Ireland Holocaust Ceremony Will Mention Israel After All

By JTA December 15, 2014

Despite initial guidelines banning the mention of Israel, speakers at a Holocaust commemoration ceremony in Ireland in January will refer to the Jewish state.

The Holocaust Education Trust Ireland, responding to complaints after a website published a letter indicating that the event’s longtime master of ceremonies should “not refer to the Jewish state or the State of Israel” in his speech, said it had reversed that policy, The Jerusalem Post reported.

An array of Jewish leaders and Jewish organizations, including Ireland’s former justice and equality minister, who is Jewish, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, criticized the original policy, which was reported Dec. 11 in The Jewish Chronicle of London.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO