Renaming Herzog Park would have been ‘shameful erasure’, Chief Rabbi says

Gráinne Ní Aodha, PA

The proposal to rename a south Dublin park would have been a “shameful erasure” of a part of Irish-Jewish history, the Chief Rabbi has said.

Yoni Weider welcomed the expected withdrawal of a proposal at Dublin City Council to rename Herzog Park but said that questions needed to be asked about how the proposal came forward.

“The idea of removing the Herzog name from the park would have been a shameful erasure of a central part of Irish-Jewish history,” he told RTÉ Radio.

The park was named in 1995 after Chaim Herzog, the sixth president of Israel between 1983 and 1993, who 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.

The proposal to rename the park has been criticised by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Simon Harris, and Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee, as well as the Office of the President of Israel.

The proposal is expected to be withdrawn at a meeting of Dublin City Council on Monday evening.

When Mr Herzog visited Ireland as Israel’s president in 1985, Mr Weider said he was “welcomed with warmth”, and there was “great pride in the fact that he was the only visiting head of state who spoke fluent Irish”.

He said the Herzogs “embodied the bond between the Irish story and the Jewish story”, who he said at the time were “two small courageous nations both struggling for independence from British rule”.

“Today, you don’t hear about this shared history anymore,” Mr Weider said.

“There are parts of our society, such as the people proposing this move, that want to whitewash this part of our history, but we need to acknowledge this kinship between Irish nationalism and Jewish nationalism was recognised and valued.

“It was recognised when Chaim Herzog came on a state visit, and it was recognised when this park was dedicated in his name.”