Representatives of the Irish Jewish community had previously expressed their opposition to the decision for Higgins to deliver the main address at the Holocaust Day ceremony.
Irish Jews were forcibly removed from a Holocaust commemoration on Monday after silently protesting the country’s president for politicizing the event by launching a tirade against Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas — a move the country’s chief rabbi later told The Algemeiner was “a disgrace.”
Irish President Michael D. Higgins’s remarks at the National Holocaust Memorial in Dublin appeared to draw parallels between Israel’s war in Gaza and the genocide of Jews during the Holocaust and were met with immediate backlash.
Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder lambasted Higgins for using the memorial to single out Israel.