Rabbi's sympathy for Irish columnist sacked in anti-Semitism row

Kevin Myers wrote the comments about BBC presenters, Vanessa Feltz and Claudia Winkleman, in last weekend’s Irish edition of the paper.

He said: “Good for them. Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price...”.

However, yesterday he issued a forthright apology for his remarks.

Rabbi David Singer of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation offered some criticism, but was also sympathetic.

“It is perfectly true we should weigh our words very carefully,” he said.

“Often no insult is intended but sometimes we are dependent on how people weigh and interpret what we say.”

Asked about the decision to sack him, though, he said: “It is harsh for sure.”

He said he could not comment on whether he should be permanently axed, but raised the issue of appeals.

“In the judicial system you have an appeals process,” he said. “Maybe people sometimes can be too lenient or too harsh in the heat of the moment. In an appeals process they can make sure all of the facts are heard in the cold light of day.”

Shoshana Appleton, also a member of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation, said she had found Mr Myers’ previous writings to be both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.

However, she also showed some sympathy: “At the end of the day I’m sorry Myers lost his job for being his usual provocative self. I strongly believe in freedom of the press, as it provokes just the sort of media attention that it has – and that is no bad thing – as has been seen by the outrage that has followed.”

But the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland said that branding Myers as either an anti-Semite or a Holocaust denier was “an absolute distortion of the facts”.

The council, which speaks for the Jewish community in the Republic of Ireland, said: “More than any other Irish journalist, he has written columns about details of the Holocaust over the last three decades that would not otherwise have been known by a substantial Irish audience...

“We, who have been reading Kevin’s work over many years and those who know him personally, know that while this was a real error of judgment on his part, also know that he is not an anti-Semite.”

But Mr Myers said his career was now over.

“I really mean this because I am not rescuing anything – it is over for me professionally as far as I can see – I am very, very sorry that I should have so offended them,” he said.

“I do utter an apology, not for any reason other than out of genuine contrition for the hurt I had caused them.”

He added: “But I did so, I uttered those words, out of respect for the religion from which they come and for the religion that I still hold in regard, in high regard, particularly the Irish members of that religion who have been so forthright in their defence of me generally.”