Kesher Talk

Jews in odd places: Ireland: It's rough being a Jew in Northern Ireland.

There´s an old joke about a guy in Belfast who is stopped by a ruffian and asked his religion.

Wanting to avoid trouble all around, he responds, "I´m Jewish."

Without missing a beat, the ruffian says, "Fine. A Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?"

With much of the coverage of Ulster (as Northern Ireland traditionally is called) focused on the sectarian conflict between the largely pro-London Protestants and the mainly pro-Dublin Catholics, few consider the conflict´s effects on members of the other religions and ethnic groups who live here.

As the province´s oldest non-Christian religious group, the Jews have been waiting a long time for the sectarian conflict to end.

Jews have been in Ulster since the 17th century. Mainly concentrated in North Belfast, they built their first synagogue here in the 1860s.

Despite its modest size, the Jewish community here is held in high regard. Among its members have been such illustrious figures as the ex-Lord Mayor of Belfast, Sir Otto Jaffe, and the sixth president of Israel, Chaim Herzog.

At its height, in the 1960s, the Jewish community was 16,000 strong. Since then, most Jews have emigrated to mainland Britain, America or Israel, largely due to the "troubles" — the euphemism here for Irish sectarian strife.

Today an estimated 600 Jews live in Ulster, 160 of whom are members of the community´s only synagogue.

This summer, Avraham Citron, a 26-year-old Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi from Los Angeles, became Northern Ireland's unofficial chief rabbi.

"It´s a heavy-sounding title," Citron says, "but, yes, I guess I´m the only one."

In a community that every year sees dwindling membership at the city´s sole synagogue, Citron is the first full-time rabbi in town in a long time.

Before Citron´s promotion — he worked in Belfast for six months on a part-time basis before his appointment — the community´s spiritual needs were met by a lay leader. But Jewish community enthusiasm and numbers were waning.

An estimated 80 percent of the Jewish community in Northern Ireland is elderly.

posted by William @ 11/11/2003 06:36:35 PM