Yom Kippur
Dr Aiken: From just
before sunset on Friday to dusk on Saturday marked Yom Kippur.
Across the world but particularly in the homes of our many Jewish
friends and colleagues, it is by observing their prayers that
members of the Jewish faith seek to atone and ask God for his
forgiveness. Yom Kippur culminates with Neilah and the sounding
of the shofar. During the religious services, one of the most
poignant moments is the saying of Yizkor, the memorial prayer for
the recently deceased. Anyone with a degree of empathy will share
in that with our Jewish community, this year of all years, on Yom
Kippur. Equally, the attempts to denigrate that religious
observance by some, including university student bodies,
left-wing and pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah terrorist supporters or
just those who cannot resist joining in with their base
antisemitism, need to be roundly condemned.
Last week, memorial services for the victims of 7 October were
held in Belfast and Dublin. In the spirit of the Yizkor prayer,
large numbers of Gentiles, including me, stood in solidarity with
our Jewish friends and colleagues in Israel, the United Kingdom,
Ireland and elsewhere. I thank the friends of the Jewish
community who organised those events, especially the one in
Belfast. I was pleased that the deputy First Minister attended
and expressed solidarity on behalf of us to our beleaguered but
still proud local Jewish community and to the victims of 7
October.
That was in marked contrast, however, to the event in Dublin,
where neither the president nor the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste
could find the time to attend the memorial to 1,119 victims of
terror, torture and sexual violence, nor did they bother to
attend any Yom Kippur memorials. Indeed, a Fine Gael councillor,
Councillor Rane, even expressed base antisemitic tropes during a
Dublin City Council debate. It seems that some members of society
on this island are deemed to be less equal than others. It is
also apparent to any dispassionate observer that the Irish
Republic is more interested in opening embassies in Tehran and
its parties more interested in inviting the Iranian embassy to
their conferences than it is in tackling its ingrained and
growing institutional antisemitism. While Dublin is happy to
cloak itself in intolerance, it is good to see that many others
are calling that out, especially in Brussels, Berlin and, above
all, Washington. That, at least, gives reason for hope as Yom
Kippur for the Hebrew year 5785 passes.
