The organiser of the National Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration has defended its decision to invite President Michael D Higgins to give the keynote address, despite opposition from some in the Jewish community.
Mr Higgins will address the annual gathering which takes place this year on Sunday January 26th in the Mansion House, Dublin, a day before the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp.
In a statement, Holocaust Education Ireland chairman Professor Thomas O’Dowd said the organisation issued an invitation in September last year for Mr Higgins to give the keynote address and he accepted.
The statement continued: “This event cherishes the memory of all of the victims of the Holocaust and is attended by people from all walks of Irish life.
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“The commemoration cherishes the memory of all of the people who perished in the Holocaust and recalls the millions of innocent Jewish men, women and children and all of the other victims, who were persecuted and murdered because of their ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, political affiliations or their religious beliefs. It is a solemn and dignified occasion.
“Holocaust Education Ireland is issuing this statement to clarify the purpose of Holocaust Memorial Day. We are grateful for the support and participation of the President and of a number of taoisigh and government ministers on behalf of the State over the years.”
The statement did not address the concerns of senior members of the Jewish community in Ireland who do not want President Higgins to give the keynote address.
The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland chairman, Maurice Cohen, said some of the President’s criticism of Israel was based on misinformation, including the allegation that the Israeli embassy leaked a letter that he had written to the president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian. The letter in question had appeared on the Iranian embassy website.
“It’s not his criticisms of Israel, it’s his false criticism of Israel,” Mr Cohen explained. “Furthermore, the President has accused Israel, without any evidence, of harbouring intentions to ‘resettle Egypt’,” Mr Cohen said.
A spokesman said that Mr Higgins had never suggested that the Israeli embassy had leaked the letter to the president of Iran, merely that the embassy had “circulated” it.
In relation to claims made by the President that the Israelis were looking to set up settlements in Egypt, the spokesman said this referred to an Israeli proposal that Palestinians be settled there, not Israelis. This proposal had been covered in the international press.
Ireland’s chief rabbi, Yoni Wieder, said he objected to Mr Higgins’s presence because he believed the President had “neglected even to acknowledge the scourge of contemporary anti-Semitism in Ireland, let alone do anything to address it.
“It is so important that Irish politicians and public figures come together to honour the memory of victims of the Holocaust. Yet the awful irony is that many of them are turning a blind eye to a troubling increase in anti-Jewish hatred in Ireland today.”
The rabbi, confirmed however, that he will be attending the Mansion House event.
Oliver Sears of Holocaust Awareness Ireland said remembrance of the Holocaust is a time that is “sombre, precious and inviolable” for Jewish people.
“Given President Higgins’s grave insensitivity to Irish Jews, we are deeply disturbed that he will yet again cause further insult,” he added.
The President’s spokesman said he had repeatedly addressed the issue of anti-Semitism against the Jewish community in Ireland, including in Manchester in April last year when he said it was not fair to drag Irish Jews into the conflict in the Middle East.
“I think that [Ireland’s Jewish community] is being dragged into being asked, ‘Whose side are you on?’ I think that is a very unfair burden to put on the Jewish community. I know them, I meet them,” the President said then.
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