Patrick Comerford
Two statistics have been drawn to my attention in recent days that I find intriguing.
An analysis of DNA findings suggests that nearly half of the population of Ireland may carry Jewish ancestry, according to Stuart Rosenblatt, the leading expert on Irish Jewish genealogy.
In a 20-page study published in the IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science (Vol 26, Issue 6, Series 10, June 2021), Elizabeth C Hirschman Hill, Richmond Gott Professor of Business Department of Business and Economics, University of Virginia-Wise, says DNA evidence suggests many Lowland Scots and Northern Irish people have Jewish ancestry.
She says she has used the newest genealogical DNA methodology of phylogenetic trees to identify a large population of Jewish descent in the Scottish Lowlands and Northern Ireland. She proposes that the majority of these ‘Lowland Scots and Northern Ireland colonists’ were likely crypto-Jews who had arrived in Scotland in three phases: with the arrival of William the Conqueror in 1066; after the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290; and after the expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula in the 1490s.
She believes evidence is found that both the Ashkenazic and Sephardic branches of Judaism are present among these Lowland Scot and Northern Ireland residents. I was interested that the family names she included in her study are Hunter in Ireland and Kirkpatrick in Ireland and Scotland.
I am not convinced of her methodology, deductions or arguments, and she seems to be unsure about the understanding of lineage of Levites and cohanim in Jewish communities. Nevertheless, it is a curious hypothesis.
The leading expert on Irish Jewish genealogy, undoubtedly, is Stuart Rosenblatt. He also says DNA findings now suggest that nearly half of Ireland’s population may carry Jewish ancestry.
On a mailing list I am part of, Stuart was described earlier this week as ‘a beacon of light for future generations’ whose ‘quiet determination preserves the memory of a people.’
Stuart Rosenblatt is the founder of the Irish Jewish Genealogical Society, and he was the newly-elected president of the Irish Genealogical Society when I was invited to give a lecture in Dún Laoghaire on ‘The Comerfords in Ireland: Disentangling Myths and Legends to Find True Origins’ over ten years ago (10 February 2015).
Stuart was a genial host, and we had wonderful conversations about Comerford genealogy and Jewish genealogy and shared our thoughts on genealogical methodology that evening as he brought me to and from Dún Laoghaire Further Education Institute. We have both collaborated on research for programmes in the popular genealogical television series, Who Do You Think You Are?.
It has been said among genealogists and within the Jewish community in Ireland that never before in genealogical research has anyone attempted what Stuart has achieved – recording the full story of an ethnic Jewish minority across an entire nation, spanning all 32 counties in his Irish Jewish Roots project.
Over more than three decades, he has meticulously compiled an archive of 75,771 names, each entry containing up to 110 pieces of information. His work now fills 22 bound volumes, with copies in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, the National Library, the National Archives Dublin, the Irish Jewish Museum and the Genealogical Society of Ireland.
This archive is more than genealogical data – it is a bridge to identity. It aids descendants of Irish Jews worldwide, whether they seek to trace relatives, secure an Irish passport, or walk the streets where their ancestors once lived.
The records show many lineages go back 300 years, and the oldest stretch as far back as 1555, when most Irish Jews were of Spanish-Sephardic heritage. Today, most Irish Jews can be traced back to Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews from Lithuania and neighbouring nations who arrived in Ireland the 1870s.
Stuart has travelled throughout Ireland, gathering overlooked sources such as school registers, midwife journals, nursing home logs, memorial notices, and prayer books with handwritten inscriptions – fragments that official records rarely capture. His dedication is unwavering and at 81, he still works on it at his own expense, joking that his commitment is ‘eight days a week.’
His project began in the Irish Jewish Museum, housed in the former Beth Hamedresh Hagadol Synagogue on Walworth Road, Portobello, in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’. There he came across dusty boxes filled with genealogical fragments, and ouft o this chaos he created 16 separate databases, later merging them into a searchable programme.
Since then, the archive has become a living resource, accessed by scholars, families, and institutions worldwide. His work has supported television research, inheritance cases, DNA studies and countless personal projects.
‘Circumcision records are rare,’ he told an interviewer for the Jewish News Service, ‘although in one record, Revd Abraham Gittleson, in an entry under ‘Observations’ noted that the nurse fainted! And that stood out!’
The second statistic that has come to my attention in recent days and that I find intriguing is found in an analysis of the figures in the 2021 census for the Jewish population in England and Wales by ethnic group and nationality.
The figure for the total the Jewish population in England and Wales in the last census is 269,293, or 0.5% of the overall population. Of these, 230,399 (85.56 per cent) are classified as white, and among them 927 (0.34 per cent) are described as Irish, and 161 (0.06 per cent) as Irish Travellers.
For the first time, the census category ‘Irish Traveller’ was introduced for the first time in 2011, and in the 2021 Census of England and Wales, the Gypsy/Irish Traveller community numbered 67,757, or 0.1% of the population. But it means that 1.36 per cent of Irish Travellers identity themselves or declare themselves as Jewish, so that the proportion of Jews in the Irish Traveller population in England and Wales is higher than the proportion of Jews in the total population in England and Wales (0.24) or the proportion of Irish Travellers in the total population in England and Wales (0.1).
The other intriguing figures in those census returns in England and Wales include (and I am selecting randomly) 178 Roma Jews, 159 Chinese Jews, and 422 who say they are Arabs.
These are intriguing and fascinating breakdowns of statistics. But behind each statistic and each figure is a human story, and I’d love to hear more of those stories. Who are the Irish Traveller Jews living in England today? Where do the Chinese Jews comes from? How do the 422 Arab Jews feel about events over the past two years in Gaza, Israel and the West Bank?
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
