Large Jewish diaspora in Ireland
- Thread starter JoeMulk
- Start date
I got that.
I'm presuming you don't mean "convert to Catholicism and cease to exist as a separate group" assimilate, because that would be kinda pointles, but are we talking Modern Orthodox-style grudging assimilation? American Reform-style grudging non-assimilation? American Conservative/European Reform-style flip-flop assimilation? "Cultural" totally assimiliated-but-remember-where-we-came-from style assimilation?
The thing is, historically, Ireland isn't very politically or culturally inviting to a large Jewish settlement in the first place.
I'm not talking about Anti-Semitism exactly, it's simply that for most of it's history, the only cities in Ireland large enough by any stretch of the imagination to support a Jewish Quarter are Dublin, Belfast, Galway, and just maybe Cork. While a review of the legal history of the island before Stonebow doesn't show any legal barriers to rural Jewish legal tenure (Recalling that from the establishment of the Merovingian Kingdom until the rise of Hugh Capet, French Jews were prominent vintenors), Brehon Law imposed a rather harsher form of serfdom than most of France until the Angevin period that probably would be rather less than appealing. And joining the Travellers would mean the same social friction with the peasants that Jews would have wanted to get away from back on the Continent in the first place.
I'm not talking about Anti-Semitism exactly, it's simply that for most of it's history, the only cities in Ireland large enough by any stretch of the imagination to support a Jewish Quarter are Dublin, Belfast, Galway, and just maybe Cork. While a review of the legal history of the island before Stonebow doesn't show any legal barriers to rural Jewish legal tenure (Recalling that from the establishment of the Merovingian Kingdom until the rise of Hugh Capet, French Jews were prominent vintenors), Brehon Law imposed a rather harsher form of serfdom than most of France until the Angevin period that probably would be rather less than appealing. And joining the Travellers would mean the same social friction with the peasants that Jews would have wanted to get away from back on the Continent in the first place.
Just what Ireland needs, another Religious group hostile to non members. More sectarian blood letting as reprisal, follows atrocity, follows reprisal, follows atrocity.
Revolutionary Todyo
Banned
Historically Jews have done alright in Ireland, though that's possibly due to the fact that we never had more then a few thousand at any one time.
And to the fact that the local Christians were generally too busy hating each other to have much time or energy left over for anti-semitism...
Our current minister for Justice and Defence is one and the same man who happens to be Jewish - Alan Shatter! Our Jewish population which probably at its height prior to the foudation of the State of Israel was about 5000 people and they mostly had Lithuanian origins. Most left to go to Israel or England.