At 28, Ireland’s new chief rabbi is leading an aging population in a time of turmoil

(JTA) — When Yoni Wieder became the eighth chief rabbi of Ireland, he stepped into a conflicted moment for the country’s small community of Jews.

The 28-year-old Orthodox rabbi, who grew up in London and studied for several years in Israel, was inaugurated in May. At the ceremony in Dublin he described a sense of “deep hurt and isolation” among Jews who have struggled to navigate their place in Irish society since Oct. 7.

Ireland’s government has been staunchly critical of Israel’s current military campaign in Gaza and recently formally recognized an independent Palestinian state. It is also home to a small minority of a few thousand Jews, including many who recently immigrated from Israel.

According to Wieder, Ireland’s opposition to Israel has sometimes opened a door to hostility against Jews in Ireland. He said that some feel their voices about their own experiences are shunned, and some feel pressured to choose between their Irish and Jewish identities. The result is a complex dynamic for Jews whose families have lived in Ireland for generations, as well as those who recently came from Israel — sometimes specifically to distance themselves from Zionism.

This month, the community was further thrown into turmoil over the arrest of a London-based rabbi, Jonathan Abraham, who was charged under a law that requires that anyone performing circumcision must be a “registered medical practitioner.” Abraham is a certified mohel, or ritual circumciser, in Britain who has performed circumcisions in Dublin. Although he was hired to circumcise non-Jewish babies, the case spread anxiety in Ireland’s small community of Jews, which relies on trained mohels who fly in from abroad.

Abraham’s treatment in prison custody also drew attention to a lack of knowledge about the minority’s needs. During his solitary confinement in Cloverhill Prison — which lasted nearly three weeks, until he received bail on Thursday — Abraham alleged that the prison failed to provide him with proper kosher food and denied him tefillin, the small black boxes that religious Jews use to pray. After he raised these claims, a judge allowed him access to tefillin and the prison promised to change its practice on kosher food.

As chief rabbi, Wieder is responsible for providing religious leadership for all Jews in Ireland and representing them in engaging with the government and other faith groups. He is the first to occupy the role since 2008, as the official Jewish community delayed hiring a successor, citing financial reasons, after the last chief rabbi retired.

Wieder spoke with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about leading Ireland’s Jews, how they have been shaped by the Israel-Hamas War and how they are thinking about their place in Ireland.

The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You were born and raised in London, then moved to Israel as a teenager and received much of your education there. How did you develop a relationship with the Irish Jewish community and become the chief rabbi of Ireland?

I never really set out, necessarily, with a goal of one day becoming a community rabbi or a chief rabbi. But from a very young age, I’ve always loved learning Torah and teaching Torah and I’ve been passionate about Judaism.

Ireland Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder, left, meets with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose grandfather was the first chief rabbi of Ireland starting in 1921. (Courtesy Office of the Chief Rabbi of Ireland)

I was living in London a couple of years ago — I was studying at the time in kollel [a rabbinic training program] — and the Dublin Jewish community was looking for a new community rabbi. They approached the yeshiva I was studying in, just to ask for somebody to come for a weekend to be a scholar-in-residence, and my wife and I thought it would be a cool opportunity to see a new country. And we loved it, we were really touched by the community. Irish people in general are really warm and welcoming and friendly, and the Jewish community in particular is so unique in that regard. They offered me the job basically then and there.

Since then, what have you learned about Jewish life in Ireland?

Back in the ’80s and ’90s, there was a large Jewish community here — you’re talking 6,000 or 7,000 Jews. At one point, there were six shuls open at one time and multiple kosher stores and butcher shops. A lot of that has changed, particularly since the turn of the century — the numbers have gone down. A lot of strongly affiliated, connected families have emigrated to countries with larger Jewish infrastructure, in England or Israel or elsewhere.

But recently, there has been a bit of a renaissance in Jewish life here, largely due to a high number of Israeli families that have moved to the capital for high-tech jobs. Part of the challenge is integrating the local Irish Jewish families that have been here for six, seven generations and the new families that might be coming for the long-term or only for three or four years. That’s a really exciting challenge, and I’m really proud of how the local Jewish community has taken these new Israeli families and really brought them in. They’ve recognized that it’s important for the continuity of the Jewish community to build relationships with the Israeli families. And the Israeli families, in their tens and hundreds, have also signed up for the Jewish school or come to the synagogue on Shabbat or taken part in our social events.

How much of the community is made up of newcomers from Israel?

In Dublin, there’s about 2,000 Irish Jews and another 1,500 Israelis — that’s approximate, all based on estimates that leaders of the Jewish community have done. Ireland itself is a very small country with a very small population, so the Irish Jewish community is tiny compared to the Jewish community in the U.K., where I’m from.

As the new leader of the community, what do you see as the greatest concerns facing Ireland’s Jews?

If you had asked me before Oct. 7, I would have talked about what we are doing for the local Irish Jewish community here — which is an aging population, an aging community — trying to keep it going. Having engagement up in the synagogue on a Shabbat, putting forward learning programs and social and cultural programs that get people involved and foster a sense of community.

And then integrating those Israelis with the community is a challenge. A lot of Israelis come to Ireland specifically to get away either from Judaism or, for some of them, from Zionism. They have a lot of misconceptions — they think everyone here is very Orthodox and if the rabbi is interested in putting a program on for them, that’s with an agenda to make them more observant or religious. And then it’s amazing, they come to the synagogue and they see all these Irish Jews who have very different levels of observance all coming together, milling around at a kiddush on Shabbat and having a great time, and they say, “Oh, everyone here is just like us.”

Since Oct. 7, so much has changed. It has really been a paradigm shift in terms of what many people in the Jewish community are feeling and what I feel my role as the chief rabbi has been. I’ve had to do a lot of work supporting students in schools and universities where there is a very strong pro-Palestinian bias, and often that spills into overt antisemitism.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather in Dublin, Ireland, July 04, 2024. (Huzeyfe Tastan/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Ireland is one of the most pro-Palestinian countries in the world, with a government that has been very critical of Israel over its war in Gaza since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7. Young people in particular have made their frustrations with Israel’s actions and the enormous human toll in Gaza known through protests at Trinity College Dublin and elsewhere.

You are the chief rabbi, but you’re also a young person in Ireland. How do you see Irish Jews — and particularly young Jews — navigating Ireland’s relationship with Israel?

There are definitely notable differences between what the older and younger generations think. The places where people are getting their news differ. Younger generations tend to be much more on social media as opposed to mainstream media and in general it’s a much more formative period for them, in terms of forming their worldview.

The war and the way it’s been portrayed has definitely caused a lot of young Irish Jews to question things — whether it’s Israel’s right to exist, or the extent to which we as Jews should be supporting Israel, or whether they want to have anything to do with it because of the cost that they’re seeing.

I think those are really healthy questions to be asking. It’s important to ask those questions honestly and to really use this as an opportunity to delve deep into what Israel means to the Jewish people, to learn about the history, to recognize that there can be nuance in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Sometimes I certainly feel like the way I was brought up in very Zionist schools in London, it was a very one-sided narrative. When you get older, you get a chance to refine that and learn the other side of the story, and that doesn’t need to take away from one’s support and love for Israel.

You speak about the government here being very critical of Israel. I’ve spoken out a lot against the government and the media here and I emphasize every time, my issue is not with criticizing Israel. It’s perfectly legitimate to criticize any government. We see the level of destruction that’s happening in Gaza, and of course it’s legitimate to ask questions about that and suggest whether things could be different.

That’s not the issue here at all, it’s much deeper than that. The way it’s portrayed is that Israel is a genocidal regime with the sole interest of killing as many innocent Palestinians as possible. If I were an Irish person who only knew the conflict from what the government officials were saying and what the media were portraying, I would also hate Israel and anyone that supported them.

It’s a complicated situation. There is a terrorist organization that Israel needs to get rid of and they’re embedded among civilians. Maybe try to offer constructive criticism of better ways Israel could be doing it, fine. But it’s much deeper than just criticizing, it’s portraying a whole narrative that Israel is not under threat and it’s totally in their hands to solve the conflict and they’re just interested in killing as many Palestinians as possible because they’re a murderous regime.

Where do you believe Ireland’s strong pro-Palestinian sentiment comes from? Some critics have attributed that orientation to antisemitism. Do you think that’s true?

In general, I think it’s too simplistic to say that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. It depends what form that anti-Zionism is taking and why the person taking that stance is adopting it. I wouldn’t give a simplistic condemnation of the Irish government that they’re just antisemitic.

Ireland, with a history of oppression at the hands of the British, always tends to side with the underdog and with the oppressed. That’s particularly true now in an age of social media, when people are seeing the pictures and videos coming up on their feeds and it’s pulling at their heartstrings.

The Irish people have also always had a strong sense of connection with their land. They’re very bothered by the fact that their land was taken and divided by a foreign power and in their eyes, the same thing is happening to Palestine.

The installation ceremony for Ireland’s chief rabbi, Yoni Wieder, took place May 21, 2024 at the Dublin Hebrew Synagogue. (Courtesy Office of the Chief Rabbi of Ireland)

Do Jews in Ireland broadly feel that their identity is tied to Israel?

There’s definitely a range, but the vast majority of the Jewish community in Ireland has a deep, strong affinity with Israel. It’s something that’s not really understood and appreciated by our non-Jewish, Irish neighbors. But they definitely feel — like Jewish communities around the world — that Israel is the geopolitical center of Jewish peoplehood, it’s the heart of our religion, 2,000 years of Jewish liturgy speak about returning to Israel.

Amongst Jewish communities worldwide, the Jewish community in Ireland historically has had one of the highest rates of aliyah to Israel. Even for Irish Jews that don’t have any personal connections to Israel, there’s a deep sense of global Jewish peoplehood. We’re part of one entity. When rockets are fired into Tel Aviv or when hostages are taken from southern Israel, we feel that pain and we mourn and grieve together with our brothers and sisters in Israel.

How do you see Irish Jews navigating a sense of conflict between their Irish identity and their Jewish identity, as it relates to a connection with Israel? 

For the Jews that are very strongly affiliated with Israel, they usually see the current government and media environment as not speaking for them. They feel they are quashed and they don’t have space to express their views as Jews. That certainly is very hard for them, having given their whole lives to Ireland — after their parents and grandparents — and contributing to this society on all levels, culturally and economically.