Ireland Israel Alliance: Proposal to rename Herzog Park in Dublin 'a dark day indeed' for Irish Jews
A spokesman for the Irish Jewish community says it was “a dark day indeed” when a report came before Dublin City Council about changing the name of Herzog Park.
Daniel O'Dowd of the Ireland Israel Alliance was speaking after Dublin City Council removed the proposal to change the name of Herzog Park in Rathgar from its agenda on Monday night.
The council did not take a vote on the planned change.
The park was named in 1995 after Chaim Herzog, the sixth president of Israel between 1983 and 1993, who was was born in Belfast and raised in Dublin. His son Isaac Herzog is the current president of Israel and his father served as the first chief rabbi of Ireland.
Speaking on Monday night, Lord Mayor of Dublin Councillor Ray McAdam said the proposal should be removed because the report on the issue was not legally sound and should not be voted on.
The council had said that legislation which would have facilitated the change required a secret ballot, but that regulations were not yet in place on how this should be done.
Councillor McAdam said the report which proposed renaming the park did “not contain the information required for members to adopt a valid resolution” and should not have been included on the agenda for Monday’s meeting.
Mr McAdam said he was “annoyed, frustrated, fed up that this is now where we find ourselves”.
But Daniel O'Dowd, spokesman for the Ireland Israel Alliance, claims that the fact the issue came before the council at all is very significant.
"There is a cruel irony that the side which falsely accuses the Jewish State of ethnic-cleansing, is very quick to eradicate Jewish history and heritage," he said.
"What message does this disgusting proposal to dename Herzog Park send? That Jewish history has no place in modern, compassionate Ireland? And, as if to deliberately insult the Jewish community of Ireland, to consider renaming it Gaza or Palestine Park.
"We are continually told there is no antisemitism in Ireland,” he added. However he claimed the last Irish President using Holocaust Memorial Day to criticise Israel and the emergence of physical violence against Jews as signifying otherwise.
"A dark day indeed - but then again for Jews and Israelis in Ireland, when isn't?"