Irish Jews - Twentieth Century

Twentieth Century

There was an increase in Jewish immigration to Ireland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1871, the Jewish population of Ireland was 258; by 1881, it had risen to 453. Most of the immigration up to this time had come from England or Germany. In the wake of the Russian pogroms there was increased immigration, mostly from Eastern Europe (in particular Lithuania). By 1901, there were an estimated 3,771 Jews in Ireland, over half of them (2,200) residing in Dublin; and by 1904, the total Jewish population had reached an estimated 4,800. New synagogues and schools were established to cater for the immigrants, many of whom established shops and other businesses. Many of the following generation became prominent in business, academic, political and sporting circles.

The Jewish population of Ireland reached around 5,500 in the late 1940s, but has since (2008) declined to around 2,000, mainly through emigration to larger Jewish communities such as those in the United States, Britain, and Israel. The Republic of Ireland currently has four synagogues: three in Dublin, one in Cork. There is a further synagogue in Belfast in Northern Ireland.

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Famous quotes related to twentieth century:

    One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we’ve developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.
    Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990)

    The nineteenth century planted the words which the twentieth ripened into the atrocities of Stalin and Hitler. There is hardly an atrocity committed in the twentieth century that was not foreshadowed or even advocated by some noble man of words in the nineteenth.
    Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)

    Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century.
    Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)

    As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.
    Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)

    Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It’s another part of the twentieth-century mind. It’s the world seen from inside. We’ve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film.... You have to ask yourself if there’s anything about us more important than the fact that we’re constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves.
    Don Delillo (b. 1926)