A member of Shearith Israel posted online that the Jews and Irish had at least some commonality.
On March 10, 1847, Page One of the New York Daily Globe reported that “a large and respectable assembly” had gathered at Manhattan’s Congregation Shearith Israel on Crosby Street to organize an appeal for aid to Ireland. The chief speaker was the popular Hazzan, Jacques Judah Lyons, who noted “no diversity of opinion” on the facts of Irish suffering but “a great diversity of opinion as to what we should do…” Looking towards his critics, his voice boomed to the back of the Sephardic synagogue so he could be sure to be heard by all. “We are told that we have a large number of our own poor and destitute to take care of! That the charity we dispense should be bestowed in this quarter! That justice is a higher virtue than generosity, that self-preservation is a law and principle of our nature!” Nevertheless, he argued, “thanks to the Lord,” there is one “indestructible” and “all-powerful” link between the Irish and the Jews: “that link, my brethren, is humanity.”
After the meeting, according to the Globe, the sum of $175 was donated to the General Standing Committee for the Relief of the Famishing Poor in Ireland.
The kehilla raised over $1000 in total for Ireland ($82,000 in today’s currency).
In 1947, a charitable contribution arrived at Shearith Israel from some Irish citizens of New York who requested that their donation be accepted in gratitude for what the Congregation had done for their forbearers a century earlier.
At first, in the 1920s and 1930s, Irish sympathies lay squarely with the Zionists and drew heavily on the presumed parallels between historic Irish and Jewish suffering, as well as the shared traumatic experience of large-scale migration in the 19th century.
Drawing a parallel with their own history of occupation, the Irish also championed the Zionist struggle for self-determination against the British. A correspondent to The Bell, a leading Irish magazine, raged over current events in Mandate Palestine in March 1945: “Never let it be forgotten that the Irish people … have experienced all that the Jewish people in Palestine are suffering from the trained ‘thugs’ ‘gunning tarzans’ and British ‘terrorists’ that the Mandatory power have imposed upon the country.”
Sadly, though, the Irish have turned against the Jews and now support Palestinians. Long gone are the days when Irish nationalism and Jewish nationalism were united in their oppression by a common foe.
Regardless, though, imagine if we raised $82,000 nowadays for the suffering and blighted of the nations.
AJWS is effective at providing aid, but it is a hillul hashem when other faiths appear more charitable towards the poor, hungry, and sick of the world than us, the ohr lagoyim.
Humanity is the tie that binds all people, and it is a shame that we often forget that.