David Vance SubstackRead More
Did you see that Dublin City Council has just voted to strip the name of Chaim Herzog – Ireland’s most famous Jewish son who later became President of Israel – from a park in Rathgar where he played as a child?
This incredibly petty decision comes just months after Ireland’s aggressive diplomatic campaign against Israel. Do you recall Ireland’s enthusiasm to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state? Don’t forget that it also bankrolls UNRWA without reservation, and enthusiastically backs South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
So who was Chaim Herzog? Well, he was born in Belfast in 1918 and raised in Dublin, the son of Ireland’s Chief Rabbi, Isaac Herzog. He attended Wesley College, spoke with a Dublin accent all his life, and proudly described himself as an Irish Jew. He was a good Irish citizen who went on to achieve great things, culminating in becoming Israeli President.
In 1985, he returned to Ireland as President of Israel and was greeted with much warmth. I can still remember the headline. But now forty years later, the same country that once celebrated him treats his very name as toxic because of the office that he later held.
The only way to see this is as the deliberate erasure of a Jewish Irishman from Irish history. The council’s justification is laughable. Herzog, they claim, is a “controversial” figure because of his role in Israel’s history. By that standard, half the streets in Dublin should be renamed tomorrow. Michael Collins ordered assassinations. Éamon de Valera sympathised with Nazi Germany during the war. Yet their plaques remain untouched!
Only the Jew who defended his people against annihilation is deemed beyond the pale. Ireland’s current political class has made criticism of Israel a national fetish. Sinn Féin councillors – now the largest party on Dublin City Council – led the charge. They were backed by a coalition of far-left independents and immigrant-community representatives who have no ancestral connection to Ireland yet feel entitled to rewrite its story.
The public consultation process here is a sham; the decision was effectively pre-cooked. When Israel responded by closing its embassy in Dublin – a mission that had become little more than a punching bag – the Irish government feigned outrage, as if the provocation had come out of nowhere. Clutching their pearls and pretending innocence.
Israel Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was blunt: Ireland has moved from criticism of Israeli policy to outright antisemitism. When a city council votes to erase the name of a native-born Jewish president because he led the “wrong” country, when Irish politicians compete to be the most vocally anti-Israel in Europe, when Israeli athletes need armed guards to compete in Dublin, the line has been crossed. And it truly has.
Ireland, like every other country, is free to disagree with Israel’s actions. It is not free to punish Irish Jews, past and present, for the crime of Jewish statehood. By stripping Chaim Herzog’s name from a quiet Dublin park, the council has not struck a blow against “Zionism.” It has simply reminded the world that even a country with a reputation for warmth and poetry can indulge in the oldest hatred when it becomes fashionable.
