‘Anti-Semitism’ row erupts over renaming of Dublin park

DUBLIN – The Irish government urged Dublin councillors on Nov 29 not to rename a park honouring a former Israeli president, after local Jewish leaders and Israel called the move “anti-Semitic”.

A Dublin City Council committee has proposed renaming the city’s Herzog Park – named after Ireland-born Chaim Herzog, Israel’s sixth president.

Ireland has been among the most outspoken critics of

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza

and the move followed a campaign by pro-Palestinian activists, but council documents did not disclose a reason for the proposal.

“This name change should not proceed and I urge Dublin city councillors to vote against it,” Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said in a statement.

Polls since the start of the war have shown overwhelming pro-Palestinian sympathy in Ireland.

Ms McEntee said on Nov 29 that Ireland, home to about 3,000 Jewish people, had been “openly critical of Israel’s policy and actions in Gaza and the West Bank”.

But “renaming a Dublin park in this way – to remove the name of an Irish Jewish man – has nothing to do with this and has no place in our inclusive republic”, she said.

Herzog, who died in 1997, was born in Belfast in Northern Ireland and grew up in Dublin before serving as Israeli president between 1983 and 1993.

His father was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland after it gained independence from Britain in 1922, while his son Isaac Herzog is the current Israeli president.

Mr Herzog’s office said on Nov 29 the proposal, due to be approved next week, would be “shameful and disgraceful” if it is carried out.

Ireland’s current Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder said removing the name would “erase a central piece of Irish-Jewish history”.

“For those who live nearby, and especially for the neighbouring Jewish families and schools, it is a place filled with memory, and an important reminder that our community has deep roots in Dublin,” he said in a statement sent to AFP.

Mr Maurice Cohen, who leads the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, said the proposal was “already perceived by our community as a gross act of anti-Semitism”.

Last December, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of its Dublin embassy, blaming Ireland’s “extreme anti-Israel policies”.

“Dublin has become the capital of anti-Semitism in the world,” Mr Saar said in a social media message on Nov 29 while blasting the council decision. AFP