Jewish homeland and I as I said don't feel like that by moving here I represent the Israeli government support necessarily everything Israel does but that doesn't mean that I want to leave just for that reason because then we're never going to they're never going to achieve the change you want to see in Israel people from my political perspective if you just get up and go so that's kind of really all you have to say about this um I keep in touch with all my friends from Ireland they're great people uh are very honored that they came to my wedding um a few years ago a lot of people came relatively speaking which was unbelievable because there are no direct flights and it's a real really it's a really tough trip to get between Ireland and Israel I do think the country is the two cultures are not as dissimilar it sounds like oil and water Jewish and Irish but I'd like to think that there are ways that the similarities more similarities between the two countries than than really meet the eye um all the political stuff aside all the bad well aside there's a lot of quiet cooperation between the two countries I'm sure in terms of tech companies working together Irish people I don't think many Irish people visit Israel uh a lot probably has to do with politics tended to be a tended to be an older person's thing uh pilgrims and that so and as Ireland's become less religious and more secular there's less of those tourists the Irish actually love visiting Israel or have traditionally done so I don't know if that's still the case now it's kind of the antithesis of this conflict-ridden part of the world but they kind of envision a land full of pubs and good times Irish people in Israel there are very few of them they tend to be more like my late grandfather's age in other words you know 70s living in hurts Lee a lot of retirees I have found a couple of young Irish folk my age here in Israel but like I know two Irish people in Jerusalem if you're asked me how many American people live in the city I would probably see tens of thousands so we're one of the smallest immigrant communities in Israel there is an Irish embassy here they organize events some Irish folks work here uh temporarily with the UN or the EU or stuff like that NGOs some some Irish companies actually in the world of engineering have secondees who they put out to work in Israel for stuff like trains and power factories really interesting so you meet the odd random Irish person who's just in Israel for work but uh not that many in seven years in Jerusalem I probably heard Irish accents two or three times out of the blue so anyway I'm not going to go on much longer because I see my little counter here has ratchet ratchet it up to 20 minutes somehow um I hope my little account of my experience growing up Jewish in Ireland has been least informative if you're curious what it was like uh then uh and there that there are Irish Jews Irish born Jews um in the world northern Irish Jews as well to some other extent and yeah we're probably mostly now in USA or Israel or Britain although certainly there's some in still in Ireland thanks for watching guys uh this video and there will be more videos coming soon to this YouTube channel and have a great day