Jews in twentieth-century Ireland: refugees, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust

Abstract

Winner of the 1999 James S. Donnelly Sr. Prize awarded by American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS). Based on extensive research in family and state archives in Ireland, England, and the United States, Professor Keogh studies the influx which followed the Russian pogroms and the establishment of enlarged Jewish communities in Dublin, Belfast, and Cork. The author contrasts the general rise of anti-Semitism and the background to the Limerick pogrom of 1904, with the world of Dublin Jews as personified by James Joyce's Leopold Bloom, and the contribution of the community to the professional, academic, social, and political life of the country. The book focuses on the relationship between the Jewish community and the Irish State under William T. Cosgave in the 1920's, and Eamon de Valera between 1932 and 1948. Professor Keogh lays particular emphasis on the role of Chief Rabbi Isaac Herog and his work on building up the community. He also examines the thinking of senior officials towards the admission of Jewish refugees in the late 1930's and charts de Valera's reponse to the Holocaust. This is the first book to offer a critical reassessment to this difficut period in Irish international relations. It will be of interest to those concerned with Jewish history, the study of intolerance, the international reaction to the Holocaust, and to the history of inter-war refugee policy