Northern Ireland

The streets of West Belfast and Derry offer a sharp, if unlikely, reminder of the Middle East, as Republicans and Unionists identify with the Palestinian and Israeli causes. In the middle of all this lies a small, somewhat bewildered Jewish community.

A victim of Brexit’s collateral damage, the Jewish community in Northern Ireland, founded in 1870, might not live past 150. Indeed, the Brexit deal and its ‘Northern Ireland Protocol’, combined with the 1998 Northern Ireland peace deal (the Good Friday Agreement),concluded at the end of ‘the Troubles,’ created a new customs border, down the Irish sea. And threatened the supply of kosher food and the continuation of the Belfast Jewish community which counts around 100 members.