Section 1: The Irish Jewish Communities and the Jewish Home Websites Jewish Ireland: Information on the history, development, beliefs and practices of the Jewish community in Ireland with links to the Jewish communities in Ireland http://www.jewishireland.org/ Website of the Jewish Community, Belfast http://www.jewishbelfast.com/ Website of the Jewish Community, Cork http://www.corkhebrewcongregation.com Website of Liberal Judaism in England, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland http://www.liberaljudaism.org/communities-rabbis.html Jewish Communities and Records of Jews in Ireland (has not been updated since 2006/2007 but gives some contacts and details of synagogues either extant or non- functioning in Ireland. http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/ireland/dublin.htm Jewish Links Page which gives information on contemporary events, online magazines, and newspapers of some Jewish communities internationally. This could be a useful resource for the first section of the syllabus. www.jewishlink.net/news papers.html Ireland’s Other Diaspora: Jewish-Irish Within/Irish-Jewish Without from the European Jewish Magazine Golem The author, Ronit Lentin, is the Head of the Sociology Department and course coordinator of the M Phil in Race, Ethnicity and Conflict in Trinity College, Dublin. She was coordinator of the Global Networks project in the Institute for International Integration Studies (IIIS), and member of the Trinity Immigration Initiative research programme, where she focused on migrant-led activism. She was born in Haifa, Palestine, and grew up in Israel, moved to Ireland in 1969. http://www.hagalil.com/golem/diaspora/irland-e.htm Stuart Rosenblatt’s work on Jews in Irish history http://www.jewishireland.org/genealogy.html Online Documentary on the Jewish Community in Ireland A one-hour documentary is available online which gives some insights into the Jewish community in Ireland and how they contributed to the development of Ireland and Israel: http://www.shalomireland.com/ Jewish Community, Limerick Different documents about the Jewish community during their time in Limerick, held by the Library at the following address: http://www.limerickcity.ie/Library/LocalStudies/LocalStudiesFiles/J/JewsofLimerick/ Jewish Community, Limerick If you are seeking further information on this topic, look at this website from Limerick City Council: http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/jews%20of%20limerick%2038.pdf A Stroll Through Jewish Dublin Online documentary on Jewish Dublin available at the following web address: http://www.theirishstory.com/2012/02/27/a-stroll-through-jewish- dublin/#.UMRh6Y5hra4 Jewish Community, Belfast BBC Documentary (1983) in four parts about the Jewish community in Belfast: Odd Men In: A Personal Portrait by Harry Towb, and a YouTube tour of the Jewish cemetery in Belfast http://www.youtube.com/user/JewishBelfast Interview with Adrian Levy, member of the Jewish Community in Belfast: <http://www.jewishbelfast.com/index.php?cmd=viewsong&viid=12> The Jews of Ireland, Robert Tracy http://www.ucc.ie/icms/irishmigrationpolicy/Judaism%20The%20Jews%20of%20Irela nd.htm Ireland’s Jews: A Fading Tribe on the Emerald Isle http://www.isjm.org/jhr/IInos1-2/ireland.htm Louis Lentin (Film Producer and Member of Aosdana) Aosdana: http://aosdana.artscouncil.ie/Members/Literature/Lentin.aspx?Cnuas=1 [accessed 23 November 2011] Grandpa… speak to me in Russian, Louis Lentin http://www.imrstr.dcu.ie/currentissue/Vol_3_Issue_1_Louis_Lentin.pdf Lentin’s works as director, producer and writer http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2310417/ Alan Shatter (Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, and member of Fine Gael) Political Profile http://www.oireachtas.ie/members- hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=30&MemberID=1028&ConstID=90 Some important issues which the Minister has to deal with on any day http://www.kildarestreet.com/search/?pid=6&s=section%3Awrans&pop=1 David Marcus (Author, broadcaster, life-long supporter of Irish language fiction) David Marcus dies, RTE news http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0509/marcusd.html Obituary from The Guardian newspaper http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/12/obituary-david-marcus Information from the Munster Literature Centre http://www.munsterlit.ie/Writer%20pages/Marcus,%20David.html Women and the Jewish Home A reader asked: What are the most significant Jewish rituals for women? Here, Rebbetzin Feige Twersi explores three: baking bread and separating the dough; lighting Shabbat candles; and ritual immersion in a mikvah (ritual bath). http://www.aish.com/f/rf/48931682.html The role of women in Judaism Women’s Mitzvot (commandments), women’s holiday, women in the synagogue, Lillith (character in Talmud and rabbinical folklore) http://www.jewfaq.org/women.htm#Mitzvot Kashrut A section on keeping the laws of Kashrut from the New South Wales Board of Jewish Education in Australia. Simple classifications of foods with links to other websites included http://www.bje.org.au/learning/judaism/kids/kosher.html Podcast Stuart Rosenblatt: Keeper of the Faith produced by Clare Cronin and funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland's Sound and Vision funding Scheme. First broadcast Saturday 9th October 2010. It is an Irish radio documentary from RTÉ Radio 1, Ireland - Documentary on One. This recounts Stuart Rosenblatt’s genealogical research into Jewish communities in Ireland which is contained in 16 volumes, tracing 44,000 people under 95 headings. Fascinating account into the origins of Jewish communities in Ireland and their present challenges. http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/radio-documentary-stuart-rosenblatt-series-jewish- genealogy-ireland.html Books Benson, Asher, Portraits of Life by the Liffey (Dublin: A&A Farmar Ltd., 2007) Eliash, Shulamit, The Harp and the Shield of David: Ireland, Zionism and the State of Israel (Abington and New York: Routledge, 2007) Hyman, Louis, The Jews of Ireland: From Earliest Years until 1910 (Irish University Press, 1972) Keogh, Dermot, Jews in Twentieth Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust (Cork: Cork University Press, 1998) Miller, Frederic P. , Vandome, Agnes F., McBrewster, John, History of the Jews in Ireland (Germany: VDM Publishing House, 2010) Ó Gráda, Cormac, Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce: A Socioeconomic History (Oxfordshire and New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2006) Rivlin, Ray, Jewish Ireland: A Social History (Dublin: The History Press Ireland, 2011; updated version of Shalom Ireland published in 2003) Excellent historical resource tracing the arrival of immigrants from Tsarist Russia in the 1880s, their early years in Ireland; the educational, social, political, cultural, artistic, sporting and professional contributions of Jews to Irish life, right up to the present day. Taylor, Marilyn, 17 Martin Street (Dublin: O’Brien Press, 2011) Novel about a Jewish family in Dublin at the time of the Emergency. There are accompanying teaching Guides and opportunities for engagement are on the O’Brien Press website at http://www.obrien.ie/author.cfm?authorid=58 Taylor, Marilyn, Faraway Home (Dublin: O’Brien Press, 1999) Fact-based novel based on the lives of two Jewish children sent on a kindertransport from Austria to Millisle refugee Farm on the Ards Peninsula in Co. Down) DVD Katrina Goldstone and Louis Lentin, No more Blooms: Ireland's Attitude to the Jewish Refugee Problem 1933-46, a Crescendo Concepts documentary for RTE, broadcast 10 December 1997. Origins of the Irish Jewish Communities Sources: Stuart Rosenblatt interview on RTE, Radio One, 2010, and the following website, Akmian, from the Encylopaedia of Jewish Communities of Lithuania, written by Dov Levin and it was published in Yad Vashem 1996. http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/pinkas_lita/lit_00155.html) Stuart Rosenblatt FGSI (Fellow of the Genealogical Society of Ireland) He has spent years and endless hours of his time recording the origins of Jews in Ireland. His corpus of works thus far comprises 16 volumes! Stuart Rosenblatt took the country and assembled the information beginning with the family tree in Lithuania. If Jewish and Irish, your ancestors could have come from Ackmene in Lithuania. Ackmene is located in the north-west of Lithuania. Ackmene (pronounced Akmian) The town was established in the 16th century. It was burnt in 1705 in a war with the Swedes. In 1792, Ackmene received the Magdeburg Rights which were granted by the nobility to Jews and a few other minorities for commerce, trade and money- lending. Jewish settlement in Ackmene began in the beginning of the 18th century. In the first half of the 19th century, Jews numbered approximately two-thirds of the population. The mass immigrations of Jews began after the so-called May Laws were instigated in Tsarist Russia in 1881. These laws were meant to be temporary measures but lasted over thirty years. The types of laws are as follows: ‘As a temporary measure, and until a general revision is made of their legal status, it is decreed that the Jews be forbidden to settle anew outside of towns and boroughs, exceptions being admitted only in the case of existing Jewish agricultural colonies.’ ‘Temporarily forbidden are the issuing of mortgages and other deeds to Jews, as well as the registration of Jews as lessees of real property situated outside of towns and boroughs; and also the issuing to Jews of powers of attorney to manage and dispose of such real property.’ ‘Jews are forbidden to transact business on Sundays and on the principal Christian holy days; the existing regulations concerning the closing of places of business belonging to Christians on such days to apply to Jews also.’ ‘The measures laid down in paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 shall apply only to the governments within the Pale of Jewish Settlement’ (the term given to Jews’ areas of residency within Imperial Russia). In 1893, a fire broke out in Akmenė which caused great damage to the property of the Jews. According to the notice which was published in amelitz the local Rabbi, Rav Aharon Eliyahu Kahane wrote, ‘A fire broke out in the middle of the town and its environs and more than forty houses, many buildings and stores were destroyed and sixty Jewish families were left destitute’.